Modern Testing @ TCQAA

Last night, Andy Tinkham gave his first talk about this topic, after after attending a Reinventing Testers workshop with James Bach recently. The tag line was "How do we as testers stay current and employable?". There was so much interaction with the audience that he had to cut about half of the slides out but he covered his four main points. The whole thing will eventually be available at tcqaa.org

I will try to paraphrase the cliff notes from memory.

1. Discuss “good practice” options in the context of the mission. He doesn’t like “best practices” because it leaves out the context of the project and may be sub-optimal.
2. Use multiple lenses to see more issues than just from the requirements lens. Allows you to produce more valuable feedback.
3. Report defects, if your not finding any re-evaluate your options. Need to make a difference to be perceived as valuable. Also he doesn’t like the term “manual tester” because it devalues our specialized knowledge by comparing testers to manual labor. He prefers just testing (or human testing).
4. Timely reporting what you learn; more than just stats - try to relate to decisions management is making. This is much more valuable and they will learn to depend on your input.

If your in the Minneapolis area, these meetings are a valuable resource for testers.