Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing: A People-Oriented Approach

Chapter Nine. Challenge #4: Testing What’s Thrown Over the Wall

Overview

Traditionally, developers and testers don’t talk to each other. When the developers are finished building a software program or system, they sometimes unceremoniously dump the product on the testers. This tendency is often called the “throw-it-over-the-wall” syndrome.

The assumption on the developers’ side is that the testers will ultimately find all of the defects. This assumption leads the developers to test poorly, if at all. Because of weak testing, the testers often find that there are many defects in the system that should have been caught at the unit test stage by the developer.

In this chapter, we explore the root cause of “throwing stuff over the wall,” which ...