S13-901: Where Do Bugs Come From? A Conversation

Track: Test Strategy, Process and Design

Pretend for a moment that bugs released into production are real, living creatures. If we studied where they came from, we could catch them earlier – in larval stage, when the fixin’ is cheap. At least that is the classic argument. In practice, companies rarely analyze defects, or, when they do, tend to overanalyze, spending a huge amount of time and effort on root cause analysis. Without separating common cause from special cause variation, companies can spend all day “tweaking the process” without long term benefit. We’ll explore this topic of “where do bugs come front” through the use of simulation, games, exercises, and yes, a little lecture. The outcome is not guaranteed — bugs come from different places on every development team. We can at least explore the topic, put it under a microscope, and share what we find in a way that stands up to scrutiny.


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Session Speaker:

Matt HeusserMatt Heusser – Principal Consultant, Excelon Development
Matthew Heusser is a consulting software tester and software process naturalist who has spent his entire adult life developing, testing, or managing software projects. A contributing editor at STQA Magazine, Matt is an elected member of the board of directors for the Association for Software Testing, has been a part-time instructor of information systems at Calvin College, and recently served as lead editor for “How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing” (Taylor and Francis, 2011). You can follow Matt on twitter at mheusser or email him matt@xndev.com