Ben Weese

Common Sense, is a Super Power!

​This week the Ministry of Testing Bloggers club has decided on “What’s the non-technical skill that every tester should have, but most don’t seem to?”

Being a tester move have a very technical mind. A lot of time with intelligent technical people they lack basic common sense. I have seen mountains made out of mole hills, useless tickets, and tickets that no one will ever fix. The button is 2 pixels off… ain’t nobody got time for that. A new feature has some bugs do to a weird workflow. Ok we can fix it but we don’t need to hold shipping to beta when there is a work around and most people will not use that workflow. Plus a new feature is not breaking current functionality. Take some time to think before standing up for that bug. Yes there are bugs that need standing up for and by golly you do it but make sure it is worth it and not a waste of everyones time. Use Common sense when judging the bug. 

1 Comment

  1. Well, yes; but if your bug reporting system permits, common sense should apply when you rate the bug for urgency and importance, rather than in reporting the bug in the first place.

    I take the view that all bugs need to be reported. But then I completely accept that it’s a business decision over when and even if they get fixed. And if the business says no, then that’s their decision, not mine; and any failure of common sense is equally theirs, not mine.

    Sometimes, a low impact bug – such as a typo – becomes a priority to fix if it’s somewhere very prominent and embarrassing (websites are the worst for this), such as misspelling the company’s name or a truly egregious spelling error in a statement from the CEO. (I’ve seen both.) It’s all very well to assume that common sense will prevail in such cases, but you should never assume anything.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.