Interview Questions 47

65. Give me five common problems that occur during software development.

Answer: Poorly written requirements, unrealistic schedules, inadequate testing, adding new features after development is underway and poor communication. Requirements are poorly written when requirements are unclear, incomplete, too general, or not testable; therefore there will be problems. The schedule is unrealistic if too much work is crammed in too little time.

Software testing is inadequate if none knows whether or not the software is any good until customers complain or the system crashes. It’s extremely common that new features are added after development is underway.

Miscommunication either means the developers don’t know what is needed, or customers have unrealistic expectations and therefore problems are guaranteed

67. What if the software is so buggy it can’t be tested at all?

Answer: In this situation the best bet is to have test engineers go through the process of reporting whatever bugs or problems initially show up, with the focus being on critical bugs. Since this type of problem can severely affect schedules and indicates deeper problems in the software development process, such as insufficient unit testing, insufficient integration testing, poor design, improper build or release procedures, managers should be notified and provided with some documentation as evidence of the problem.