From Tech Support to QA

Resolve the issue and move to the next one. This is a common mind set among the Tech Support personnel where I work. This is certainly commendable from the customer’s view point as the customer certainly wants the issue resolved and in a timely fashion. However, what benefits the customer more:

1. Resolve the immediate problem; or
2. Resolve the underlying issue (wherein the problem reported by the customer is merely a symptom of a different problem)

A key question for transitioning from point 1 to 2 is “why?” E.g.

• Why did this problem occur?
• What data or environment change caused this?
• Why does the ( data or environment ) cause this issue?

Asking the questions and tracing symptoms to the source is invaluable. Once the source is identified, one can determine reproducibility and define a test, all of which can lead to a fix. Once the issue is fixed, we can Assure the problem will not reoccur in the future, for this customer or others.

Writing Bug Reports

A key thought to remember when writing a bug report is:

“The information provided must facilitate reproduction of the bug”

In other words, could a complete stranger read the report and be able to reproduce the bug in the system?

Many times, when reading bug reports submitted by customers, there are enough details missing that cause the report to marked as non-reproducible. Or it entails much back and forth with the reporter to obtain the missing details. Either method results in frustration for both the reporter and the tester.