I Killed Today
Yes I did. And I am not sorry.
I killed a feature in our soon-to-ship product today. I'm not proud of it; but I am glad I did it. Contrary to what some developers and program designers would like to believe, we Testers don't really want to remove featuresor prevent software from shipping on time. We do it out of self-preservation. We are the last to see a product and the first to be blamed when the product doesnt function as expected.That's just the nature of the profession as it stands.
Getting a feature pulled is one of the most difficult tasks a tester can undertake. It is far easier to get a release pushed back than it is to have a feature removed. In order to do it, the tester not only has to find the problems, but he has to convince everyone that removing the feature is the best course of action. And by everyoneI mean not only the developer who wrote the thing and the designer who dreamed up the thing; but the tester also has to convince layers of management several rungs up the food chain.
In this case one half of the feature remains broken very close to release. The feature really didnt offer much inthe way of usefulness if it were complete. It required alot of test involvement (big matrix) and it was about half designed in the first place.
Am I proud that I have denied users the feature? No. I am,however, pleased that I can concentrate on making sure that the rest of the product is robust instead of spending my time working on an unused, half-finished feature. Of course, this means that users wont have to deal with it either
Dont worry. That feature will be back for the next release.
I killed a feature in our soon-to-ship product today. I'm not proud of it; but I am glad I did it. Contrary to what some developers and program designers would like to believe, we Testers don't really want to remove featuresor prevent software from shipping on time. We do it out of self-preservation. We are the last to see a product and the first to be blamed when the product doesnt function as expected.That's just the nature of the profession as it stands.
Getting a feature pulled is one of the most difficult tasks a tester can undertake. It is far easier to get a release pushed back than it is to have a feature removed. In order to do it, the tester not only has to find the problems, but he has to convince everyone that removing the feature is the best course of action. And by everyoneI mean not only the developer who wrote the thing and the designer who dreamed up the thing; but the tester also has to convince layers of management several rungs up the food chain.
In this case one half of the feature remains broken very close to release. The feature really didnt offer much inthe way of usefulness if it were complete. It required alot of test involvement (big matrix) and it was about half designed in the first place.
Am I proud that I have denied users the feature? No. I am,however, pleased that I can concentrate on making sure that the rest of the product is robust instead of spending my time working on an unused, half-finished feature. Of course, this means that users wont have to deal with it either
Dont worry. That feature will be back for the next release.
posted by Z at
3:22 PM
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