Raising alarm bells

For members of test team, it is very important to raise the alarm bells at right instances. With right instances, I mean that test team should raise the alarm bells well in advance even if they have slightest of apprehension about the product quality and resolution of bugs therein.

Raising alarm bells is a very important technique for test team since they have a clear perspective of the overall product quality in terms of functional stability and correctness. While project manager’s perspective is largely governed by task orientation and execution, test team has the exact status on the overall quality status. This means, to an extent, test engineers are also risk analyzers. They strive to weed out majority of project risk by identifying most crucial and important bugs.

Raising alarm well in advance helps the project manager to manage client expectations. When client is sitting at the other end expecting a product to be shipped, it really does not make sense to raise an alarm the last moment. This paralyzes the project manager and leaves little time for him and client to manage the delays. Most often, clients become difficult to manage when product shipment is withheld at the last moment and a manageable situation turns into a crisis.