Niall Lynch, Author at The CTO Club

Understanding Time To Quality

Niall Lynch — Thu, 29 Jul 2021 11:57:37 +0000

There are plenty of metrics used to track QA progress these days. Most of them are quite useful, but they all tend to be one-dimensional, in the sense that they are snapshots of a moment, or sprint, in time. This is true even of rate and trend metrics, which are incredibly important, but, again, snapshots […]

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The Pitfalls Of Test Automation

Niall Lynch — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 08:25:09 +0000

Test automation has revolutionized software testing, but it's not without its pitfalls...

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Dilemmas Of Testing In Production (And A Way Forward)

Niall Lynch — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 17:51:12 +0000

The problem of how and when to test in production is a perennial conundrum that far predates the current dominance of cloud computing and widgetized, containerized software services. In the Bronze Age of software development (i.e. 2005), the issue was straightforward, but in a very frustrating way, because there were so few options around how […]

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The Cold Hard Truth About Zero-Defect Software

Niall Lynch — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 16:49:52 +0000

Many years ago, on the day we decided to release a major upgrade to our product, a decision that of course required my approval as Director of QA, I was walking down the hallway and the CEO passed me. He stopped me and said, “So I can assume we are shipping with no defects?” Without […]

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How To Prepare For, And Survive, Ship/No-Ship Decisions

Niall Lynch — Thu, 03 Dec 2020 08:47:18 +0000

Reality Bites One can, sometimes even fruitfully, engage foundational issues of QA process, tools, mindset, ethos, and expertise. Which is great. These topics are necessary mental heavy lifting for any true QA professional or professional in training. They also make for good TED talks, so there’s that in their favor too. Because you can post […]

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Ten Thousand Cities — Test Objectification & Documentation

Niall Lynch — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 16:57:11 +0000

A lot of discussion about QA tends to involve grand concepts and topics. Lots of jargon and white papers and TED talks. It can get pretty abstract pretty fast. And, let’s face it, often not terribly relevant to the practical obstacles working QA teams face on a daily basis. So sometimes it’s useful to slow […]

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