The Good Enough testing question involves first assessing the four parts of the definition and then deciding if they are good enough as a whole, or whether it is worth improving
them by improving the test process. You can apply this analysis to any test methodology:
1. Assess Product Quality
How are we assessing and reporting the quality of the product?
Are we sure that our assessment of quality is justified by our observations?
Are we aware of the stated and implied requirements of the product when we need to know them?
How quickly are we finding out about important problems in the product after they are created?
Are our tests covering the aspects of the product we need to cover?
Are we using sufficient variety of test techniques or sources of information about quality to eliminate gaps in our test coverage?
What is the likelyhood that the product could have important problems we don't know about?
What problems are reported through means other than our test process, that our testing should have found first?
2. Evalute the cost of testing
How much does the testing cost? How much can we afford?
How can we eliminate unnecessary redundancy in our in our test coverage?
What makes it difficult (and thus costly) to perform testing?
How might the product be made more testable?
Are there tools or techniques that might make the process more efficient and productive?
Would testing be less expensive overall if we had started sooner or waited until later?
3. Check how well testing supports decision making
Is the test process aware of the decisions the management, developers or the other clients need to make?
Is the test process focused on potential project or product risks?
Is the test process tied to the process of change control and project management?
Are test reports delivered in a timely manner?
Are test reports communicated in a comprehensible format?
Is the test process communicated, as well as the test results? Are we reporting the basis of our assesment and our confidence in it?
Is the test process serving the needs of technical support, publications, marketing, or any other business process that should use the quality assessment?
4. What about Timing?
Every aspect of the three other parts of the model is time-driven. That's the problem: We never have enough time to do everything, so everything we do is a race against the clock.

| < Prev | Next > |
|---|