I clearly remember Captain Oddenes saying that going north at this time of the year is quite contrary to what his sailor experience would have recommended. But since the routing agency had all sorts of satellites and computers to help them to predict the weather, – Captain Oddenes decided to take their advice and go north, instead of following his own instincts and years of experience! – from The Storm in context of going straight through a hurricane. Complete with 22+ meter waves. There are a bunch of other great pictures there too.
The moral of the story? Have faith in your instincts; especially when you have trained them appropriately. The main difference between a new tester and one that has been doing it for 10 years is that they have had time to train their intuition. To think like a tester.
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Great Post with the absolute required moral for every tester.
Lets consider “routing agency” as your manager and Tester as Captain Oddenes, what Captain oddenes should have done (beside asking “routing agency” to read this post ;))to saving him from fighting with 22+ meter waves?
What one can do when he is not the decision maker?
Great post anyways!!
Regards
Mubbashir
I took the routing agency’s role to be one of an advisor, or to follow your example more closely, as a consultant. It would then be up to the Captain (or lead/manager) whether or not to follow their advice. The routing agency (consultant) is going to get their money regardless but it is still left to the customer to choose whether to implement or not.
If you hired me to say, rework your build process to move a unit tests and static analysis up earlier in the process (for example) and every part of what you know about the people and culture of the organization said it wouldnt work — but did it anyways and the effort failed, whose fault is it?
My point is that you always have a choice — even if you are not the ‘official’ decision maker. Though I admit the choices available to you are sometimes unpleasant.