Interesting, already brainstormed some ideas including a satirical post where you could reduce scope by giving in to the pressures of management to get the testing done quickly and not verifying all the necessary risks have been mitigated so a deadline can be met.
I’ve also got some actual ‘good’ ideas for reducing scope.
I would be so radical to ask bluntly: Do testers really have to decide on this (alone)?
Which is quite next to my answer: At least on high level its up to the person(s) commercial responsible for the release.
Whoever decides which features and fixes are (not) making into a release (=managing & prioritizing developer resources) also has to decide for where and in what depth he wants analysis and feedback (=testing).
Simple advice: Testers, ask for priorities. At least discuss them with others.
Test is a tool for delivery.
Is this sufficient enough for a blog post to be considered?
I’m good in typing such things fast in a discussion, but still lack … whatever to make it a more lasting blog post.
At least I can make it a Tweet.