The tale of Procrustes (first introduced to me by the work of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, he writes with great skill and knowledge) and the introduction of the "ISO29119 standard" resonate with each other in my mind.
The Tale of Procrustes in a Nutshell......
"Procrustes kept a house by the side of the road where he offered hospitality to passing strangers, who were invited in for a pleasant meal and a night's rest in his very special bed. Procrustes described it as having the unique property that its length exactly matched whomsoever lay down upon it. What Procrustes didn't volunteer was the method by which this "one-size-fits-all" was achieved, namely as soon as the guest lay down Procrustes went to work upon him, stretching him on the rack if he was too short for the bed and chopping off his legs if he was too long."(Source : mythweb.com)
So, lets adapt this for our ISO29119 situation:
"The "ISO29119 standard" purports to be the only internationally-recognized and agreed standards for software testing, which will provide your organization with a high-quality approach to testing that can be communicated throughout the world. Advocates describe it as having the unique property that it offers offers a set of standards which can be used in any software development life cycle. What the advocates don't volunteer is that your business problem will need to be stretched or trimmed to meet the new standard. So rather than testing solving your business problem, the focus will be to deliver to the standard."Who will be Theseus for the Craft of Testing?
In the end, Theseus (as part of his tests) dealt with Procrustes using his own vicious device. However this will most likely not be the case here, I believe most thinking testers are advocating the opposite, continuing to champion the principles of Context Driven Testing. Rightly so, merely rubbishing standards is only one half of the argument. I sincerely hope our community of minds will be our Theseus but time will tell. The uptake of the "ISO29119 standard" is an unknown, concerns are probably in large organisations and government, where group (and double) think can be prevalent, these are the soft targets for peddlers of the cult of the same.
However all over the development world we desperately and continuously strive to leap into Procrustean Beds. Taking shallow solace in "standards", which humans have been doing for a long, long time as a proxy for thought. Once you jump into a Procrustean Bed, you never emerge quite the same.......
Consider investigating..................
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Bed-Procrustes-Philosophical-Practical/dp/0241954096
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop29119
http://www.professionaltestersmanifesto.org
http://www.softwaretestingstandard.org
http://www.ministryoftesting.com/2014/08/iso-29119-debate
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