thoughts from the test eye

Storytelling has been rising for quite some years and it will soon boom for software testing.
The reason is simple: people like stories.
And if it is used as status reporting instead of lame numbers, it is a step in the right direction, to say the least.
But when testing this idea theoretically, I find some fears:
* they will take long time to tell
* they will be too entertaining, less informative

And when comparing with my experiences, I find success stories when remembering conversations where I fast communicated the essence.

We already have a core tester skill in writing effective bug titles.
We should learn how to do this for whole test efforts, we should always have an executive summary up our sleeve.
We shouldn’t tell stories, it should be more like a librarian’s summary.

To accomplish this we need a lot of training, but I doubt it will be enough.
We also need more words.
They don’t have to be unanimously defined, and they can be reconstructed at each company, as long as they are useful.
Do a daily exercise of explaining the state of the product in thirty seconds, and try out your own terminology.

We need more words to effectively communicate the essence of our findings.