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“I break the software.” “Cannot reproduce.” “We need a week to regress the new build.” “We have to do automation.” “It works!” From time to time, testers say things that they don’t mean, sometimes as a slip, and sometimes as a habit. Usually, there’s no malice or intention to mislead, but our clients may be deceived nonetheless. Worse, we can deceive ourselves.

Words are powerful tools for understanding and clarifying ideas, but like all tools, they must be used skilfully to achieve their purposes and to avoid trouble. In the Rapid Software Testing Guide to What You Meant To Say, Michael Bolton will report on some common expressions and patterns of speech that he considers risky, and he’ll offer ideas for using words more carefully and precisely.

This talk by Michael Bolton was presented at our software testing conference TestBash 2015 in Brighton