T is for Tester May 2016
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This document discusses the diverse skills of modern testers. It notes that traditional job descriptions do not accurately capture the reality of testing roles and may be off-putting. The document argues that diversity is an asset for testing and lists some "anti-patterns" that can overly simplify testing roles. It characterizes testers as "T-shaped people" with both generalist and specialist skills. The document provides examples of testing skills and behaviors and encourages audience participation in crowdsourcing a more accurate job specification for testing roles.
T is for Tester May 2016
- 1. T is for Tester The Diverse Skills of Modern Testing Clem Pickering @clem_pickering Steve Mounsey @stephenmounseyLeeds Tester Gathering May 2016
- 4. What’s wrong with job descriptions? Really Dull Standardising
- 5. Not true to reality Off-putting to scary What’s wrong with job descriptions?
- 6. Diversity – our greatest asset?
- 7. Tester anti-patterns • ISTQB • Developer in Test • Quality Assurance • Low skilled checking role • Tools zealot • BDD • Domain Expert
- 8. Testers: The ultimate T-shaped people? Generalising Specialists
- 9. Tester skills – what you can do Skills Technical Exploratory techniques Understand domain Automation Facilitate Strategy Testing! Present and Summarise Information
- 10. Tester behaviours – what you’re all about Behaviours Collaborating Simplifying and Clarifying Critiquing Advocating Quality Listening Learning Empathy User-centric Coaching Curiosity
- 12. Crowd-sourcing a job spec 1. Split into groups of <=7 2. 15 mins to: 1. Brainstormdiscuss skills (pink post-its) and behaviours (yellow post-its) 2. As a group choose your top 5 of each 3. Stick them onto the poster 4. Highlight one of each and share why
- 13. TL;DR Celebrate diversity within testing Don’t pigeon-hole testing and testers as one type of role Let’s create visual and fun job specs for testing roles
Editor's Notes
- #2: Hybrid of talk/workshop and discussion, plus featuring sketch-noting from Steve Mounsey Aim is to create a visual alternative to a job spec that tries to capture what a tester does, and crowd-source what should go on there
- #4: Two threads of inspiration for this talk\workshop: Job specs, can we do better? Celebrating and encouraging diversity in testing
- #5: Inspiration: Current client Create a visual job spec, an alternative to a boring document Allow for and encourage variation in role Standard job specs encourage standard CVs – “Selenium WebDriver, Cucumber”, “agile, v-model, waterfall”
- #6: Inspiration: Women in tech event plus my own experience
- #7: Inspiration: Testbash, Leeds Testing Atelier, Twitter Lots of different backgrounds Lots of different outlooks Lots of different types of people Diversity is vital for effective testing
- #8: Exacerbated by job specs: Standard job specs plus lack of diversity = danger
- #9: Testers could be the ultimate generalising specialists Fulcrum in the team – balance between the technical developers and business-types
- #10: Skills – what you do, what skills and experience you bring to the role Mainly around the vertical part of the T
- #11: Behaviours – the less tangible but more important how you behave
- #12: Workshop