8.2 Requirements Specification
Let us assume that your company has a lot of ???sort of??? specifications, software, and user manuals but
nothing explicit against which you can test. You will need to set your own baseline. Here??™s how: get a
Call Logged
hen the test consultant arrived he asked to see a requirements specification. He was
met with a blank stare. ???You??™ll have to see the project director about that. You??™re here
to test.???
The company made telephone call logging software and was owned by a Big European Corporation.
The test consultant promptly crashed the system twice in two ways creating the blue screen of
death each time. People were not pleased.
Then he got some output and wrote a script to analyze it. It showed that telephones were being
put down before being picked up and traffic being transmitted to a telephone without it being
picked up. He logged each bug.
Then he found several features did not work. By then he had asked several times for a requirements
specification and had given up so he wrote up the bug as best he could. By now the staff
had stopped talking to each other in his presence.
One morning someone from management came in. ???We??™ve got auditors in from Head Office,???
he said. ???Tell them nothing. We??™re keeping them upstairs at present, but if they ask you anything
refer them to the CEO. Fortunately they only speak German.???
And no auditor ever appeared.
And a year later the company was sold to an American Corporation for 1.
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