Article archive
An external supplier spent weeks preparing to load-test the claims portal. They attended workshops, studied the user journeys and produced a detailed test plan. The Delivery Manager repeatedly said procurement was progressing. No contract was ever signed, so the supplier stopped attending and no test took place. The programme successfully simulated zero users.
A tester raised a defect called: Uploaded Evidence Deleted After Claim Amendment The Delivery Manager renamed it: Evidence Display Observation Following User Update The tester changed it back. He renamed it again. This continued until she locked the defect. Changing the defect title was the only fix delivered that afternoon.
A claimant uploaded evidence, then returned to correct an answer. The portal still said the documents were attached, but the caseworker could no longer see them. Each attempted fix made a different type of evidence disappear, so testing kept reopening the defect. The Delivery Manager removed the journey from regression until it became stable. The […]
A public launch date appeared in the programme plan without agreement from development or testing. The same plan showed testing finishing after launch. When this was raised, the Delivery Manager suggested moving testing earlier. The software would not exist then. Mr Fuckhead solved the schedule by moving testing into the period before anything could be […]
The dashboard showed test confidence at 43% for two consecutive weeks. A green arrow pointed upwards between the identical figures. When someone asked why, the Delivery Manager said the arrow showed the intended direction of travel. The dashboard was not reporting progress. It was reporting ambition with an arrow.
The Delivery Manager demanded an exact test-confidence percentage. There was no formula capable of converting unstable environments, incomplete coverage and serious defects into a meaningful probability. My Roman history book was open at the invasion of Britain in 43 AD, so I said 43%. He added it to the official dashboard. A Roman invasion became […]
Two major claims journeys were failing and the test environment was unstable. I reported red. The Delivery Manager changed it to green with significant dependencies, without changing any of the evidence underneath. When senior leaders noticed, they commissioned a reporting colour calibration workshop. The service stayed broken. The colours received governance.
I joined the programme as Test Lead on Monday. On Tuesday, the Delivery Manager demanded that I explain a test report issued the previous Friday. The report stated that no Test Lead had been in post. He had copied it from an older report, changed the date and removed the author. Mr Fuckhead’s first test […]
I joined after the previous tester had left. I asked for a handover. The project manager said everything was recorded in Jira. The relevant Jira ticket said: Decision agreed in discussion. Nobody remembered who had been in the discussion or what had been agreed. When the decision caused a production issue, testing was asked why […]
I said the team had capacity to test ten stories. The project manager assigned us eighteen. He marked all eighteen as committed. At the end of the sprint, ten had been tested. The report said testing had delivered only 56% of its commitment. It was the first time I learned that someone else could commit […]