How much testing do we need?

Listen everybody, I keep reading about all these people who go to conferences, they are noticeable speakers, have something to say about QA and I appreciate that.

I wish I was like that, but is it really worth it?

I can tell you right now that I wouldn't like to leave everything aside and just go for one week in London, for example. Not to mention the work and time you have to spend preparing prior to that: think about a subject that might interest people, do a nice presentation, buy a ticket, book a hotel room and go through the stress of travelling 9 hours just to present to a bunch of people interested in QA. Yeah, I agree, there is the satisfaction that somebody looks-up at you, asks you questions, you feel important to share your knowledge.

That is cool, I know the feeling, but really, how much more there is to say about QA?

In my opinion, QA can be reduced to a few sentences:
- test if you have a budget
- test intelligently if you have a bigger budget
- be prepared to give a QA status that will emphasize how well you successfully implemented with a limited budget
- people care only up to a point about QA, as long as the application works in production it doesn't matter if you had 30 defects or 100 defects.
- does anybody care that the application sucks? NO. People will continue to use it the way they can.
- does anybody care if I get frustrated while I use this application? NO.
Because in the end we had a successful implementation. And that's all there is about QA.

Somebody must be happy today...

I got a very good news today: one of my trainees got a job as a software tester!!!!

I knew this would happen, it was only a matter of time.

Congratulations, B.!

Photo credits: Place light-having ideas - thanks!

He worked hard for the money.....

...he worked hard for the money....

Just had a conversation with a fellow-tester the other day around what a tester gets to do for the money.

I was telling him that a friend of mine works as a senior QA and wants to change to a QA lead role because he’s tired of knowing more than most of the managers who’s worked with and not having the authority to take decisions. Another reason was that he would be paid much more money and he thought it was worth it.

Harold told me he is very confident that he will get a QA lead position because his resume is impressive, he’s worked with major financial companies and he also has some experience working as a Business Analyst, which was definitely an asset.

Then my fellow-tester asked me if Harold knew what a QA lead position involved in reality. Project managers will come and haunt him for statuses every morning and afternoon, he would have to write plans and strategies in different formats because one manager likes Visio and another one likes Word; then he would have to justify decisions to people who don’t know anything about testing and sometimes he would even have to do the project manager’s job! Not to mention being a “delivery slave”, meaning being on the barricades, helping with implementations while others have a good night sleep!
…….

I realized that I have to have a discussion with Harold and find out if he knew all this stuff. Did he know what he was getting into?

........
I’ll let you know what Harold did.

Photo Credits: Katie Dureault on flickr.com - thanks!

Being and Testing

In testing everything is about being logic, organized, critical and seeing everything that’s wrong. And that could be anything.

Just the other day my colleague who is a developer/QA/BA and a friend of mine comes to me and says:
- You know, I made this dress myself! And she looks at me very proudly.
- Wow, I didn’t know you could do that, I said.
- Yes. When I was in the university I used to sew pants, dresses…with this one I still have to properly do the hem, it’s not quite finished yet…
- Well, C., I can see that the sides are longer than the mid section; did you do that on purpose? I said.
She wanted to say something but she hesitated and she just looked at me smiling. Then I realized that I could have shut up, why did I have to make that remark?

But what can I do, I am a tester, I see everything and I can't shut up. Or at least, that’s the reason I like to give when I put my foot into my mouth.

I was reading an article the other day (sorry, I don’t have the link, but will look for it) where the author says that after being a tester for a while you develop this habit of looking for errors and the negative all the time. And this reflects in your relationship with people, you’re analysing too much, you’re criticyzing all the time, you find faults, or you try to find the “root cause” of the problem.

And I thought ‘Oh, my, that’s very true’, I do that all the time, just ask my husband:)))))

I wasn’t like that when I started my career in testing but now I have to admit that I have a very developed sense of observation and I can spot mistakes or inconsistencies right away.

What about your sense of observation? Can you spot any errors in my article? :))

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Photo credits: Dan Zen on flickr.com - thank you!