Skip to main content
Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 10:30am - 11:30am
Special Topics

Bad Testing Metrics—and What To Do About Them

Many organizations use software testing metrics extensively to determine the status of their projects and whether or not their products are ready to ship. Unfortunately most, if not all, of the metrics in use are so flawed that they are not only useless but possibly dangerous—misleading decision makers, inadvertently encouraging unwanted behavior, or providing overly simplistic summaries out of context. Paul Holland reviews Goodhart’s Law and its applicability to software testing metrics. Paul identifies four characteristics that will enable you to recognize the bad metrics in your organization. Despite showing how the majority of metrics used today are bad, all is not lost as Paul shares the collection of information he has developed that is more effective. Learn how to create status reports that provide details sought after by upper management—and avoid the problems that bad metrics cause.

Paul Holland, Testing Thoughts

An independent software test consultant and teacher, Paul Holland has more than sixteen years of hands-on testing and test management experience, primarily at Alcatel-Lucent where he led a transformation of the testing approach for two product divisions, making them more efficient and effective. As a test manager and tester, Paul focused on exploratory testing, test automation, and improving testing techniques.

read more