Finnish testing competence in the future

– The view of the testing community Version for Testing Day (Testauspäivä) 2014-06-03.

Matti Vuori, Tampere University of Technology 2014-06-24

Contents 1/5

Introduction 7

About the future... 9

A good future in a profession 10

Literacy of the future 11

What did the people say? 12

Colour code of the graphs drawn from the responses 13

Disclaimer 14

Warning: Not looking for super people 15

For orientation: common views about the future 16

Attitude and character 17

Reflections 18

Goals of work – Why-> What -> How 20

Reflections 21

What does the tester concentrate on? 23

Contents 2/5

Reflections 24

Business knowhow 25

Reflections 26

Business knowhow 27

Acting in the organisation 31

Reflections 32

Acting in projects 33

Reflections 34

Adaptation to contexts 35

Reflections 36

Breath of work profile 38

Reflections 39

Competence palette 40

Reflections 41

Contents 3/5

Nature of testing competence 43

Reflections 44

Competence of the ICT world 45

Reflections 46

Deeper understanding 47

Effectiveness and efficiency − choices 49

Intelligent efficiency 50

Reflections 51

Methods and isms 54

Reflections 55

Nature of systems that are tested 56

Reflections 57

Communication skills 58

Reflections 59

Contents 4/5

Central things to test 60

Reflections 61

Computer aided testing 62

Reflections 63

Work environments 64

Reflections 65

Test environments 66

Reflections 67

Sources of competences 68

Reflections 69

Polarisation of jobs 70

Reflections 71

Specificity of role and title 72

Reflections 73

Contents 5/5

Changing of jobs 75

Testing services in companies 76

Reflections 77

Testing service providers 78

Nature of companies 79

Reflections 80

Turning point of society 81

Reflections 82

10 top things 83

For reading 84

Introduction 1/2

• How the members of the Finnish testing community – the professionals

of the field – regard as the central testing competences in the future?

• A survey was made in spring of 2014 to TestausOSY

(www.testausosy.fi) members. The e-mail list of the community (980

addresses when the survey starter) the community's LinkedIn group

(820 members) were used as channels. Both populations are mainly the

same people.

• A survey about the future challenging, it was expected that the number

of respondents would not be large. However, a high number would not

be essential, but bringing out the views of people who really had thought

about it. There indeed were on 13 respondents, which matched the

expectations.

• As could be expected, the ones who answered were very experienced

in the field, 14 years (a scale 3 … more than 30 years) on average.

When they has seen the history, she can more easily see the

trajectories into the future.

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Introduction 2/2

• The questioning was simple:

• What would a good tester be in your opinion good tester in Finland

in the year 2030? What are all things that she does? What things is

she good at, what can she especially do? What does she

concentrate on?

• Rationalise a little, for example by giving your view on the tester's

future operating environment? (Such as organisational practices,

tools, etc...). Frame as needed – tell for example in what domain you

see the tester you describe.

• Survey used open ended questions, because purpose was not to get

selections from a ready-made list of possible answers, but to give room

for new thoughts and questions.

• Even though the survey used term "osaaminen" (skills & know-

how), it is really more about competence, where the essential

characteristic is the focus of skills: what needs to be done?

Understanding that is a key issue.

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About the future...

• The world changes, but in the development of activity we often repair

problems of the old world, because new things emerge sneaking and

unnoticed.

• Therefore we must open our eyes for the future and genuinely rethink

what things are done and how they are done.

• Testing reacts to the changes in its operating environment, but also in its

core new things are continuously learned – the current wisdoms will at

some point o seem old-fashioned and silly.

• There are many different viewpoints about the future and the world Is

also full of contradictions.

• When we think of our national success, we must not blindly copy

phenomena, activity, principles or practices that are happening

elsewhere, but we must find unique characteristics and strengths.

• We have a permission to create our future.

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A good future in a profession

• Responding with the best ways to changes in the operating

environment.

• Getting the wished results.

• The future Is motivating, fruitful and interesting.

• Support the characteristics of ”good work”.

• Thinking of different scenarios and aiming at the best ones.

• Deal in a smart way with even the unpleasant developments.

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Literacy of the future

• Trends. The megatrends of the world and smaller trends.

• How the world changes. In which direction do we want to change

Finland?

• Cumulating competence.

• Identification of hype, seeing through it and over it.

• Differentiating of marketing and real needs.

• Reflecting about one's own experiences – from where we have come

and where we are going.

• Ability to identify changes – contexts, development stages, needs, the

objectives, attitudes, ways to act, tools...

• Criticism of the common sense: rethinking is not always intuitive (cf.

Lea: how tailored manufacturing could be more efficient than a series

manufacturing.)

• Thinking about what is being thought about and what is not.

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What did the people say?

• Each respondent has a slightly different story.

• They all told their own hypothesis, views to the possibilities, what

might be coming.

• Influencing this are the respondents' domains. That produces

contextual understanding about what things are those that specially

competent people are needed for.

• For example in the making of embedded systems different things

are emphasised than in the making of tailored information systems.

• The next pages will present diagrams drawn directly from what the

people said. In them, the views of various people are combined by

themes and the diagrams have been added with some derived benefit

or explanations.

• Between the diagram slides there are some summarising, reflecting

slides.

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Colour code of the graphs drawn from the responses

Green background = Results

Blue background = direct people's telling

Grey background = Added explanations

Therefore

Disclaimer

• There are no silver bullets for handling the future.

• There is a large number of relevant viewpoints.

• In this survey and slide set we will tackle on a part

of them.

• And in this presentation today only about a part of

them are presented.

• Of other things, more will be said later, somewhere

else...

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Warning: Not looking for super

people

• When we hear about a need for expanding competences, one

must remember that it is unrealistic to expect any kind of super

people in testing or anywhere else.

• Instead:

• It is good to have versatile, broad competence. One does not

need to hide her skills. There is a need for all skills we have.

The employers should support versatile competences.

• One must not always have deep understanding about things

or advanced skills to do related actions. It suffices when one

understands things and what experts do with them. Then one

can support the activities by own actions.

• The core competences of testing are the things that

differentiate testers from others. Developing those is the most

important thing. But even the core evolves…

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For orientation: common views about

the future

• The speed and agility of product development increase.

• Dynamism of the operating environment. Existence is at stake

continuously.

• Instead of large corporations smaller companies and startups

are essential.

• Challenging technology.

• Growing requirements.

• Integrating systems.

• A need to understands more business, or the real needs of the

customers.

• Therefore: competence is emphasised, a need to put all

available brains to use. Companies must find own

practices that are the best for them. Everyone must be

ready for anything all the time.

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Attitude and character

Gives strong added value, leadership, being grown-ups

Proud of occupations (2)

Competence, ethics, action in order

Wants to be a holistic ambassador of

quality Quality leadership

Thinking, experimenting, bold,

curious

Is [a genuine] professional

Likes problem solving

Social

Will to learn

Other added value than testing

Does not even in a hurry resort to making

wrong kind of compromises Is

quality

Therefore

Enables in team

Enables

Reflections 1/2

• Feeling of tester's own professional identity is essential professionalism and

the added value produced through it.

• This no matter what the professional special areas and practices would be.

• This is emphasised because in the fragmentation and chaos of the world,

clarity at personal level is needed – as it may not always exist in in processes

or in culture.

• Identity produces understanding, clarity, potential for passion towards work and

that in turn gives many essential benefits – a will to do excellent work, to

develop practices, to take responsibility.

• A central part of identity is ethics. See (in Finnish):. http://www.mattivuori.net/julkaisuluettelo/liitteet/Tester's_eettiset_periaatteet.pdf

• That is also helped by passion. See (in Finnish):

http://www.mattivuori.net/julkaisuluettelo/liitteet/tyo_intohimona.pdf

• Identity does not mean limitations to the work profile (”I don't do that”), but the

opposite: when the goals of own role are understood (in a context of shared

goals), one can find new means. Still: one needs to protect own focus when it

is in danger to get lost.

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Reflections 2/2

• What is quality leadership?

• "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." –

management guru Drucker.

• In the old time it would have been psychological leadership by top

management: the company makes quality, it Is important, don't do

compromises, think about the customer. A leader gives vision, shows

example, maintains morale. Sometimes a company might have had a quality

manager, but her job is more measurement, reporting, process improvement

– not leadership.

• It is needed in teams (product teams, all startup) viewpoint that maintains the

processes, gets people to concentrate on the right things, helps people

identify quality problems, helps improve things, reminds all about factors that

are important for success, maintains memory of past pitfalls, maintains

dialogue about quality, helps people learn about quality and how to produce

it.

• It requires orientation, motivation, vision, inner flame, competence... From

which roles / jobs could such be found?

• More important than previously and importance continues to increase.

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Goals of work – Why-> What -> How

Can perceive testing requirements

(Understands, what should be tested, what is important, what are the risks

Can perceive wholenesses (2)

Can question things Takes user's perspective

Finds relevant problems

Knows the background of the

test target

Can start immediately

Has no preoccupations about

work

Understands, why testing is done

Gives added value

Can support needs of business

Therefore

In changing environment

Reflections 1/2

• ”The previous world”:

• A technological world.

• Stable, manageable by doing the same things always more

accurately and better, things change slowly in a cumulating manner.

• Competences and competence needs evolve linearly.

• Big stories and one only truth.

• ”The new world”:

• A world of values and meaning.

• Business viewpoint, real product development.

• Unstable, chaotic.

• Systemic, various kinds of actors, need to understand wholes, no

local optimisations.

• Managed by doing new things differently than before.

• A world of big risks.

• Several different realities, with different rules.

• Organisations can (”may”) find their own style and ways – also in

testing. 21(84)

Reflections 2/2

• In the ”new world”, the most important question is ”why” – that is no longer

heard from a distant client, but the answer must be found by oneself, at each

level of activity.

• Based on that one can find out, ”what” should be done and finally ”how” and

”who".

• Therefore one must understand business, characteristics of systems, the

needs of various parties – and be able to question old thinking, because

everything changes.

• The world of systems has changed from technical design to real product

development and production of value than matches the needs.

• Business and needs are very contextual. The previous world of technology is

context free, based on mechanistic paradigms and ideals.

• One must identify what is needed and how things pay off to do NOW and

HERE.

• There will be an expansion to what kind of information is searched for – for

example A/B testing requires many kinds of new thinking and synergies of

competencies.

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What does the tester concentrate on?

Bringing unclear issues to discussion

End user point of view

added value: quality, focus, risk

management Assuring of value to

business

As early as possible in project

Testing has a purpose

Reflections

• Raising issues to discussion is important. Not only defects, but any

things that should be tackled. Sometimes those are issues that others

seem reluctant to face or are ignoring.

• If doing that becomes, team dynamically, a task for someone, it is

hard to think that she would be someone other than a tester.

• Unlike others, a tester has tools for that. Therefore the issues can be

raised in a fruitful way: there are facts, experiences, the ability to

analyse the information.

• Many core ideas of testing culminate in this task:

• Responsibility about quality.

• Producing information – making sure that people have the facts they

need for addressing the issues.

• Communication in a way that supports common goals.

• Collecting of facts to support decision making.

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Business knowhow

Understands why things are tested and what is expected of

testing

Business related knowledge much deeper than now

Knows the business domain

Each tester is an expert of her domain

(energy, finance, telecom etc.)

Knows customer's needs

Reflections

• Business competence must not be understood wrong. It is not about:

• Budget calculations.

• Understanding about product pricing.

• Becoming an economist.

• Throwing away ideas for gaining fast profits.

• Agreeing about everything with product managers.

• Misunderstandings are easy to make, because even the business

culture in Finland has been calculation oriented – but that changes

too, when the world changes...

• Instead, business competence is about understanding about things.

• One must not be able to do everything business related, but

understand the general state of things so that one can support

the right things.

• For example (next page): 26(84)

Business knowhow 1/4

• Business in general

• Understanding that this is not a game, but a matter of succeeding in

big things.

• How things are thought about in business?

• What is ”quality”?

• What are business risks like?

• How are businessmen different from product developers and

testers?

• What is the world of product manager / PO like? What does she do,

think, what pressures does she work under?

• About the viewpoints of other parties (in Finnish): ”Testaus

organisaatiossa – eri osapuolten näkökulmia laadunvarmistukseen

and testaamiseen” http://www.mattivuori.net/julkaisuluettelo/liitteet/nakokulmia_testaamiseen.pdf

• The whole of the activity, systems, ecosystems.

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Business knowhow 2/4

• Culture of the domain

• Generic nature of the domain – is it strict engineering or something

more free-form?

• What is the communication like– reports or chatting?

• Are they assurers or risk takers? What kind of things characterise

the domain?

• What are the customers like, what do they need?

• What are we sharp in and when are we not?

• Knowing the essential concepts and terms of the domain. What

things are so obvious that the customer does not even mention

them?

• The enablers and limitations of the domain. Legislation and

important standards.

• Ecosystems.

• In the context of national cultures, cultural skills and training are

often talked about. This is a similar area.

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Business knowhow 3/4

• The customer of testing – the business actor

• Central goals of business, the mission.

• What goals do the organisations, units and individuals have?

• Why does the customer need systems? What is their "beef"? How

do they use them? To what kind of operations, how do information

and money flow?

• What is important for the customers in their everyday? Is speed,

quality, comfort or safety (for example) above others?

• What is the use environment of the systems like, other systems?

• Understanding about risks related to schedules and taking systems

into use?

• What is essential in starting a new business (with an information

system)? What things will happen, what all must succeed, what

definitely must not fail?

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Business knowhow 4/4

• The systems that are developed and tested.

• What is their role in the business processes?

• Which functions and characteristics are really important when they are used

for business purposes? Where can compromises be made?

• What kinds of risks are there if systems do not work. What things could

cause interruption of business. What are information the security risks

(information, functions)?

• What kind of decisions are made about the system? What information is

needed for that? When is that information needed?

• What could be the problems, when the number of customers increases or

the volume of business grows?

• What kind of requirements are there about the systems. Does the law say

something? Are there product or process standards?

• Who knows more about things? What is the oracle of things or is there any?

• What kind of systems are usually used in the domain? How is their usual –

that is, expected – level (of quality)?

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Acting in the organisation

Agility in action

Can deal with different kinds of

people

Works effectively in the organisation

Gets results

Communication skills

Multicultural environment

Synergy of diverse people

Commitment

Global teams

Professional cultures

Bearing responsibility

Adapts immediately

Therefore

Therefore

Because Because

Reflections

• Many of the challenges of working in an organisation are similar than

for other occupational groups.

• Testers have a special role of bearing responsibility, because testing

must, in spite of everything, be a balancing force for various goals of

other parties.

• This is not a contradiction, but a necessary dialogical interaction for

common success.

• Ability to take responsibility is often thought to be a Finnish strength.

• In subcontracting – external or internal – the theme of dependable is

often raised. But the changes in the word change its nature:

• In subcontracting: Must do what has been promised.

• In a team: Must do what must be done.

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Acting in projects

Can work in various types of projects

Waterfall - agile

Various testing tools

Rapidly added value to each situation

More in action from beginning to end

Co-operates with everyone from developers to

business owners

Support for the whole

Requirements for agile development and testing grow

Responding to requirements

Can ideate with business and

process. Has a good view to things and

can share her views and experiences

Therefore

Reflections

• Who maintains organisational ”memory” when product managers and

developers change all the time?

• If the tester's role expands it is not only about testing at the end of

development, there will finally be a rationale for being in the process

during the whole lifecycle. And all the time one should not only test but

spar, remind, participate in designing, do risk analyses etc… helping

the project in many ways.

• The traditional tester's competence is not sufficient. Many new

competences are needed, plenty of which we will meet in this slide

set.

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Adaptation to contexts

Ability to adapt

Can easily learn new things

Ability to gives immediately added

value in new context

Hs ability to apply skills in any environment

according its needs

Ability to set into various kinds of tasks

Compare with the "gained benefits" of

small titles (XXX Manager / Master)

Projects with new techniques come in

rapid pace and tester is brought in Is speed

”Short jobs”

Reflections 1/2

• Contexts change even faster: customers' domain, product type,

project type, participants, way of organising.

• A tester must adapt to new situations immediately and be able to

change her own habits to ones that the context needs.

• For example, if risk analyses have not been done previously, one

must realise that one is now needed. Or change own style of

communicating to the ways of the new context.

• Needs for change in more general:

• Ways of action, roles, goals, methods, collaboration, communication,

priorities of testing methods, testing techniques, tools.

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Reflections 2/2

• Essential

• Ability to abstract competence so that it can be transferred to a new

context.

• Understanding about characteristics of systems, mental models of

technologies, needs, how people work, business.

• A flexible mind – no fixing to rigid practices.

• Instead of a process approach, a service attitude, a problem solving

approach – what is needed in each context and how that need is

filled.

• Small ego.

• A large personal mental "toolbox".

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Breath of work profile

environment Is dynamic, leaner

organisations

Work profile changes continuously

Rapidly in action in changing situations

Need to know "little of everything”, multi-

skilledness (2)

Continuous training and learning new

things

Work in teams

Work requires special skills (automating,

Information security)

Can do what others don't

Does anything that needs to be done

Always ready

Forces

Reflections

• If one must learn all the time, how does it happen in the everyday of

the working life?

• Note: one should learn for the next job, to be ready for it! The

current job will change to another when this one has been learned

properly...

• How to support learning from colleagues?

• On the other hand, how to support the learning of others?

• How to bring to the activities more the elements of shared learning?

• Reflecting, externalising, experimenting...

• Is there any value in a proactive collecting of certificates?

• How to apply mentoring? How to bring the national network of

colleagues / the community for support?

• How to bring elements of coaching to management?

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Competence palette

A versatile whole

Tester's mind-set

Coder's development skills

Communication skills Concentrates Is test automation, CI and

similar

Test analysis (testing need analysis)

Technical skills at good level

Improved test automation skills

Improved technical understanding about

manual testing Ability to do rich, good testing

Because

Reflections 1/2

• When a large generic competence and basic readiness to everything

is needed, but at the same time special skills are expected, the

formula of expectations can be impossible.

• A single person can not be everything.

• Several different tester's concepts, profiles:

• Business oriented type.

• Testing- and product technologically oriented type.

• Etc...

• At the core of all those are at least the tester's attitude and basic

skills.

• They are sometimes so obvious, that they are in danger of being

forgotten.

• Still, they are what differentiate testers from others.

• But even those need expansion...

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Reflections 2/2

• Too often in the discussion about the profiles people think as a basis a

"generic functionality tester".

• But there have for a long time been special experts on usability

testing, performance testing and information security testing.

• One challenge in testing is to get rid of the strong stereotype of testing

being functional testing and remembering that there already are many

kinds of testing and testers.

• New arrangements should perhaps be sought that all this expertise

can be provided for companies in flexible ways.

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Nature of testing competence

Core competence is the core of profession!

Broad competence

Possibility to do qualified, value producing work

Even a "basic tester" knows the basics Is

all testing levels

Specialisation preferable

Danger of getting stuck in some special

field

Must develop continuously

Operating environment independent basics of

quality assurance

Understanding about own resources [what

all can she test]

Because

Must be able to do what

others don't

Reflections

• Danger of getting stuck in some focus area: One finds her own

speciality in a narrow area and closes her eyes for everything else.

• Need critical thinking about oneself.

• Continuous renewing.

• Part of professionalism is recognition of what one really is proficient in

and what all things one can do.

• Sometime for example usability testing is considered trivial, but that

is far from trivial and real competence is required for that.

• And how about information security testing?

• One must activate the company, team, to fill the holes in competence.

• Internally and by subcontracting.

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Competence of the ICT world

Has ICT competences

Processes, practices

Tools

Is efficient, can concentrate on

substance, works effectively in collaboration

Knows, what happens

in technology

Therefore

Can test technologies in various contexts

Reflections

• The ICT world as such is a competence area, because things in it

interleave with what is tested and the operating environment of

testing.

• Challenges are similar as for the modern software developer.

• General understanding about systems.

• There is a movement to more implicit requirements from thick

requirement lists. Therefore one must understand how computer

programs work in general and how they are used and what

expectations are attached to them.

• One must be able to read between the lines – what do the

requirements really mean. ICT cultural literacy!

• In teams, someone must be ICT knowledgeable.

• Testing is ICT intensive – communication tools, information

management, testing tools...

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Deeper understanding 1/2

• ”In the old times” testing was categorically divided into black box and white box

testing.

• It has been forgotten that a tester needs to have a mental model of what

happens below the bonnet, even when the source code is never seen.

• What generally happens in programs between input... output.

• What happens in operating systems, what things can go wrong.

• How do the networks work. How about virtual machines.

• File format, character sets.

• What do installation programs do.

• Etc...

• The reason for this forgetting is in the background: it has been assumed that

people have this understanding from education. But many don't have – short

prepping would help a lot.

• Also: Understanding about doing: how are computer programs made (in

projects).

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Deeper understanding 2/2

Attack models

Internal models of operation

Failure models

Realism about variation of the world

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Effectiveness and efficiency − choices

Speed, agility, cost-effectiveness

Knows, how avoid making unnecessary

tests

Uses to the same testing (with same

results) half of what currently

Intelligent automation

Choosing good test cases: give value,

produce information about quality

Understanding about business

Therefore

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Intelligent efficiency

Intelligent efficiency

Time used on product development gets

smaller

Time used testing gets smaller

Large part of testing must be based on

automation (2)

Number of tests grows

Complexity of systems

Intelligent automation

Tester's choices on tests

Intelligence: what to test (what previously,

effect of product changes)? Evaluation

of results?

Therefore

Therefore

Reflections 1/3

• Efficiency has traditionally been sought by aiming to do things faster.

Turn everything up to more speed during the work day, let's do rapid

test automation, even if it were a little worse...

• It is wiser to do right choices and to focus on important things.

• Concentration improves understanding about all of the product.

• When one concentrates, there is not such a hurry.

• Emphasise the quality of tests, not quantity.

• It depends, however, on the domain and situations, how much for

example optimising of test automation is emphasised in this regard.

• But making choices has risen up in all kinds of testing.

• The choices must not leave big holes in testing. Freedom of choice is

easy to misuse.

• Can anyone be given the freedom? Criteria?

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Reflections 2/3

• One element in making choices is saying "NO" to something.

• Ability to do so is assumed to be a central starting point in innovation

– when it is decided to do something, one does not do something

else.

• And innovativeness is important for our future.

• In testing one must of course be very careful.

• Focusing:

• Test big risks rather than small ones.

• Study the unknown more than the known.

• Focus on what is needed RIGHT NOW.

• Prefer good practices instead of bad ones.

• Do new tests rather than repeat old ones.

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Reflections 3/3

• Don't do:

• Too much anticipation.

• Avoid getting too exited.

• Don't go to unknown – get information.

• Don't shoot oneself in the foot.

• Don't be one-sided.

• Remembering:

• Testing is service.

• It is not a gate keeper, it does not decide.

• It doesn't have a big ego.

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Methods and isms

Number of isms grows

New methods are born, with varying life

span

Reflections

• There will always be isms and silver bullets.

• Mature professional must see through them.

• But sometimes they can provide real added value. But they are never

silver bullets.

• One must make choices in how to react.

• One must forget her own ego in all cases. The new ways of thinking

can provide lots to learn and when learning one has to leave

something old behind, even though that would seem to shrink her own

identity and history.

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Nature of systems that are tested

[Can be virtualised or is in cloud]

Interfaces and connections with

other system increase

Better than current integration between systems is required

Integration viewpoint increases in testing

Management of information is all

systems

”User tests” – reactive mode of

operation

Understanding about wholes

Reactive mode of operation

Reflections

• Our world is a world of connected systems.

• Few things to test are an island.

• When we test some programmatic entity, we also test its relation to

other entities – of which we may sometimes know only a little, and

that "everything else" can work in any possible way.

• One must understand technological whole, and even more

generally, relationships between things.

• The wholes are not only complex, but also dangerous. In testing,

one must invest in "assuring" robustness – with the assumption that

the other system elements can and will do whatever they like.

• Lacking: systems thinking, assessment of wholes, paranoia...

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Communication skills

Can communicate in the languages of the

operating environment

Finnish, English, orally and written

Views and fact are delivered

Can report about quality (vs. testing)

Reflections

• 1990's: Tester must be able to write clear test reports and bug reports.

• The beginning of 2000's: Tester must be able to communicate orally in

meetings and with the team.

• Next: Tester must be able to communicate with the language that the

business understands, about the things that are important to

business, based on self-found, convincing facts.

• ”Nobody is interested" in tests and test results, but the reality: what

kind of problems do we have? What is their influence? What risks are

there?

• Testing can't afford self-satisfied slang.

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Central things to test

Can test things that are important in the

future

Information security testing

Test types

Electric services

Targets of testing

Analysis of data masses

Use of tools Manufacturing,

preparation of tools

Cyber security

(Internet of things)

Reflections

• The world of quality characteristics expands continuously.

• The nature and characteristics of systems change.

• Traditionally, the acknowledgement of the new things in testing comes

much later.

• It would be better to be proactive in this.

• One example. Testing of human-like robots:

https://wiki.tut.fi/pub/RATA/PublicationsAndDownloads/testing_human-like_robots.pdf

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Computer aided testing

Test automation Some coding skills Hacking skills

Can give repetitive work to machines

Can find vulnerabilities (functionality,

information security)

Need training and practical doing

Reflections

• When we talk about test automation, we often only mention testers'

”coding skills”.

• But coding only helps in making small and simple scripts.

• A more challenging testing benefits from hacker's skills, using those

one can really see how the target behaves and what it tolerated.

• A healthy breaking mentality taken into the order of two.

• But it is pointless to expect that of everybody.

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Work environments

Work needs to be able to do from

anywhere

Comfort, freedom of choice, optimising of

environment

Not tied to a place

Reflections

• The generic future of work reflects in testing.

• Remote work has been "future" for a long time. And everyday too:

• Outsourcing is remote work.

• Distributed teams do remote work at team level.

• Agile work prefers presence with others.

• Team work is organic work with people.

• Tacit knowledge and rich communication do not work in electronic

communication.

• But if work is done with headphones on, people are not that much

present.

• Digital presence in virtual environments (verbal) has revived and will

revive things.

• Visual – 3D – presence?

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Test environments

Virtualised hardware platforms

Test environment always available

Not tied to a place of own devices

All services are in the cloud or similar

Get versatile

Connections with other environments and collaboration with different kinds of systems

increases

Become more complicated

Packaging in the cloud

Reflections

• In general, the world of test environments is changing positively.

• There are different things and they can be taken into use rapidly,

according to what is needed.

• Managing the new environment types requires competence.

• When the environments are in shape, people can concentrate on the

substance of testing.

• Will soon "everything” be in the cloud abstracted and virtual?

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Sources of competences

Readiness in the beginning of career

Has basic competences already

during studies (university of applied sciences, technical universities Aalto,

TUT...)

Therefore

Reflections

• It is a big thing that more people will get some level of test education

already in school.

• One challenge is the development of that education.

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Polarisation of jobs

Basic task Upper level senior

quality testing tasks

As micro tasks

Outsourced to those that are least

expensive or easiest to employ

Most challenging testing tasks,

automating, model based testing etc.

Pays to increase use of assistants and

trainees (students in hour work)

Reflections

• Besides the positioning of competence (for example in the dimension

of testing technology <> business), also the level or requirements for

testing varies and perhaps polarises.

• A historical problem has been that people think that they can manage

with one tester profile – either one – without thinking of the whole.

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Specificity of role and title

Roles blend

Will do everything in team that is needed

[for quality]

Does a good tester know that she works

as a ”tester”?

Will tester title disappear?

...Would it only be a role produced by

good team dynamics??...

Reflections 1/2

• A ”tester” is born by naming someone as such or by giving her such

tasks.

• When collective competence is mature, there will emerge testing

tasks from the team's activity and if the team is very dynamic, the

tasks can get divided for people in an optimal way.

• But ”when” is uncertain. The world Is often ”if”.

• A team's self-guiding characteristic is easily weak. As a result there

will be self-misguiding.

• Team dynamics can lead to a situation where the people's

competence and roles do not meet.

• To get the dynamism working requires time and iteration, during which

the team is supposed to get a couple of projects done....

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Reflections 2/2

• A special ”tester” is needed:

• The blindness of people about their work benefits from someone

who has been assigned to monitor that blindness.

• A counter force to business pressures – so as not to shoot oneself in

the foot.

• Speeding up of team dynamics.

• Explication of special skills.

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Changing of jobs

Robotics & analytics Test manager role

may disappear

Parameterising and configuring of test

robots

Coordinating of tasks between basic and

quality testers

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Testing services in companies

Focused development of internal testing competence

Buying of testing competence from

outsiders

Different ways

Continuous, in similar form repetitive

(medical industry)

Project based needs (acquiring of a new

system)

= Acceptance testing

(Regular) outsourcing

Often abroad

In homeland: monitoring, advising

and expert work

To think: overall cost (testing and systems)

Manages outsourced

Reflections

• Testing arrangements were not much mentioned in the survey

responses.

• It is a world, where there is traditionally some "stutter”. Sometimes

outsourcing is preferred, sometimes not.

• Small companies – and the new start-up culture – need in any case

light and rapid external service. Service models that have been build

to serve large clients, will not suffice in the future.

• Time will show, how the new global testing services change the

situation (uTest and similar).

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Testing service providers

Small expert companies

One domain is not enough – ready for

anything

Ready to work at any time

Flexible special competence

Official testing laboratories

Testing of key system – for example in the

name of cyber security

Some systems are so important...

Testing is needed everywhere, but who

wants invest in it? Motivation

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Nature of companies

Fully agile

Disciplined action, like Lean

Fragmented

Multi-vendor environment

Random mix of processes and

methods Breaks people

Reflections

• Generally, the quality of the work life has continuously improved and it

is easy to think that the trend will continue, even though there are

depressions and other disturbances every now and then.

• Agility as a trend seems to continue and is maturing to a more real

thing also at business level.

• ”Lean” is a very much misunderstood thing, but actually its core is the

approach to rethink things to reach goals, to find a unique way of

action and acting within it in a sensible, skilled and disciplined way –

and improving continuously. A hunt of little things is against Lean!

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Turning point of society

Will a turning point start, when only a

minority will work and the rest has just

occasional jobs and citizen salary?

Will robotics also replace managers

Will there be new games and

applications to devices every day

from same companies and the rate of consumption

accelerates?

Data processing is needed and there will be more applications,

from cars to refrigerators and

wearable technologies.

Testing would be needed everywhere and it is open who wants to invest in it and at what level.

Reflections

• The world changes. The whole society and its structures change.

• Things this big are a little outside the scope of this slide set.

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10 top things

1) Different competence profiles are and will be needed.

2) Understanding about business.

3) Flexibility – contexts, tasks.

4) Holism, multi-skilledness.

5) Professionalism, tester's ethics and mind-set.

6) Seeing of wholes in systems, integration thinking.

7) Core competence of testing.

8) Prioritisation, concentration, making choices.

9) The challenges of the changing world that are common for all

occupations.

10) In different domains and contexts the challenges will vary.

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For reading

Future always emerges from history through some developments. See a slide set of those.

Trajectories of testing – situation in 2014

http://www.mattivuori.net/julkaisuluettelo/liitteet/trajectories_in_testing_2014.pdf

Competence turns into actions when culture and the company's "system" are in shape but

people also have passion for work and the opportunity to free that into action. See an

article about that (in Finnish)

http://www.mattivuori.net/julkaisuluettelo/liitteet/intohimoa_testaukseen.pdf

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