It is a known fact that this era is technology dominant; it is gaining more and more momentum in every individual’s life. People have become too much dependant on technology and this is because the internet has a solution to almost all your daily tasks. Also, internet makes u glued to a place and does not allow you to move around much because it is easily accessible wherever you go. But the flip side of this is that if something goes wrong, any glitch or impairment it causes a huge loss. It is here that the testers are poked which results in an increased work load on the whole testing community.
Software quality assurance is no more something that can be overlooked; it has a few set of standards and principles on which a software testing organisation functions. These standards are not static, they keep altering and this becomes difficult to achieve each day. That is the wave of the butterfly’s wing.
Let us consider this- “Small variation in the initial condition of a dynamic system may produce large variation in the long term behavior of the system.” This phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. This is the so called ‘butterfly effect’.
And from a tester’s perspective, these small variations in the initial requirement of a dynamic application/product / system may produce large defects in the long term usage of the system.
A deeper look into Butterfly effect
Let us explain with an example: A miniscule mis-interpretation or mis-representation of a customer expectation in the form of requirement can ultimately impact the analysis, design and code. Testing in such a fashion that it might result in a product failure or in the worst of cases business failure sometimes.
In the above example, the insignificant change in requirement can be compared with butterfly’s flapping of wings. Since this change was not detected in the requirement stage, it kept passing through the analysis, design and coding phase and finally gets magnified to an extent that can impact the business and as a result suffer losses.
How is QA affected?
Software Industries require testers that are skilled and have high standards. Since this epoch is tech centric, several methodologies, techniques and books have now become an essential part of the testing market to improvise on the testing skills and to keep learning new stuff as per the requirement of the generations. But in testing, there is no end to learning so it is advisable to enroll in specialized renowned institutions where the testers can dedicate years studying the high end procedures and techniques of testing.
This process in already in the conduit. In 2012, a group from the Dutch Testing Society began working in this field. They are creating a special quality-slash-testing education program for universities and applied science universities. The group that is working on the project consists of both specialists of the education and testing fields.
All the testers should step up for this professional education. It is the right of each new face in the tester’s community to take charge of the solutions of the upcoming new issues. These new faces should be approachable to the old school boys who are capable to polish their knowledge as well. Let’s not be left behind as software quality is gaining momentum. Keep up the testing spirit…Happy Testing!
