{"id":4423,"date":"2024-02-18T23:32:20","date_gmt":"2024-02-19T05:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:10043\/?p=4423"},"modified":"2025-03-07T07:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T13:18:25","slug":"even-the-best-ideas-and-plans-need-rigorous-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/even-the-best-ideas-and-plans-need-rigorous-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Even the best ideas and plans need rigorous testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click, click again, and then click again.<\/p>\n

To most of us it\u2019s tedious, but to a select few it\u2019s fun.<\/p>\n

The little-understood role of \u201ctester\u201d takes an eye for detail, patience, and technical know-how.\u00a0 And the good ones are both perfectionists and good communicators.<\/p>\n

Testers are the unsung heroes of the tech world, and outside the tech world they are just plain unsung.<\/p>\n

Some call themselves \u201ctest engineers\u201d while others are described as QA (quality assurance) professionals.\u00a0\u00a0Although there are differences, the mission is the same: make sure that the software, websites, and mobile apps we all use work to perfection.<\/p>\n

Testers play a critical role in the software development process but rarely get the credit they deserve.<\/p>\n

No one I know grows up with a dream to become a tester.\u00a0\u00a0Most of us in the tech industry started with the ambition of becoming a genius software developer, a highly respected network engineer or tech startup founder.<\/p>\n

But those who land in these more sought-after roles know that without great testers, building great software would be next to impossible.<\/p>\n

A tester\u2019s role is to try to break the software that the development team has built<\/a>.\u00a0 They test for everything from bugs, to security, to performance with the goal of making sure that when a product is released into the wild it will work as expected.<\/p>\n

There are different types of tests that software applications must pass before it goes live.<\/p>\n

Load tests check to see if an application can handle a large volume of users without crashing. Security and penetration tests emulate hackers to ensure that by the time an application is launched it will be secure.\u00a0 And functional tests are designed to confirm that the features of an application or website work as intended.<\/p>\n

There are also different techniques that good testers master.<\/p>\n

Manual testing is just what it sounds like\u2014painstakingly trying to find issues one click at a time. \u00a0Automated testing involves writing scripts that emulate manual testers with the push of a button.\u00a0\u00a0 And now, AI-based testing is starting to catch on.<\/p>\n

When I first started programming, I figured I could just test my own software myself.\u00a0\u00a0As every developer knows, this never works.<\/p>\n

Just like writers need editors and bookkeepers need auditors, anyone who undertakes complex endeavors needs someone looking over their shoulder to make suggestions and find errors.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s not only time we give testers, editors, auditors, and the like their due, but it\u2019s time we embrace these roles in all aspects of business.<\/p>\n

As a custom software<\/a> development firm, we recognized the value of QA professionals long ago.\u00a0 But while we have always prioritized testing the applications we build, we\u2019ve not always applied this to other parts of our company.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s coming up with a sales strategy, hiring a new employee, or designing a new logo, having someone to check your work is something we could all benefit from. \u00a0As we make our way into the new year, I\u2019m looking for ways to road-test all of our business practices.<\/p>\n

For us, the first phase of this is to re-emphasize an office culture where there\u2019s no shame in making a mistake.\u00a0 The idea is to make sure all of us know that \u201dbusiness bugs\u201d (like software bugs) are unavoidable\u2014no one is perfect.<\/p>\n

Our next step will be to analyze the mistakes (bugs) we have made in the past and figure out how best to test our work to avoid them in the future.\u00a0\u00a0 In the software development world, this is the \u201ctest plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few more click, click, clicks, I\u2019ll report back to share the results.<\/p>\n

JJ Rosen is the founder of <\/em>Atiba<\/em><\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0a <\/em>custom software development firm<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and <\/em>Nashville IT support company.<\/em><\/a>\u00a0Visit <\/em>Atiba.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for more info.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. Click, click again, and then click again. To most of us it\u2019s tedious, but to a select few it\u2019s fun. The little-understood role of \u201ctester\u201d takes an eye for detail, patience, and technical know-how.\u00a0 And the good ones are both perfectionists and good communicators. Testers are the unsung heroes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":4424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-tennessean"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}