17
Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go? Herman-Pieter Nijhof, Accenture, The Netherlands Europe’s Premier Software Testing Event World Forum Convention Centre, The Hague, Netherlands WWW.QUALTECHCONFERENCES.COM “The Future of Software Testing”

Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

  • Upload
    others

  • View
    1

  • Download
    0

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Page 1: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?

Herman-Pieter Nijhof, Accenture,

The Netherlands

Europe’s Premier Software Testing EventWorld Forum Convention Centre, The Hague, Netherlands

WWW.QUALTECHCONFERENCES.COM

“The Future of Software Testing”

Page 2: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Where do old testers go?

Herman-Pieter Nijhof

Page 3: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Walkthrough

Why this topic?

Career path: managing your future

What are timeboxes we are looking at

Satisfiers

Looking back to look forward

Page 4: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Why this topic?

Every Tom, Mike or Jane thinks about the future!

Some factors make it special for testers:

Our specialty does not provide us with a lot of examples yet, it is still very young

We tend to create our own unhappiness by being really critical and setting very high

expectations

We tend to be front-runners, discovering everything ahead of everybody else

We tend to be very structured, thus requiring a lot of structure

Page 5: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

We love it, it’s the best job ever

At this moment testers are in higher demand and more expensive than programmers

Test managers are becoming more and more powerful in projects

Business users are starting to listen to testers more and more often

Testers are in high demand but their expertise or potential is still being underutilized

Page 6: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

We love it, it’s the best job ever

But testers do have a reputation

Personal

– Testers have a reputation of being overcritical

No formal history

– no training on testing on any educational institute

Misconception

– everybody has done some testing, therefore anybody can do it

Status quo

– in who's interest is it to change the current status quo between

testers, developers, designers etc?

Page 7: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Satisfying satisfiers

Elevator pitches

Challenge

Perspective

Respect

Recognition

Growth

Adding value

Page 8: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

How they did this in the ‘old days’

Here are some traditional methods:

Fate

Pre-destination

Cristal ball

Time travel

Nostradamus

Page 9: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

How do we do it today

Science fiction - will we explore the stars?

Dreams of globalization - will we have world

peace?

Your guess is as good as mine

Page 10: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Timeboxes

NOW!

Next year

Far future

Page 11: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Nothing in IT ever stands still, neither do we

What can we do to take the lead in this?

Perspectives for testers

Perspectives for employers

Page 12: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Some examples of what you might become

Release managers / project managers

Programmers / designers

Key-user / business user

Chairman Eurostar

Test expert / test manager

Test program Mmnager

Happy analysts / navigators

Farmer, cook, anything outside IT

Page 13: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Roles and responsibilities of employer & employee

A career is never a static item, but changes

continuously

The initiative lies initially with the employer

The initiative shifts to the employee as that

employee gets more experienced and more

precise in his needs

The initiative becomes shared for the ‘old’ testers

and the employer to find a common ground were

both find their balance

Page 14: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

What do you want?

And how to ask for it!

If you want a hand in creating your future start

writing it yourself!

We need to find common grounds

Do testers grow old as testers?

Page 15: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

Are old testers better testers?

Maybe not better per se, but definitely different

More experienced

Better versed in ‘old languages’, ‘old platforms’, ‘old tools’ etc.

And there are rather a lot of those.

Think then do, not do then think

A more mature way of communicating

They don’t run like mad, but proudly stride!

They have different pitfalls

And of course an infinite amount of great stories on testing

Page 16: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

A look into the mirror, do you like what you see

Self reflection is a powerful tool.

Some techniques that may help you:

Requirements traceability

Risk based

SOA

Prototyping

Agile

Waterfall

DSDM

Page 17: Where Do ‘Old’ Testers Go?conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/wp-content/uploads/th5-1.pdfNostradamus. How do we do it today Science fiction - will we explore the stars? Dreams

What do you tell St Peter?

Please visit the Escher museum here in The Hague: http://www.escherinhetpaleis.nl/