Test Tool Snake Oil
Amongst many events, I regularly speak at software testing conferences. A few months ago I attended a very interesting vendor presentation at a conference in Washington, DC. The speaker was the founder of a technology start-up company who was developing a new genre of testing tool.
He clearly mentioned early in the presentation that he didn't want to be perceived as a snake oil salesman. You see this is particularly important in the testing tool arena because automation vendors, beginning with Capture-Playback features, have been promising effort and maintenance free automation development for years. Truth be told, they've never been able to deliver on the promises and many a tool is collecting dust on office shelves scattered across corporate America.
As he walked through the capabilities of his tool, it struck me that he was EXACTLY selling snake oil. He was implying that the tool would revolutionize web based and client GUI testing as "Silver Bullet" promises smoothly rolled of his tongue. While there were bits and pieces of truth across the presentation, the areas where the tool would not help and its inherent limitations were never mentioned.
I find that it's very easy for product enthusiasts to get caught up in this trap. They're so enamored with their product—and by all rights they should be—that they forget to portray a balanced and realistic view to its capabilities. I believe that this enthusiasm must be tempered by honesty and openness with prospects and the market at large. The lesson is that anything short of this will only haunt you when a prospect becomes a customer!
So where am I going with this? I think that metrics products are slightly different animals in general and 6th Sense Analytics in particular strives hard to clearly articulate the value and potential challenges with introducing measurement, visibility and metrics-driven development practices within organizations.
We do speak to the tremendous power and potential of metrics and how our solution disrupts all previous views and virtually changes everything when it comes to measuring your development team. It is revolutionary and we're no shrinking violets when it comes to evangelizing what we do. However, if you've been keeping up with my blogging, you've noticed my ongoing cautions regarding the interpretation and usage of your teams' metrics. That while we do seamlessly collect very finely grained information it's up to you to put all of the metrics in context.
Context in this sense is your carefully considering all of these factors:
- Your culture and driving business needs
- Team composition, location, skills, and capabilities
- Your development methodology and processes adherence
- Types of project technologies within each team
- Specific organizational quality goals
- Your own specific experience with metrics & software process improvement initiatives
What you'll always hear us say are terms like: visibility, reliability, insight, and transparency. You'll also hear us often offer you coaching guidance from our experienced team of metrics subject matter experts.
What you'll never hear us offer are "Silver Bullets" that allow your management team to disengage from their context and blindly follow their metrics.
So please, no snake oil offered, simply solid insights that guide you forward—towards improvement and success.
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