Talk

Testing means something different to everyone who you ask. Why is that? Because it all depends on the context and their experiences of testing, either as a tester themselves or as an outsider looking in.

It can appear as though we do not agree and align with any one definition of what Testing is and how to do it as there are a myriad of terms that are in use, and it can seem very confusing.

We do seem to continually spend a lot of effort debating testing types and terms etc on online platforms such as LinkedIn, but I would question whether this helps advance our cause or just makes things even more confusing. How many times have you read the ‘manual versus automation’ debate and wondered what has actually changed as a result of all the effort spent.

So why does it matter if we don’t agree?

Rather than fixating on what we call a particular type of testing, or whether we call ourselves testers, quality analysts, quality engineers etc which only serves us, our aim should be to showcase to our stakeholders that we do know our craft, understand what we need to do, and have the knowledge and skills to do it. This is how we win respect and trust, and answer the question ‘what have the testers ever done for us?’. It would be a more productive use of our time, and help win over those who really do not know what we do.

In my long and varied experience, I have found that there are core testing principles that cut right across every industry that I have been in – Finance, Automative, Aerospace, Data, Futures & Options trading to name a few. I firmly believe that we would be better served by building on those and using them as a basis for each testing activity that we go into.