Asked what mistakes are most common in the testing business, Lab Alliance members came up with a hefty list, including these:
Asked what mistakes are most common in the testing business, Lab Alliance members came up with a hefty list, including these.
John Bass, Centennial Networking Lab, NCSU
- Getting too caught up in the details. (Relax, it’s just a box.)
- Not documenting the details of methodology and findings; repeatability should come first.
- Trying to test with only one method. It helps to test the same function of a box in different ways.
- Trying to draw too many conclusions from results.
Christine Perey, Perey Research & Consulting:
- Not having a clear, written test plan. You always should have hypotheses you are testing and specific usage scenarios.
Ed Mier, Miercom:
- Recording results incorrectly.
- Trying to be too fast.
- Reading too much into a set of results data.
Greg Goddard, EDS:
- Not reading the manual.
Jeffrey Fritz, University of California, San Franscisco:
- Not understanding how a user will deploy the product under test.
Thomas Powell, PINT:
- Letting vendors get too involved. Typically customers don’t have access to vendor CTOs.
Thomas Henderson, ExtremeLabs:
- Not assessing product administration, which plays an important part in the overall cost of ownership of a product.
