ABSTRACT
The easiest way to make testing cheap is to do a quick, slapdash job. Psychologist and systems thinker John Seddon labels the problem “failure demand.” As Seddon explains it, there are two types of demand in the system: regular demand, where a customer wants something; and failure demand. Testers could have helped the project in lots of ways, the first of which was likely to identify the schedule risk in the first place and to suggest alternate ways to build the software to avoid that risk. Testers could have been involved in the beginning to clarify requirements, or, more likely on this project, to remind folks that the shared understanding of what was meant to be built was missing and the documentation vacuous. The most common line used as an argument in favor of metrics is from Tom DeMarco, in his book Controlling Software Projects.
