5 Testing Mistakes to Avoid

Elizabeth is a freelance writer and project manager living and working in London. She runs The Otobos Group, a project communications consultancy specializing in project management.

  Quality   Testing/Test Management  

For me, the fun of project management is in the development and delivery phases. By the time we get to testing, the buzz of creating something new has gone out of it and I feel as if we are going through the process to get to the end.

Suffice to say, testing isn’t the part of the project that I’d rate as the most enjoyable, and as a result I probably put less effort into it than other areas of the project. We aren’t supposed to admit things like that, are we?

Well, it’s true. You can’t love every part of your job. However, not loving testing has had consequences. Specifically, by focusing a teeny tiny bit less on testing than I probably should, I have made my fair share of mistakes in the past. Here are five of the clangers that you can easily avoid:

1. Not spending enough time on testing. Testing is often the first thing on the project schedule to get cut. This is dangerous. It’s dangerous because it shows a level of optimism that is unlikely to be reflected in reality. The idea of “Don’t worry, we’re building it so well that we can test it in a couple of days” is a phrase that should never be mentioned in your project meetings.

Testing takes a long time because it’s important to get it right. Testing isn’t even something that you do once (unless you are very lucky). You test, find errors, …

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