Fishing and Software Testing - An Analogy

Original: I am a fisherman. I mostly work in waterfall.
Translation: I am a software tester. I mostly work in waterfall.

Original: My goal is to catch all fishes in a pond.
Translation: My goal is to identify all defects in a software application.

Original: I aim to catch the bigger fishes first.
Translation: I aim to identify the critical defects first.

Original: I plan to navigate through all geographical coordinates of the pond.
Translation: I plan to cover all business functions of the application as part of my testing.

Original: I don't know how deep the pond is at various geographical coordinates.
Translation: I don't know how critical the various business functions are.

Original: I met with Department of Natural Resources and created a depth map of the pond.
Translation: I met with the Business Users/Analysts and created a criticality map of the business functions.

Original: I looked at the list of fish species present in the pond to determine my fishing strategy.
Translation: I looked at the various requirements of the application to determine my testing strategy.

Original: I have created a plan on how deep I will place my bait in each coordinate.
Translation: I have created all my test cases with expected results.

Original: I have collected various baits required for fishing.
Translation: I have arranged for various test data required for fishing.

Original: I have reached in front of the pond to start fishing.
Translation: The application under test has been deployed to the test environment.

Original: I made sure that my boat is in working condition.
Translation: I made sure that I have all required access to the application.

Original: During test execution, I often change my directions to coordinates where fishes are more probable.
Translation: During test execution, I often re-prioritize my testing to focus on defect-prone business functions.

Original: I inform my captain about the number of fishes caught on an hourly basis.
Translation: I publish daily/weekly test execution status reports during test execution.

Original: Sometimes fishes move from one coordinate to another coordinate that has been covered by me earlier.
Translation: Sometimes one defect fix breaks a functionality that has been tested by me earlier.

Original: So, I keep an eye on coordinates that I covered earlier while moving to new coordinates.
Translation: So, I assess the need for regression testing of functionalities tested earlier after each defect fix.

Original: Sometimes I catch turtles by mistake that I eventually return to the pond and thus waste my time.
Translation: Sometimes I waste my time on non-defects that eventually get rejected.
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Original: When I am done, I move to another environment.
Translation: When I am done, I move to another environment.