Hot take: if you're surprised by a product behaviour, you don't understand the system enough
29 May 2026
In this moment:
Oleksandr Romanov
TWiQ — This Week in Quality
Oleksandr said:
My hot take of the week: If you don't fully understand the thing you want to test and measure - you might get the results that are surprising but yet mysterious. So - first - understand how things work, then try to measure it.
This made me think about framing how we see things. We are often experience surprising software behaviour, but really if we understood the system then we wouldn't be surprised to see things happen.
So when we see surprising behaviour then:
- we need to question what it is we understand
- or what it is we need to spend some time learning
- or what are the gaps and risks that we've missed
Surprises are, therefore, an invitation to learn.
Rosie Sherry
CEO & Founder at Ministry of Testing
She/Her
I've been working in the software testing and quality engineering space since the year 2000 whilst also combining it with my love for education and community. It turns out quality, community and education go nicely hand in hand.
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