Software Testing Blog

Our friends at GigaOM reached out to 12 top tech experts to see where they think the industry will go in 2012:

Lose your love handles; call your Mom more often; get that promotion – if you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions, and will publish one a day starting on December 27^th and running until January 7^th.

Here’s the schedule:

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If you had to describe the qualities of a great software tester, you would be likely to use at least some of the following phrases:

• Ability to focus
• Good memory
• High intelligence
• Strong technical skills
• Detail orientated

As it happens, these are also some of the characteristics associated with Asperger’s syndrome. Have you made the connection yet? Brenda Weitzberg did. As the founder of Aspiritech – a Chicago non-profit firm – Weitzberg and her staff only hire people with Asperger’s for positions in software testing.

ZDNet published a nice article on the subject a few days ago, citing some of the research and background that helped Weitzberg arrive at this unique conclusion:

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While the economy still has quite a ways to go, there have been some interesting and very real signs that things are looking up! According to payroll processor ADP, payrolls among private employers in the US rose by 187,000 in January 2011; and analysts polled by Briefing.com are predicting 145,000 jobs added for the month.

In line with the recent turn, a new poll among professional testers in the uTest forums indicated that:

• 22% are actively looking for a different job
• 10% are passively looking for a different job
• 10% are not seeking to change jobs and
• 44% plan on doing more freelancing

Since this was a uTest poll, it lends itself to those who freelance (in addition to their full-time testing gigs) which may account for the 44% above, but what’s even more interesting to us are the non-freelancing trends.

When 32% of respondents are either actively or passively looking for a different job, it’s a sign of a better, recovering economy, which yields an unavoidable and perfectly healthy amount of turnover. And it’s those CTOs, Directors of Engineering and QA Managers out there that can identify and keep their ROCK STAR engineers and testers — the very building blocks of their QA organizations — whose organizations will win the day.

VP of Product Craig Daniel said it best in our recent interview – “As hard as it is to find a great developer, it’s 10 times harder to find a great QA engineer.” The lesson here is if you’ve been lucky enough to have found great people — testers who are passionate about their craft — pay close attention to the market’s road to recovery and do everything you can to keep them in your lane.

Calling all New England QA and software testing professionals!

We will be co-hosting a free tester meetup with STP (Software Test & Performance) as part of the kickoff reception for their big event, STPCon 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge.  This meetup will be Wednesday, October 21 at 5:30pm.

Join us for a great evening of networking that will be held in the STPCon exhibits area. There, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with your peers, connect with execs from uTest and STP, discover new products and features and talk to the experts who created them.

Another great perk for attendees is that you’ll have the opportunity to discuss the latest and greatest trends with industry leaders such as James Bach and Michael Bolton.

If you’re around, it would be great to meet you in person!  To register, please visit: http://utest2009stpcon.eventbrite.com/.

We’re happy to have Brian Rock as our Guest Blogger this month. A resident of Austin, Texas, Brian has brought more than 10 years of software engineering and leadership experience to the uTest community (where he is among the most active members). Prior to his software days, Brian served as Sgt. for Combat Arms Forward Recon Team in the U.S Army – this after obtaining his Master’s degree in Engineering Management from the University of Texas. In this post, Brian incorporates each of these past experiences into an insightful commentary on the nature of exploratory testing. Enjoy!

In the U.S. Army the branch of the Cavalry Scouts are known as the “Eyes of the Battlefield.” Their mission is to provide forward reconnaissance and relay critical information about the enemy to the commanders. This information consists of enemy strength, threat level, location, and so on. The commanders can then base their decisions and strategy on this mission-critical information.

During software application development projects, like the Cavalry Scout, today’s Quality Engineers are the “Eyes of the Battlefield.” Through the techniques of exploratory testing these engineers are able to work in unfamiliar and sometime hostile environments, quickly diagnosing the situation and providing reports concerning the quality of the application and its mission readiness capability.

Instead of providing information about enemy strength, the quality engineers are more concerned with the number and location of defects, their severity level, and the impact to the application. With this information, the technical managers can base their decisions and strategy to ensure the product is delivered on time, in budget, and with acceptable quality.

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In the second installment of our “Testing the Limits” series, we sat down with Rosie Sherry, founder of the Software Testing Club, to discuss the state of the profession, advice for QA beginners, “flash mob” testing and much more.

uTest: Where did you get the idea for the Software Testing Club?

RS: It was fairly simple really: I wanted a place to meet like-minded software testing professionals. Everything else out there at the time (this was 2 years ago) didn’t meet this need at all. I was doing a fair amount of blogging on software testing then, and so starting a community seemed like the next logical step.

uTest: Considering the growth of the community over the past few years, have your expectations changed?

RS: My expectations have definitely changed – they had to. For instance, I have stopped new members from joining for free since that model is now completely unsustainable. Like I said, I never expected to have created a community this large. I’d prefer something much smaller where we can give members the attention they deserve, but we’re obviously not going to turn anyone away. If you’re interested in software testing, you’re welcome in our community.

uTest: Based on your observations, what is the most contested debate in the field of software testing today?

RS: The biggest ongoing debate right now is software testing certification. A lot of people maintain that some companies/people put too much emphasis on the certification process, and that much of what is learned deals with how to pass an exam, rather than learning true testing skills. It’s definitely a lively debate with many viewpoints, so I’m not going to get too deep into it right now.

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Beta software tends to frighten Big Business. They’re skeptical of the phrase “almost done,” and for good reason. They demand a finished product. There are very few exceptions to this.

Take the recent news from Google as an example. A few days ago, the company finally removed the “beta” tag from Gmail and several other apps. Most people didn’t realize Gmail was still in beta (or what beta meant, for that matter) and most people didn’t care. So why bother with the change? This article from The New York Times explains why:

Practically speaking, the change will mean precious little to Gmail’s millions of users. But it could help Google’s efforts to get the paid version of its package of applications, which includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs and other products, adopted inside big companies. Corporate technology managers tend to shy away from beta products, and Google wants to remove any barriers to adoption that it can.

And there you have it: Although the meaning of beta has changed slightly, the perception of it hasn’t. Even though Gmail was essentially a completed product, with tons of great features and no major usability/functional issues, the beta perception was preventing them selling it to the larger companies.  It might not be fair, but it’s true.

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Hi uTesters – Matt Johnston here.  I wanted to quickly introduce myself and let you know that I’ve joined the uTest team as VP of Marketing.  Much of my background is in building and marketing marketplaces, so the uTest concept appealed to me immediately.  And my first few weeks here have further raised my expectations for what we’re building together.

Anyone who’s been around software or web projects knows that testing is the end of the whip.  After the scope finally stops creeping; after the developers have churned out the code; after the schedule has slipped repeatedly; it’s the testing phase that often absorbs the hit.  uTest and our community enable companies to do all of the above and still release high-quality web, desktop and mobile apps on time.  That’s incredibly powerful.

We’re going to have a lot of exciting stuff coming in 2009 that will attract more great customers and testing projects, as well as continuing to build our community of talented testing professionals.  Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting on a regular basis, as well as joining our testers in the forums.  If you have any ideas or feedback that you want to share with me – positive or negative – I’d love to hear it.  You can drop me a comment here or email me at mattj [at] utest.com.