YOU Are Responsible For Your Testing Future
Software testing doesn’t have to suck, says Ben Kelly, the latest contributor to our guest blogger series. A resident of Tokyo, Japan, Ben has over seven years of software testing experience – including his time as a member of the uTest community. In his spare time, he practices Kendo and has represented Australia twice at the World Kendo Championships. He was a Jedi knight for approximately 1.5 seconds and sometimes writes about himself in the third person.
For more of Ben’s writings, you should go read his blog or follow him on Twitter.
***
A good friend and fellow tester, Jared Quinert said to me recently, “It’s important for testers to know their job doesn’t have to suck.” I’d never really looked at it from that angle before, but really I think it’s an important point to make. I think many people are sold a story about how testing is boring, repetitive drudgery that requires little skill. It’s bad enough that many of the people we interact with – programmers, project managers, BA’s – tend to believe this. The really sad thing is this line seems to be bought by so many people that would call themselves testers.
Receive spec, create traceability matrix, write scripts, execute scripts. Repeat. Apologize for not finding all the bugs. Promise to do better. Repeat. Orwell himself could not have written a bleaker, more dystopian view of the future.
No thanks.
I want to work in a place where the developers are up in arms if a project manager suggests shaving time off testing to meet a deadline. I want to work in a place where the BA’s demand that the testers help analyze risk during design. I want to work in a place where project managers and stakeholders listen intently when a tester says ‘I think there might be a problem here’…
Here’s the thing though – it’s up to you and me to build that environment. It takes constant effort. It’s hard work. It’s challenging and sometimes it’s disheartening. You’ll make mistakes. People will misunderstand you, doubt you, sometimes oppose you. If you have a mind to try though, it can be one of the most rewarding things you ever do. Having a developer say to you ‘wow, thanks man. If that had gone to production, it would have been my neck on the block’ – that’s a massive win right there.
It starts with you – with your decision to hold yourself to a higher standard. That’s easy to say, but what does it mean? The specifics will be different for each person, but the gist is this: constantly develop your own skill as a tester and find ways to impress upon others the value of what you can do for them.
Start small. Do something every day to make yourself a better tester. Read testing blogs. Test something in your spare time. Understand that you’re not alone. Reach out. There is a world full of passionate, brilliant, experienced testers out there only too happy to share their knowledge with you. Words cannot express the value of such a community. You need but ask.
At work, build relationships with the people you work with. Speak to developers about what information helps them troubleshoot bugs. If you don’t know how to get it for them, ask if they can show you. Speak with project managers about how they process information so that when you’re writing your test reports, you can make it digestible. Talk to your fellow testers. What are they good at? What do they want to get better at? How can you help them get there? Do you have a customer support team? Spend time with them. What are users frustrated about? What patterns are there in the calls they get?
You may need to have some challenging conversations, resolve some misconceptions and set some boundaries. For example, by calling your team ‘Quality Assurance’ is management expecting you to somehow ensure that the product is bug free? Are they tracking tester effectiveness by counting bug numbers or some other bogus statistic? What can you find that is a better measure?
Possibly the most important thing in creating a brighter testing future is the ability to work with other passionate people – people who love testing. If the people making hiring/firing responsibilities aren’t hiring these people, ask to have input into the process. Help educate them as to what it is you need. Ask to be included in the interview process. If you can’t find motivated people with the skills you need, hire someone with a passion for learning and teach them, but I’ll tell you this for free, I value an empty seat much more highly than a seat filled with a muppet.
Let us, you and I, find ways to improve the things around us. You as testers probably have more influence over your fellow testers than your manager does. What can you do to inspire them to be better? It might be as simple as asking them to show you how they test something and offering your suggestions. It might be pointing them in the direction of a blog you found interesting. Small things can make such a big difference. Even if you’re not in a leadership position, lead from the front. Keep searching for ways to show people how it can be. Find ways to add value and make a difference. It doesn’t have to be a massive difference. Small differences over time. You’d be surprised how quickly these things can gain momentum.
It is time to find the courage to hold ourselves and each other to a higher standard.
If you don’t want to be a part of that, that’s okay. You can still do the entire craft of testing a favor. Just quit your job and make way for someone that deserves your place a lot more than you do. If you choose to be part of something bigger, then welcome.
Editor’s Note: If you would like to contribute to our guest blogger series, please email your ideas to marketing@utest.com.
I love the idea of taking small steps to make testing better, but I believe you are missing some important points. The value that testing and quality has at a company is not defined by those in testing alone. In fact, the practitioners are NOT the main problem from what I’m seeing, and our efforts alone need allies to make changes, especially at the larger companies. How do we convey the value of thoughtful testing? How to we show that it isn’t optional when often the best work means we allow the developers to shine, but you hear nothing from or about testing, because there are no dramatic bugs. That can lead to the misconception that since they aren’t hearing of quality problems, perhaps it is safe to cut there. Outsource more jobs. Just don’t do the testing, or accept more risk and let the users test.
I bring this up only because I care so much about the survival of creative, balanced, successful testing for software. I want using software to be a great experience. This year many of the best and most talented testers I know are out of work, and all I see are open jobs for people to create automation and make testing tools. My peers are going to interviews where their entire value is how they code on a white board, and they aren’t asked even ONE testing question for a testing job! It concerns me. I know we have to start somewhere.
If you are a test manager, I urge you, please ask for a balanced strategy. Please hire someone with testing talent, not just coding talent. Please ask testing questions in your interviews for testing positions. Please don’t accept a CS degree as a substitute for testing talent.
I want to join the cause and make a difference here, but it feels like shouting into the wind. Any suggestions?
Hi Lanette. I deliberately steered clear of talking about how the value of software testing and especially quality is defined because that is a whole other kettle of fish and deserving of several articles on its own.
Of course there are wider issues than those within the sphere of software testing. I feel your pain, but the issues you highlight, whilst being real issues, are not what I wanted to focus on with this article. For new testers still finding their feet, testers who perhaps have not yet begun to explore what the software testing community has to offer – what responsibilities to these people have to their craft? For people who think software testing is a finite sum of knowledge/set of practises – I want to challenge these misconceptions
I want to highlight that being a great software tester involves constant self education and effort that goes beyond the 8-6 of your job. It’s not a ‘ra-ra testing’ article so much as an exhortation to clean house first. It did include some suggestions as to what you can do – one of those being to build relationships between you and your non-testing co-workers.
To address the points you raise. As far as the interviews you describe go – if you are not being asked testing questions in an interview for a testing position, then that presents you with a fantastic opportunity to ask your own questions about software testing at that company. I have had these sorts of interviews myself. In each case, I have done my best to show that there is more to good software testing than being able to cut code. Try and determine what people want to know when they ask a question. I’ve had some success phrasing answers ‘you’re probably looking for answer X. Conversely (or additionally), I think Y because…’
Even if the person interviewing you doesn’t have a lot of experience in testing, you can still open their eyes in such a way that they can see that value you could bring to the position. If they can’t, then you probably don’t want to work there anyway. Remember, while they are interviewing you, you are also interviewing them. Being prepared to say ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make a positive difference at this company’ and walk away from a role that is not right for you gives you a much different perspecting than going begging, hat in hand.
I used to believe that testers, when doing a good job, were invisible. I don’t anymore. A great tester (or team) is one that goes beyond presenting information and presents insight. It’s part of that building of relationships between people. You have to be able to show your value in a way that matters *to them*. Your value needs to be something that they value. When you can do this consistently then your work will not be invisible, it will be demanded.
How do you convey the value of thoughtful testing? Depends on who you’re talking to. To a developer it might be things like being able to talk to them about why they used a particular data structure or sending them error logs with timestamps that match the error you found or otherwise giving them something meaningful.
What about your Ops/Admin team? Talk to them about software config management, environment management, version control, CI. Let them know the sort of things that concern you when shifting updates between environments. Let them know you’re interested in what they’re doing.
Same goes for BAs, Project managers, end-users, sales reps and so on. Talk to them. Find out what matters to them and think about how you can do something positive for them. As a software tester, you’re an information hub. You have the ability to gathe information from many different sources and decide how that information might be useful to other people. Something you think is innocuous might be vital to someone else in a way you hadn’t thought of. Keep the information flowing.
This is but one facet of the testing diamond to be polished. There is plenty you can do. I think that begins keeping your own saw sharp.
Great article!!
I think testers have so much responsibilities of making the software less defect free which they should be proud of.
Quote:
“I want to work in a place where the developers are up in arms if a project manager suggests shaving time off testing to meet a deadline. I want to work in a place where the BA’s demand that the testers help analyze risk during design. I want to work in a place where project managers and stakeholders listen intently when a tester says ‘I think there might be a problem here’…”
You want to work @ Microsoft!
Hi Faroq,
Thanks for reading.
Here’s a question for you.
What can a software tester do to make software defect free?
or even
What action can a software tester take to improve software quality?
On their own, there is nothing that a software tester can do to change the software itself. It is the insights from the information we provide that lead to others making decisions to change the software or not.
It sounds to me like you’re talking about testers being responsible for software quality – that’s dangerous ground to tread and not what I’m getting at at all.
We have a responsibility to be as useful as we can possibly be; to cultivate helpful relationships with the people we work with; to educate ourselves and actively improve how we work. Do you see the difference?
Dave,
Yeah there are some companies that are genuinely like this. I’ve been lucky enough to work for one. What I’d really love is for that to be the norm rather than the exception.