Better Software Magazine Articles

Feeling Lost in the Woods? Mind Maps Can Help

Claire takes us on a nontraditional journey where designing and implementing testing approaches can be rapidly organized into a hierarchy of connected elements. Mind maps, used primarily for visual and conceptual thinking, may be just the answer for quality assurance professionals.

Claire Moss's picture Claire Moss
Issues about Metrics about Bugs

Managers often use metrics to help make decisions about the state of the product or the quality of the work done by the test group. Yet, measurements derived from bug counts can be highly misleading because a "bug" isn't a tangible, countable thing; it's a label for some aspect of some relationship between some person and some product, and it's influenced by when and how we count ... and who is doing the counting.

Michael Bolton's picture Michael Bolton
So, You've Got a Problem: Crafting Remarks and Abstracts for Defect Reports

Software defect reports are among the most important deliverables to come out of software testing. They are as important as the test plan and will have more impact on the quality of the product than most other deliverables from the software test team. It's worth the effort to learn how to write an effective defect report that conveys the proper message and simplifies the process for everyone.

Kelly Whitmill
What's Wrong with Your Testing Strategy?

When the design and the coding are complete, and the product seems ready to ship, it’s hard to understand why testing takes so long. Discover how your source code management system can help you unblock the testing bottleneck.

William W. White
To Track or Not to Track

What's your take on the defect-tracking debate? Are defect logs helpful repositories of knowledge or cumbersome, inefficient inventories? Lisa Crispin took to the trenches to find out how different industry workers view defect-tracking systems. Find out what they had to say.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin
The Death Spiral

Users don't have to be doomed to the nightmare of software fraught with defects that should have been fixed before release. Time spent testing now can save you from the Death Spiral later. Remember: If you don't have time to do it right, how will you have time to do it over . . . and over . . . and over?

Linda Hayes's picture Linda Hayes
What's the Buzz

Need information but don’t have time to wade through bookracks looking for that perfect reference? The StickyMinds.com Books Guide can help. Get the scoop from StickyMinds.com members on three books that can keep you up to date on the latest issues.

StickyMinds Editorial's picture StickyMinds Editorial
Good Tool. Bad Application

Excel does a great job as a spreadsheet, but when you try to push it into service as a database you may be in for some rude surprises.

Chris McMahon's picture Chris McMahon
The Case of the Crashing Test Site

Tom McGreal warns you of problems that may be lurking in your deployment environment.

Tom McGreal
Deadlock!

Sean Beatty explains what a deadlock is and why testing probably won't catch it.

Sean M. Beatty

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