Current ISO #stop29119 & Petition

As you probably can’t have overlooked there is a Petition out for stopping ISO29119. On this blog we have all signed the petition and wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments/concerns that a lot of testers have. Since there’s been a lot written about this we don’t think we have much detail to add. So if you want to sign the petition go here:

 

If you need the short and low down we suggest reading the excellent abstract by Michael Bolton here. The CAST presentation/video that kicked it all off here.

Also see our original post from way back when here. For MUCH more in depth stuff read everything you can find here (see you in a week or so 😉 ).

We’re all hoping you will join in supporting this cause. Also follow twitter hashtag #stop29119 for new developments.

by Oliver Erlewein

ISO 29119 the “new” testing standard

On Tuesday night, Steve Willsher (QualIT) gave his best to bring ISO/IEC 29119  closer to our testing hearts at a NZCS TPN presentation. Kudos for him to really have a go at the beast that is standardisation. I am part of the working group and am at least familiar with the documents being produced. The thing is that I’m not (yet?) sold on standardization in testing and IT in general, where the intent is that it applies everywhere. In this post I’d like to share some of my concerns and elicit some debate on the topic.

The first thing I’d like to highlight is the way a standard is “born” (note the use of quotation marks here, as in the title around the word – new.) All going well ISO 29119 as a standard will be released, at it’s earliest, May 2013. This will be after already being on a 2 year journey involving lots of groups, discussions and opinions. In the last 5 years I have seen quite a few revolutions/evolutions in testing and IT SDLC in general. Testing, and IT, is still in it’s infancy and new ideas are cropping up daily, so it eludes me how the standardisation process is not being overrun by current events. The risk of the standard being out of date when it gets released is immense. The timelines for standardization might be okay for other engineering disciplines but IT moves at a faster pace (also accelerating other fields but not quite to this speed). I think the process is too unwieldy.