Who do we tell – Part 2

We feel that the question of to whom and what to report has to be answered by initially by Quality personnel. We know what information we have, we know what we can get reasonably easily, and how it can be presented. Thus it falls to us to present recommendations to each person and make sure they can be fulfilled throughout the project without issue.

As mentioned two weeks ago, we encounter two major attitudes to this question:

1. Everyone must know everything.
2. How can I avoid being added to this list?

We strongly recommend against the first one since if everyone gets an email no one ever looks at it. It becomes an SEP (someone else’s problem).

The second one is not much better. People avoid being told so they can put the blame somewhere (even if they could have been told earlier) when things go wrong.

So we need to present a hierarchy of reports that consolidate the information as they work their way up and recommend the correct report for each level.

1. Developers, testers and their direct managers should receive all details of every report. They are immersed in the project and need the information.
2. Next level up – counts of testcases completed and their priorities; counts defects raised and their priorities; any critical issues should be brought to their attention particularly if they are going to impact the project.
3. Next level up – Weekly colour coded summaries showing the project status.
4. Next level up (assuming there is one) – project completion

We do expect that most of the online reports will be interactive and allow anyone to drill down as required.

Next blog – How do you decide what to do with what has been reported