Testing and Ethics II

I held a common house discussion last week on this subject at my office, with help of a colleague. Alas there where a lot of no-shows, so the group was small. Fortunately the people who showed up where fanatic and did some good work on the discussion.

I had prepared, again with help of a colleague, 10 statements on which half of the group were obligated to defend this statement (pro) and the other half were obligated to take the opposition (against). This made it really fun and answers where suprising at least! I'm writing a piece (synopsis) to submit for EuroSTAR 2009 in Stockholm toghether with another colleague for a workshop because I would really like to follow up seriously on this subject.

Don't underestimate the power of the Dark side... is a famous quote among fans an is surely applicable on this subject.

Below are the statements I prepared, I you would like to contribute to this discussion please leave a comment or look for the discussion on LinkedIn - groups.
Have fun!

• You can break the law to get meet your test goals


• To protect yourself and/ or your company you may not mention (certain) results


• Manipulation of test is allowed:


• Execute only the right-paths


• Execute only cases you know will have a positive result


• Execute those cases where you want to have the answers on


• You must always tell the truth


• You must always be able to use Privacy sensitive data to test


• You can drop test cases to your own insight if necessary to be ready on time


• You must always pass on your work when your own standards and values get into a corner


• As tester you should set aside your own standards and values to test thoroughly


• As tester you shouldn’t have professional ethical code because it hinders the good execution of tests


• Testing and ethics don’t mix