KEYNOTE

Wait! That’s Not Tested

Heather Reid

I’ve often heard people say “But how do you know you’ve tested everything?” and the answer is “I know I haven’t”.

We must walk a fine line when working in high-speed delivery environments. There is a delicate balance between efficiency and thoroughness, between delivering something to the customer and delivering something of value to the customer. We will never get it 100% right all the time but that doesn’t mean we’re not doing a good job. Strike the balance of the quality of our deliverables with the speed of feedback and we will learn quicker.

The customer using our deliverable in production is ultimately how quality is evaluated. We need to optimise for tiny high quality chunks that give fast feedback to reassure us that what we have delivered is, in fact, valuable.

How can you feel comfortable releasing something that’s tested just enough? Let’s explore some approaches for being thorough enough without affecting the required speed of delivery.

Takeaways

• Strategies for getting the information you need to make decisions on testing
• How to determine the balance between testing and speed of delivery
• What to say when someone asks why you haven’t tested everything