𝗠𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗕𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱
The goal of a QA team is not good testing.
It is also not testing the right things in the right way.
The real goal is helping teams build software that works. Testing is one tool to reach this goal. It is not the only tool. It is often not the best tool.
Many companies focus only on testing and coverage. This is a mistake.
Testing has specific uses:
- Automated tests provide fast feedback on important functions.
- Exploratory testing helps you understand how software behaves.
However, many teams use testing to fix everything. They use it to fill gaps left by poor planning. They use it to replace monitoring and observability.
Relying on test coverage as your main quality signal is like trying to shape bread after it leaves the oven.
Think of your software as bread. The ingredients are the things you need before you write code:
- A clear definition of what the software must do.
- Agreement on what quality looks like.
- Understanding of risks and constraints.
If you use the wrong flour or skip the salt, no amount of reshaping will fix the dough.
Software is easy to shape when it is still dough. This means early in development. Once the code is written, the dough hardens. Making changes then costs more time and effort.
Test coverage tells you where you looked. It does not tell you if what you looked at matters. An 80% coverage number does not mean your software is high quality. It might just mean you have too many useless tests.
Stop chasing coverage numbers. Instead, ask these questions:
- Where is our software behavior unknown?
- What is the fastest way to find out?
Sometimes the answer is a test. Often, the answer is a conversation. You need to ask the questions everyone assumes are obvious.
Most software breaks eventually. When it does, you need to know fast. Production monitoring tells you something is wrong before your users do. Testing cannot do this cheaply.
AI makes this even harder. You can now generate code and tests without any real understanding. Coverage numbers go up, but the quality remains low. You skip the dough stage and go straight to the oven.
Testing is a means to an end. Coverage is just a proxy. The real work happens during the dough stage. Do not skip it.
Source: https://dev.to/susanne_abdelrahman/mystery-bread-2526
Optional learning community: https://t.me/GyaanSetuAi