© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
Perception is Reality!TMF October 2009
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
Testers Perception• Testing is considered a major area for
improvement in many organisations• And yet, we still feel undervalued?
– We ‘battle’ to get our message across– We continue to improve communications
skills – We obtain certification for greater credibility– We strive for earlier exposure to
stakeholders and management
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
Others Perception• ‘Testing’ slows my project down,
costs too much money and we still have faults in production!
• Still testers ask for more funding, education, people, and so on…..
• Testers give me lots of data, but can’t tell me if it’s OK to go live or even if they’ve finished testing!
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
So What?• OK, so I paraphrase and polarise to
make a point• I hear this all the time though• How much of this sounds familiar to
you?• So, how did we get here?
– If we can understand this question maybe we can find another way
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
Firstly…..• Most people go to work to do a good
job, not to make life difficult for testers• Most people have a focus on making
progress, moving forward, and enhancing the business to the best of their ability
• If others disagree with us, maybe they have a point!
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
My Perception of Testing History
When life was simple!• Mainframes ruled• Developers tested their code
thoroughly– Or they’d lose days out of their schedule
• Test environments were realistic• Project budgets included test activity
Many of today’s senior managers ‘grew up’ in this environment
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
My Perception of Testing History
Then things got harder!• Distributed architecture• Integration with multiple systems• Distributed teams• Test environments not representative• Etc, etc, etc…..• Quality suffered:
– Creation of dedicated tester roles– Independent testing– Testing suppliers, test centres, a whole industry!– Developers given ‘permission’ to abdicate responsibility for
testing
Testing budgets created but project budgets not reduced!
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
My Perception of Testing History
Original view of test maturityMulti-disciplined team
Independent Testers
Specialist testers within the team
New Multi-disciplined team
?
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
And Today!• Did we create a monster?• Is the perception of others our fault? • Are we following the original test
maturity model?– Agile has multi-disciplined teams– Most organisations I talk to are keen to
integrate testers within teams rather than have them independent now
– Are we resisting the inevitable?
© 2009, Confidential WMHL Ltd
Where to Next?
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