Testing for technical errors is fairly unemotional, but your summary and conclusions are not. If you do not like an egg, you may search a little harder to find cracks in the shell. This article helps a tester put down his or her prejudices and bias (as much as possible), so that his or her conclusions and summaries are a little fairer. This is partially a motivational piece and partly a lesson in fairness and professionalism.
You Have Way Too Much Pride The first obstacle that you (and this article) have to overcome is your pride and the fact you think you are right all the time. There is no such thing as a truly unbiased person, but in order to become a more even-handed and objective tester, you need to erode away the pillars of your pride that you have taken years building.
To put it …show more content…
Opt For A Disconfirmation Bias / Rejection Bias / Motivated Skepticism
Why does this bias have three names? When I was in college, it was called a negative bias where any finding I had was treated with extreme skepticism and I had to aggressively prove I was wrong in order to prove I was right. Nowadays, a negative bias means something else, so I opted for a “Disconfirmation Bias, Rejection Bias and/or Motivated Skepticism.”
Make a point, and then spend the rest of your time trying to prove your point wrong. As a tester, this is going to eat into a fair amount of your time, so give it moderate thought during your testing (information gathering) phase, and really knuckle down with it during your conclusions and summaries.
Think Of This
Dropping your pride is all part of using a disconfirmation tool. It is hard trying to actively prove yourself wrong, especially if you always think you are right (which most people do). Most people do not walk around thinking, “Geeze, I am so wrong about
You Have Way Too Much Pride The first obstacle that you (and this article) have to overcome is your pride and the fact you think you are right all the time. There is no such thing as a truly unbiased person, but in order to become a more even-handed and objective tester, you need to erode away the pillars of your pride that you have taken years building.
To put it …show more content…
Opt For A Disconfirmation Bias / Rejection Bias / Motivated Skepticism
Why does this bias have three names? When I was in college, it was called a negative bias where any finding I had was treated with extreme skepticism and I had to aggressively prove I was wrong in order to prove I was right. Nowadays, a negative bias means something else, so I opted for a “Disconfirmation Bias, Rejection Bias and/or Motivated Skepticism.”
Make a point, and then spend the rest of your time trying to prove your point wrong. As a tester, this is going to eat into a fair amount of your time, so give it moderate thought during your testing (information gathering) phase, and really knuckle down with it during your conclusions and summaries.
Think Of This
Dropping your pride is all part of using a disconfirmation tool. It is hard trying to actively prove yourself wrong, especially if you always think you are right (which most people do). Most people do not walk around thinking, “Geeze, I am so wrong about