What more would we need to do?

KJRoss & Associates is running the ASTA awards to recognize the outstanding work done by testers within Australia. 

Now testers like most IT professionals are not often self-promoting and will need to be nominated by peers, colleagues or clients. I heard of a situation were a manager was asked, “Do your testers deserve an award?” via email, and the response was “No not really”. This got me to thinking; well what would a testing team have to do to change this response? Find more bugs? Test quicker? And I must admit I’m at a bit of a loss... But I do take heart in that, rather than just ignore the email and its contents the manager actually responded. Is the response, though not worded so, a complement to the testing team indicating that the team is front of mind and is doing a good or sufficient or adequate job just not an outstanding job?

Testers and time poor tourists how much do they have in comment?

The modern tourist rushes from landmark to landmark taking photos to put on Facebook so all their friends can ‘like’ and comment on the magical time they are having; Testers rush around executing test case after test case bouncing from requirement to requirement stopping only long enough to prove it’s been ‘delivered’. Sure defects get in the way, just like the weather or traffic effects the bus tour; but as with a time poor tourist who isn’t able to change their itinerary they must press on to the next stop, after all we are on a schedule! Oh, and if you thought there would be time to double back and visit the thing you missed because of poor weather, well guess again. Today we are going to the next “must see” over there and tomorrow we’re in the next town and the day after that well you’ll be on the plane home and back to work. But never fear, you have the photos!

So lets reflect a moment yeah the tourists have ‘been there’, they have the photos and stories after all but have they really experienced the place? They have eaten the local cuisine, at the hotel but how real is it? From personal experience travelling around Thailand we ate at ‘authentic restaurants’ but there was very little in common with the food being prepared on the side of the road on mini gas burners attached to push bikes. It’s unfortunate that the tours don’t often allow time for the tourist to get of the beaten track to experience the real essence and character of a place. Testing is much the same rush rush rush, test the requirements, find the defects and push the release into production with little if any time for regression testing. Is this effective testing? Are we getting off the beaten track like our users will?

If testers are the time poor tourists then are our users the grey nomads? Just cruising from place to place as they feel like it. They have time to get off the beaten track, or stay another day if the weather doesn’t allow them to go fishing or sailing or play that fabulous golf course. Or are our users akin to the back packers who just lob in to the cool places, party a lot and work if required then just move on when well the mood takes them?