Software Testing Blog

In part II of our interview with Jon Bach, we get his thoughts on testing metrics; common tester stereotypes; the merit of certifications; the testing blogosphere; inventing Twitter in 1986, as well some rapid fire Q&A. We think you’ll like it. By the way, did you miss part I of the interview?

uTest: You have some great tips on how to handle bloated testing numbers and statistics: “Any number, any statistic is like software. It can be tested.” What other tips can you give testers when it comes to having the courage, diplomacy and patience to slow things down and get to the truth?

JB:  For me, the magic words that often make me feel more courageous, diplomatic and patient are: “I have been fooled before.”

No one will argue with that because it’s true.  Scammers often confess that the hardest person to fool is somebody who says “I can be fooled.”  So many times I’ve been so sure I was right just to meet someone who convinced me differently, sometimes in a matter of seconds.  So now say “I could be wrong”, and use other safety language like: “it could be”, “it seems like”, “it looks as if” and “maybe…”  That way, I don’t feel stupid when I’m shown refuting evidence to my claim.  If you practice that, chances are good that you will appear to be a kung fu master who, after having floored your 50th assailant with your skills, slowly backs out of the room on guard for the 51st.

Remember that testing is a craft.  It involves thinking about how things might be different.  Remembering to say “I have been fooled before” is consistent with that spirit.

uTest:  Testing certs: worthwhile or window dressing?

JB:  The only thing worthwhile about them is the debate they provoke.  Window dressing is an apt metaphor because it’s only meant to enhance a window’s *appearance*.  When there’s a flood or a storm or some other strong test of the window, the dressing often gets destroyed. Outside of the flood, people may prefer the look of the dressing; I just want to be a stronger window.  Passing multiple choice tests about so-called “best practices” don’t do that for me.

uTest: What are some of the blogs/sites that you read to stay on top of the latest QA trends and news?

JB: I’m mostly on Twitter because it leads to links to testing videos, newsletters, news stories, trivia, thoughts, questions, blogs and tools that I haven’t seen before.  For example, yesterday I learned about Scott Berkun and his excellent technology blog, Ken Robinson’s fantastic TED talk on rethinking education, the interesting notion of a testing “playbook”, and the Ignite Conferences (a series of 5-minute talks).  Thank you, tweeps!

The top 10 I follow are: James, Jim Benson, Lanette Creamer, Michael Bolton, Scott Hanselman, Elisabeth Hendrickson, Adam Goucher, Paul Boal, Steve Smith, and yes, I have to say, uTest.   All of these sources turned me on to such a wide variety of sources to edify myself that it’s no longer just a handful of blogs to read now and then.  Blogwise, I have to say James (of course), Scott Berkun, Jim Benson, Joel Spolsky, and Lanette Creamer are most worth my time.

uTest: Testers come from a wide range of backgrounds (and have a wide range of skills) yet they are often talked about as if they were all the same. In your experience, what’s the biggest misconception or stereotype of testers?

JB: That we like to “break stuff.”

Nah, we’re detectives… we FIND stuff.  It’s a treasure hunt, not a smash factory.  In fact, our reports are “findings”, like a scientist or an investigator would call them.

One of the first lessons in my career was my favorite — that software comes to testers *already broken*.  I like that.  I didn’t write the code that broke it (unless I did, like a unit test or a keyword-driven script).

Humans are tested the same way.  When we go on a job interview, the interviewer doesn’t “break” us, they find weaknesses and vulnerabilities that are already there in our programming.  The good news is that we can test ourselves before going into the interview — to find and address issues beforehand so we can show them our best value.

uTest: What qualities, characteristics and experiences do you look for when hiring testers?

JB: At Quardev as a hiring test manager, it is these: cautious, critical, curious, friendly, diplomatic, honest, insightful, thoughtful.  I want candidates to tell me about a cool bug they found, or give me their best test idea.  I want them to make me think. I want them to inspire me and make *me* curious*, even though the thing I give them to test when they come in has been tested by over 500 different testers over the last 10 years.  I’m not naive enough to think I’ve seen it all, because one in 20 testers will find something new or will put ideas together in ways I hadn’t thought of.

uTest: What advice would you give to new testers who want to stand out from the crowd and become tomorrow’s testing leaders/gurus/pundits?

JB: Give a talk. Practice in front of a high school class. Take an idea or a strong opinion you have and actually learn more about it, then present it.  Do a lightning talk at the closest Ignite Conference to you.  Read a testing book and email the author your comments.  Comment on blogs and sign your real name.  Question the gurus and the pundits. Call them out if you think their work is crap. Talk about your failures.  Tell us your *experience*, no matter how amateur you think it may be.  Could be you just invented the next cool method to try. It was like that for me with Open-Book Testing when I was on Microsoft Flight Sim.  It was a half-baked idea I had and now it’s blossomed into something that I keep in my intellectual briefcase to show prospective clients one way to teach, guide, and evaluate test teams.

uTest: One of the hottest areas of growth that we’ve seen at uTest is in the area of mobile app testing.  What unique challenges does mobile present to a testing manager?

JB: Finding the right minutes/text plan?  Those really add up when you’re testing!

Actually, I think uTest is in a great position to address the biggest challenge I would face if I was managing a mobile project right now – configuration testing.  I would love to have 1,000 testers at my disposal doing a variety of risk-based exploratory charters on their devices with all kinds of third-party apps installed, making calls on different service plans, texting, taking pictures, playing video, Tweeting, browsing, and maybe doing all of those actions at once from places around the world.

By the way, I read Patrick Copeland’s answer when you asked him the same question and really think he summed up the challenges – diversity of devices, input-output simulations, carrier networks — things that you’d have to be very technical, very savvy, and very organized to test.  But on top of all that, there’s the challenge of if you actually found a bug.  With all of those variables I mentioned, where is the real bug?  You may be just reporting the failure, so you’d have to have some good debugging and diagnostic tools to help you be confident that your concern was represented to those who could (or would) take action on it.

uTest:  If Al Gore hadn’t invented the interwebs, what would you be doing today (answers related to software or technology not allowed!)?

JB: I’d likely be a best-selling author, have a full head of hair, and would have retired at 18 because I would have invented Twitter in 1986 instead of messing around on the Apple II for hours on end.  Before Twitter, before Windows, before the Apple II, our family had the “chain letter” – a packet of letters sent from one member of my family to another, adding new content with each mailing until all 6 of us had caught up with each other’s news in the circle.  When the oldest person got it, they would add new content and mail it to the youngest, and round it would go again, replacing old content with new.  It was a great system and I would have turned that into Twitter as a system of snail-mailed 3×5 cards to everyone on the planet.

—————————————–

uTest: Rapid-fire Jon Bach pop trivia – Last book read?  Last movie read?  Last concert attended?  Favorite sport and team?  Favorite band or album?  Browser of choice?  What kind of cell phone are you carrying?  Blu-ray or DVD?  Paper or plastic?

JB: Last book read? You mean cover-to-cover, not skimming?  Ugh.  Oh!  Last night to my three year old: “How do Dinosaurs Say Good Night?”, after which, I dove back into “Extreme Programming Explored.” Actually, I think I was over-tired last night and got it backwards, which is why I suspect she woke up this morning talking about refactoring, code smells, and collective code ownership and why I dreamt about being a Gallimimus.

Last movie read? The screenplay for “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” by Goldman.

Last movie seen: the unfortunate and annoying “Where the Wild Things Are”

Concert: Sting, 1989 in Portland, Maine;

Sport: Football (Seattle Seahawks);

Album: Rush, Subdivisions;

Browser: Firefox;

cell: iPhone 3G;

DVD;

Plastic, because at least they spice up the boring look of those landfills!