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I can imagine this as not totally different from software dev and QA. Many times the development team puts in some feature that doesn't have any visible output
by jakejake 11y ago
I can imagine this as not totally different from software dev and QA. Many times the development team puts in some feature that doesn't have any visible output for the testers to test - rather it is some internal change or improvement.
The QA department, then responsible for testing this new "feature" will most likely go off of a script that was sent to them by the developers to verify the old and new behavior, going on some metric that perhaps they don't really understand.
In some cases, the QA may actually have to rely on a tool actually built by the developers to test the feature. So in some cases the QA, not being software developers and not responsible for actually reviewing the code, will have to somewhat go on faith that the scripts and tools provided by the developers are accurate.
I'm not saying that means the engineers were responsible at VW, but it does explain how something could slip through the checks-and-balances that have been set up.
- jacquesm 11y ago> The QA department, then responsible for testing this new "feature" will most likely go off of a script that was sent to them by the developers to verify the old and new behavior, going on some metric that perhaps they don't really understand. That's wrong right there. If you do this properly the people writing the QA test script work from the same spec the programmers used to implement the feature but they are actually different people and the test gets written first. Obviously in smaller shops that won't work but anything the size of newsworthy should be set up like that.
- jakejake 11y agoI definitely agree that's the way it should be. I've seen the reality inside a few large corporations and basically nothing would surprise me.