TPS report


A TPS report is a document used by a quality assurance group or individual, particularly in software engineering, that describes the testing procedures and the testing process.

Definition

The official definition and creation is provided by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers as follows:

In popular culture

''Office Space''

Its use in popular culture increased after the comedic 1999 film Office Space. In the movie, multiple managers and coworkers inquire about an error that protagonist Peter Gibbons makes in omitting a cover sheet to send with his "TPS reports". It is used by Gibbons as an example that he has eight different bosses to whom he directly reports. According to the film's writer and director Mike Judge, the abbreviation stood for "Test Program Set" in the movie.
After Office Space, "TPS report" has come to connote pointless, mindless paperwork, and an example of "literacy practices" in the work environment that are "meaningless exercises imposed upon employees by an inept and uncaring management" and "relentlessly mundane and enervating".

Other references and allusions

  • In Ralph Breaks the Internet, a TPS report is visibly hanging in one of the accounting department cubicles during Ralph's viral video montage. While Test Procedure Specification reports are not functionally relevant within accounting, this usage shows how the term has grown to symbolize all kinds of meaningless memoranda.
  • In Borderlands 2, a legendary weapon is named the "Actualizer" with a flavor text description of "We need to talk about your DPS reports", parodying the corporate term by replacing it with the common gaming abbreviation for "Damage Per Second".
  • In The Mandalorian, TPS reports are mentioned in the episode "Chapter 15: The Believer" as work to do by the character Migs Mayfeld when attempting to avoid an imperial officer, in a reference to Office Space.
  • The TV series The Family Man features a scene in series 2, episode 1 in which the manager of the protagonist asks him to "start thinking about your TPS reports!", in amongst other apparent references to Office Space.
  • The TV show LOST features a scene in season 1, episode 4 in which the manager of a box company, Randy, tells one of the series' main protagonists, John Locke, in a flashback sequence that he "needs those TPS reports done by noon today. Not 12:30, not 12:15. Noon." to which John Locke replies "I heard you the first time, Randy." in an obvious reference to Office Space as John Locke sits in a cubicle farm obviously 'over it' in regards to his relationship with his manager.