Testing Lessons from Delivery Room Triage

Bug triage, like labor and delivery triage, is about deciding on a course of action on the spot, often with minimal information to guide decision-making. The four basic steps of labor and delivery triage apply directly to testing-preliminary assessment, interview, exploration and observation, and taking action. In testing, preliminary assessment triggers immediate action before any bug review meetings or further testing. Interview exposes important contextual information. And, just as exploration helps medical professionals better understand a patient’s condition, software testers use exploratory testing to better understand a bug. In labor triage, taking action could involve the mother being admitted, sent home, or tested further. In software testing, bug priority decisions guide bug fix decisions. Join Rob Sabourin, a software engineer, and his wife Anne Sabourin, a nurse, to explore case studies from labor/delivery and software testing triage and learn new ways to immediately improve your testing practices.