Rethinking the Role of Testers
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This document discusses the need to rethink the role of testers in agile and structured projects. It argues that changes in business demands and development practices are squeezing testers and that many current testing roles and skills may disappear. Specifically, it predicts that half of onshore testing roles will be eliminated in 5 years. It recommends testers focus on more strategic roles like business analysis, requirements management, and assurance rather than traditional testing tasks.
Rethinking the Role of Testers
- 1. Rethinking the Role of Testers in Agile and Structured Projects Paul Gerrard paul@gerrardconsulting.com Twitter: @paul_gerrard Web: gerrardconsulting.com Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 1
- 2. Theme: Changes in our business demand a re-think of where testing fits in systems projects Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 2
- 3. Health Warning! I‟m going to generalise quite a lot because I‟m talking about the market in general. YOU may be an exception; these trends are happening outside testing Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 3
- 4. (Why) is a re-think required? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 4
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- 7. gerrardconsulting.com - some stats • Even after 15 years, the IEEE 829 „sample test plan‟ is the most popular download on our site (1434 per month) • Was it such a good paper or are people stuck in the 70s/80s? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 7 Assurance
- 8. Old style formality hasn‟t advanced • Countless books available • 150,000+ certified testers • Conferences, gatherings, forums, SIGs all over the world • But certification seems to have more critics than supporters these days – Beginners are put on courses to get the tick-in-box – Experienced folk don‟t usually have a good thing to say about certification – Its an easy target. Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 8 Assurance
- 9. The new testing squeeze • Developers are beginning to take test-first, unit-testing, continuous integration very seriously (at last) • Better testing up-front (what we‟ve always wanted) – More stable software sooner – Functional/structural coverage „upstream‟ • But do better developer practices reduce the demand for system testers? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 9 Assurance
- 10. The new testing squeeze 2 • Larger/structured projects treat testing as a factory process (to be offshored mostly) • Promoting standards and the certified way is consistent with factory processes • But the same old, bad old attitudes prevail: – Anyone can test, so do it on the cheap • Offshoring leaves certified, unskilled testers without a role – maybe its for the best? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 10 Assurance
- 11. The new testing squeeze 3 • Some Agile projects squeeze testers out completely – the developers and product owners can test, can‟t they? • More often, testers are coerced into being eyes/ears of the stakeholder • This is a good thing but… – Is it testing? Can our testers, test managers cope? – Agile testing = Test Assurance in the small? – A different set of skills are required. Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 11 Assurance
- 12. Agile is here to stay • Many people are still waiting for Agile to just „go away‟ – it won‟t • A certified generation of testers rely on: – Having time to do „a good job‟ whatever that is – Specifications, requirements (available and stable) – Tabulated test cases, test procedures – Test design techniques that rely on perfect specs. – Test management tools that support practices dating back to the 60s • But Agile is getting all the attention and it simply doesn‟t work this way. Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 12 Assurance
- 13. A methodological shift… • There seems to be a methodological shift from staged to iterative and now „continuous‟ • Just as companies seem to be coming to terms with Agile… • They are now being invited to consider continuous „Specification by Example‟ approaches • Specification by example promotes a continual process of specification, exampling, test-first, and continuous integration • Where does the tester fit here? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 13 Assurance
- 14. Specification by example • SBE promises much: – Consistent requirements, stories/examples tests and code for the lifetime of a product – Extremely rapid end-to-end turnaround – 24hours – CI is the heartbeat, life-support and early warning system • Of course, workflow, user experience and end- to-end testing are required • But these can be managed by business analysts, UX experts and the stakeholder community. Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 14 Assurance
- 15. The testing „crunch‟ • Testing is being squeezed: – From the „low-value‟ norm of unskilled teams… – To upstream, business-savvy, workflow-oriented, UX-aware testing experts, with new tools • BAs who can test… or testers who can BA • How many of the current generation of testers and test managers will cope with this change? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 15 Assurance
- 16. „The purpose of testing is to locate defects‟ ? • This stood us in good stead in the 80sand 90s • But stakeholders (all of them) know that avoiding defects is better than finding them – Standard test approaches are good at providing the documentation (sort of) but are an inefficient way of detecting defects – Exploration is effective but happens at the end • “Let‟s take requirements more seriously, let‟s get the devs to test, let‟s offshore the paperwork” • Testers need to understand they are in the information business. Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Slide 16 Assurance
- 17. Predictions Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 17
- 18. #1 Half of the current onshore testing community will see their job disappear in the next five years. Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 18
- 19. #2 Business test planning will become part of up- front analysis and design (where it should be) Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 19
- 20. #3 Functional unit testing driven by stories (mostly) Structural testing defined by developers Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 20
- 21. #4 Requirements and business models will become „executable‟ through stories and examples Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 21
- 22. #5 Some system tests and most acceptance tests will be model-driven (models created by analysts) Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 22
- 23. #6 Business models plus stories and examples will increasingly be „contractual‟ Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 23
- 24. #7 System Test detailing – the creation of executable manual tests will be outsourced Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 24
- 25. #8 Manual system test execution will be outsourced (and in the cloud) Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 25
- 26. #9 Maybe half of all acceptance tests will be automated in CI… …forever Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 26
- 27. #10 New tools will emerge that manage requirements, stories, scenarios, workflows, prototyping and testing Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 27
- 28. Recommendation Take a long, hard look at where your future lies Which of the following suits you? Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 28
- 29. #1 Upstream with stakeholders and analysis – providing testing and assurance skills to business Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 29
- 30. #2 Managing the Business Requirements knowledge base; analysing business impact of change Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 30
- 31. #3 Providing an assurance function to teams, projects, and business stakeholders (“testmaster”) Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 31
- 32. #4 Managing the information flows to/from development teams and the CI process Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 32
- 33. #5 Managing/monitoring offshore resources who detail and execute tests Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 33
- 34. Shameless Plug Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 34
- 35. Business Story Method™ The Method, to be published in booklet form in early December, supports this vision Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 35
- 36. Our Story Platform implements the Business Story Method Maelscrum for Agile Business Story Manager for Structured Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 36
- 37. Want to evaluate Business Story Manager or Maelscrum? Visit… maelscrum.com businessstorymanager.com Thanks once again Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 37
- 38. Rethinking the Role of Testers in Agile and Structured Projects Paul Gerrard paul@gerrardconsulting.com Twitter: @paul_gerrard Web: gerrardconsulting.com Intelligent Testing, Improvement and Assurance Slide 38