The curse of the live demo… and other testing superstitions - Ep 123

In this Friday 13th episode of This Week in Quality, first-time co-hosts Oleksandr Romanov and Claire Norman lean into the date’s reputation and explore the superstitions that quietly shape how teams test, release, and demo software. Claire opens with a collaboration win, bringing designers and engineers closer together and proving that small invitations can unlock earlier, better involvement. The hosts then share MoT updates, including new Call for Insights conversations with Simon and the newly announced 2026 MoT Ambassadors, before inviting the community to unpack the rituals and “bad luck” rules we all recognise.

The chat lights up with classic beliefs and their origins, from why Friday the 13th became notorious to the evergreen “don’t ship on a Friday” rule. Oleksandr adds a familiar developer-flavoured superstition, “it works on my machine,” and the group discusses how missing information, pattern-seeking, and bias can harden one-off incidents into lasting process rules. They also ask the bigger question: which superstitions are actually useful heuristics, and which ones deserve a gentle challenge with data?

Community voices bring the theme to life. Ady shares a packed week, including recording SQU(e)C content on accessibility and navigating the emotional rollercoaster of briefly being “404 not found” on the ambassador list, plus a reminder that bugs love to disappear the moment you screen share. Gary describes how a Friday release disaster led to a long-lived quality gate checklist, even after the original causes were fixed, while Demi recounts the familiar pain of “cursed demos” where last-minute deploys and restarts sabotage confidence right when it matters most. Then we hear a high-stakes story involving mismatched builds across customer and merchant apps, payment gateway panic, and the hard lesson that transformed their release and sign-off process.

The episode wraps by reframing superstition as psychology. Claire highlights how our bias toward assuming the worst can be useful for testing, but also stressful if left unchecked, and how learning about biases can help teams stay grounded. The result is a lively, relatable conversation that turns Friday 13th energy into practical reflections on risk, rituals, and building calmer release habits.