Put on your raincoat test …

I’ve had a wonderful response to a Tweet yesterday …

It’s all fun and games, but there is actually an important point. And as you’d expect, it involves testing.

If you Google “windiest city on Earth”, you will actually come up with Wellington … the city I live in. Combine that with the fact we have some fierce rain, and you have a compelling business case for a decent raincoat.

Not only with the walk to work, but when I’m out in the bush, I need a coat I can rely on. I’ve actually walked into work recently, feeling my coat springing a leak, from the sheer intensity and was utterly drenched by the time I reached the office.

So when it rained yesterday (Sunday), it was the ideal opportunity to do a local 5km walk and see how my new coat fared. If it didn’t do well, it was recently purchased, so I could complain to the shop I’d bought it at. But also I’d be able to beg my wife over the phone to come pick me up.

Fundamentally it shared a lot of properties of a test — I was seeing how it would do in a safe situation, so that when I needed to use it in a scenario where it mattered to me more, I could have more confidence in its capabilities (although there’s always room for unpleasant surprises).

In a nutshell, this is the whole ethos of testing.