Hell of a Tester

I often have problems in finding the ketchup bottle from our refrigerator. At some point I started to notice this, and eventually realized why I did not find it. It was because I was looking for something red, but the Heinz ketchup bottle isn't actually red but transparent instead. So after it has been used for a while (I have a three year old son so it doesn't last full long), it becomes mainly transparent in color. And when I start to look for the ketchup, I can't find it because I'm searching for something red. Today I had a short discussion with my wife which wen't about like this: Wife: Do you know where's the ketchup? Me: The bottle isn't red, try looking for a transparent bottle. Wife: Oh there it is. You get the lesson already? Well I have another close experience of similar kind. Last week I was taking part in Helsinki testing day as a test lab assistant. I was responsible for my own stand where I had created a few testing tasks for an op...

There's a saying in Finnish "Kysyvä ei tieltä eksy". In English it might translate into "Man asking for directions does not get lost from his route." I really like that saying. Another more famous one is "There are no dumb questions". I disagree with this one. There are dumb questions, and you cannot avoid them. Asking good questions, the right questions, at the right time, from the right source, and in the right way, is really hard. That's pretty much what testing is about. Asking, learning from the answers, and educating others based on the answers. As an example a dumb question would be one that: - is asked at the wrong time - is asked from the wrong source - is not answered - provides no information for anybody - takes a lot of effort to ask, and provides very little value - is asked just for the sake of wanting to ask - you shouldn't want to ask, you should want to ask so that you can hear the response   - does not help you to ...