Skip to main content

Should a failed test on CI automatically raise a bug?

I got into work this morning, and was looking at some CI Builds, and had a thought that it might be useful to have a bug raised automatically (through an API) when a test that is running on CI failed.... I tweeted about it to get peoples opinion(s)...



I got a few responses on twitter, and one which made me rethink why this might be a good idea and that was:


It could easily lead to and incredible amount of noise if we are raising bugs against every failed test, and also 1 failed test case != 1 bug, in that if 3 automated tests on CI fail then we don't necessarily need 3 bugs. It could also potentially (as my reply states) devalue what a bug actually is, meaning that if a tester raises a bug then it might get ignored/lost in all the noise. 

I also asked our internal QA Slack channel, responses were informative, and again helped lead me away from this potentially noisy and crazy idea.



Both of these points are extremely valid, and if you make it the number 1 priority to fix a broken test then why bother to create a bug? Surely just the visibility of a red cross next to a test run is enough to get people to work on it? Which is very true. 

Another factor to consider is the type of test, if a Unit Test fails, do we need a bug? Most definitely not.... There is definitely more of an argument if an Acceptance Test fails though (though after this discussion today I don't think there is!).

So, what started out as a blog post about CI and bugs, has provided me with 3 insightful thoughts:

1 - The focus of this blog post being that a failed test on CI most definitely does not mean a new bug (whether the process is manual or automated in creating said bug) needs to be raised. It ultimately would devalue a bug, it would mean that people wouldn't necessarily talk about said issues/bug, and 1 failed test != 1 new bug.

2 - Asking people for feedback is invaluable, it can help shape your opinion and give you quick feedback before you go off down a rabbit hole!

3 - Discussions like this are the exact reason why I wanted to have an internal QA community, so we can discuss things and get feedback.


Comments

  1. Unknown31 March 2017 at 22:13

    Quite an insightful post. This has cleared so many of my doubts in this subject & has thrown light on many aspects that I didn’t know before.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kerry Schultz23 November 2017 at 07:45

    there is always first time for everythign in life and it only takes one small step to conquer the greatest fears although this small step could take alot of courage but at the end its always worth it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Testers: Be more like a Super-Villain!

Who doesn't love a Super Hero? Talk to my son, and he'll tell you how much he loves them, talk to many adults and they'll say the same! Deep down, we all love to be the Super Hero, we all want to save the day! However, I want to talk about the flip side of Super Heroes, the Super Villains... I often play Imaginext with my son, and I (unfortunately?) am nearly always the Super Villain! Be it Lex Luthor, Joker, Two Face, Mr Freeze or The Riddler! These are all great characters and great Super Villains, but why would I want to write about Super Villains? A while ago where I worked, we had a few Super Heroes, people who would be able to come in and "fix" things that had broken and help deliver projects on time. We then shifted, we decided to do away with the Super Hero culture and try and prevent from being in that position in the first place, whilst we didn't go as far as wanting to hire Super Villains, it's definitely a story that has stuck with me and t...
2 comments
Read more

QA is Awesome!

No real point to this post other than I have had the song stuck in my head and figured I could change it slightly and quite easily make QA is Awesome! Oh and I haven't even seen the movie all the way through! But for some reason that song is incredibly catchy! Not much point to this post in fact, just thought I'd put it out there :)
Post a Comment
Read more

Measuring QA Key Skills and Competencies

I have been thinking about how I can help encourage self improvement within my team, as I understand it, everyone wants to improve, it's just that often there are a number of things that hold people back. I believe one of these things that hold people back are around identifying skills that they are perhaps weak in or that they could/should improve on. So I thought about how I can help tackle that problem. One solution that I want to try with people is to identify the key skills for a QA, what key skills should every QA have, or at least what key skills make up a good QA? If I can identify these then I can start helping people identify if they are lacking in an area. Sure there is a competency matrix that we have, but it has things like "An excellent understanding of XXX", it's often very difficult to quantify what an excellent understanding actually is. So I sat down and came up with the following key skills: OOP Test Documentation Manual Testing Automated...
3 comments
Read more