Why?
Some of you may have recognized those numbers, a common monitor resolution. A window larger than that size will overwhelm the screen on a low-resolution monitor. But how much harder would it be to say, "The warehouse personnel use machines that operate at 800 x 600 resolution. All windows must fit on the screen without scrolling, so don't make them larger than that size."
If you are beginning to wonder if you know enough about the business, seek out the information you need. Read everything you can get your hands on: your company's press release, financial data, competitor's web sites, customer discussion forums, and consumer reviews. Ask your manager about the company's strategic direction and how your current project contributes. Keep asking questions about the business until you really understand not only what you are being asked to do, but also why you are being asked to do it.
Then, if you find yourself in a situation like Barry, asked to do something that doesn't make sense, you'll have the knowledge to articulate your concerns. And in doing so, you might find that management is a little more open with technical people about their business concerns. Show them that you can learn about their world, and they'll give you the information you need. Go ahead, challenge them to give you "the business."
Pages
About the author
The founder and president of Quality Tree Software, Inc., Elisabeth Hendrickson wrote her first line of code in 1980. Moments later, she found her first bug. Since then Elisabeth has held positions as a tester, developer, manager, and quality engineering director in companies ranging from small startups to multi-national enterprises. A member of the agile community since 2003, Elisabeth has served on the board of directors of the Agile Alliance and is a co-organizer of the Agile Alliance Functional Testing Tools program. She now splits her time between teaching, speaking, writing, and working on agile teams with test-infected programmers who value her obsession with testing. Elisabeth blogs at testobsessed.com and can be found on Twitter as @testobsessed.
