“You don’t need to test that!”. What happens when someone says that to you?

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“You don’t need to test that!”

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been told that in my career. :sweat_smile:

And that career has gone from “OK, I won’t test it” to “Tell me why not?” to “Let me understand your context and let’s collaborate on this.”

How about you, what happens when someone says “You don’t need to test that!”?

I found it useful to read some of the replies to the same question on LinkedIn:

Depends on who the someone is.

Ignore that someone! Can’t take risk!

I hear them out. However if the explanation isn’t cogent, or the statement is something I don’t understand or disagree with then I try to find out for myself to determine whether it makes reasoned sense.

Look at acceptance criteria and requirements then decide

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Alright, can you write that down on black and white and that you take full responsibility of this? If you cannot do that, we’ll test it accordingly like the current workflow-process.

Aaaand they’ll get mad but we can ALWAYS test it afterwards, because nobody wants this responsibility :slight_smile:

It’s the best card that you can play…
IF they actually write it down… well then you are safe also ;-D

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“Can I quote you on that?”

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A dentist told me once: you only need to brush the teeth you want to keep.

The analogue here is something like: you only need to test the code whose behaviour you want to know, because this behaviour matters to someone.

I don’t need to test this - is that because its behaviour doesn’t matter?

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“You don’t need to test that!”
“Who is QA?”

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This generally doesn’t happen at my company. From the day I started I made it clear that developers are welcome to make whatever suggestions they’d like about testing. They are encouraged (soft requirement) to make notes on every single ticket about what they think the tester who picks up any given ticket should test.

It is up to the tester to accept or reject the suggestions and their responsibility to determine the full scope of the testing required.

On the rare occasion this does occur there is almost certainly a strong justification for it. It typically leads to a discussion to support the developer’s assertion.

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Just nod and say OK then do what you were gonna do anyway - test it.

Even juicier if you find an issue whilst you test the ‘forbidden fruit’, right?

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Its usually a 2 min exchange, they explain why and I flag some risks sometimes we reassess sometimes we don’t.

If nobody is interested in the findings from my testing I generally wont waste my time testing, my view on this has changed over the years as with many things my focus has narrowed to what matters.

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Them: You don’t need to test that

Me (thinking): Imma test that!

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Yea, I’d do a roll on a sneak check and test it anyway!

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Maybe we could develop another version of ourselves. For example, “DecoyMirza”.

DecoyMirza replies with “Sure, I won’t test it!” Meanwhile, RealMirza goes testing! :smiley:

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I look askew at the barista, take the coffee from their hands. I lift the plastic lid and peer inside. “Why, what’s wrong with it?”.

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I would ask “why”, probably followed by a series of “But what if…?”, “Have we considered…” and questions alike.

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