Tag submarines before they shoot

In the retrospective meeting it was claimed we could probably have raised some hot issues earlier. The late addressing of these items put people under pressure shortly before rolling-out. Although it was correct that we had quite some late change requests which hurt not only devs but also testers, most of the issues were not late discoveries but rather late awareness of importance.

 The tickets were raised long time back but, because of release pressure, these were parked aside in the backlog and assigned low priority. We called it the “parking-place”. At that time, a restrictive process of prioritizing tickets was needed to manage the deadlines. The limitations were accepted for a while. But over time, things changed.  What was once rated low priority for release N, all of a sudden became more important in the next release and at a bad timing. For many stakeholders including me, these tickets came out of nowhere like submarines; and of course, all at same time.

As a lessons learnt, we - as testers - have decided to get better by regularly reviewing parked tickets. This is to help everyone in the team to become aware earlier of potential new dangerous "submarines" intending to surfac on the water plane soon. There would still be enough time then to tag these before they have a chance to shoot.

Corona

Basel carnival cancelled, soccer games cancelled, business trips cancelled, Swiss Testing Day conference cancelled, borders closed and today it was announced that all flights from Europe to the States are going to be stopped by end of this week. WTF. My friends just managed to catch a plane to New Zealand...probably one of the last ones. Will they be able to catch a plane back home to manage their big farm in the Engadina? Everyday another employee is missing in our offices because he/she either feels sick or is afraid to feel sick soon. It's a weird silence. Those who dare to cough are potential suspects. Even worse if you fetch a handkerchief.

If you had predicated all this 2 weeks before, I had sent you to the psychiatrist to help you return to reality. Well, this has now become the new reality and that's why I feel baffled...where does all this end? Either, the whole racket goes up in smoke very soon or...yes, or what? Can't really think of any alternatives. It's a situation we never experienced before, hence whatever is decided probably can't be so wrong. It's all new, we are learning. We are learning to deal with a worst case scenario and we are likely to pay a high price. Can I go on a summer holiday and have a
swim in the Sea this year? Will we lose money if we book anything anywhere or do we have to stop planning at all and instead live spontaneously? Will I be trapped behind closed borders? Will my family fight for food soon? People living in war zones would still envy me for my comfortable situation. So it's not a worst case scenario yet, maybe just not a very funny one. What happens after this is all over? How many people will lose their jobs because their company went bankrupt or because the company is forced to tighten their belts. Spooky.


What shall I do? Drawing is a nice therapy...and while I am doing that, I am listening to Dave Grusin, Grover Washington, Fourplay, The Rippingstones, Earl Klugh, etc..how great this feels at the moment. It's my drug to disappear into a different world, at least for a short moment in time. I need it right now.

And tomorrow, I am having a beer with a good friend.

P.S.
Add on as of March 21: In general, this is a blog about software testing only where I put my cartoons and enrich it with explanatory text, but sometimes, I am inspired by things that happen outside the world of testing, like Corona for example. My brain is currently full of cartoon ideas related to Corona. Since I don't want to deviate from my testing related cartoon strategie, I have decided to simply put all my Corona related cartoons into this particular blog entry  rather than to create a new entry for each cartoon.

Lining up in the Ocean

It's about how fast we can be wrong with our conclusions. I often see that we detect an alledged new issue, not realizing that the same anomaly was already there before. It's easier and faster to judge without collecting the facts first. Things that may look the same, sometimes aren't.

Waterproof