We're not as different as you might think.

I had the pleasure of attending my first CAST software testing conference this week, and was invited by the amazing Dawn Haynes to give a lightning talk—another first for me.

This is a transcript of the talk I gave.

I worked remotely for a cloud startup about 6 years ago. A month after I’d started, I was asked to come out to the company’s headquarters in Seattle for the first time ever, and I couldn’t have been more excited. When I got to the office that first morning, I didn’t have a keycard to get in, so I knocked, and knocked, and a developer walked by, opened the door just enough to stick his head out and said,

“Uhh…can I help you?”

“Hi! I just started here! I work remotely! My name’s Noel, I’m on the marketing team, I don’t have a keycard yet, so thanks for—”

He interrupted me, by saying, “Oh. Right. The blog.” (Said with a truly epic stinkface.)

And alllll that excitement, and motivation I had flew right out the window.

My name is Noel Wurst…and, I…am a marketer. Specifically, a marketer in the continuous testing, test automation space. And, I find myself offering that disclaimer all the time, like I’m ashamed or embarrassed of the work I do—but that’s far from the case. I’m quite proud of what I do. But, before I pitch one of you about having you on my podcast, or asking for a quote for my blog, or joining a conversation in a testing community on Reddit, or contributing my thoughts and input to group exercises at conferences like these – I always introduce myself with “Just so you all know, I’m a marketer…I don’t want you to think I’m trying to sneak that past you.” And it’s because I know how “we” as marketers are often viewed—oftentimes even within our own organizations.

And it’s through some recent observations and interactions with the testing community that I’ve realized…we’ve got a lot more in common than you might think. John Cutler, I don’t know if you’re in the room, but your keynote this morning was just awesome, so awesome that I almost had to scratch the topic of this lightning talk, because it’s also all about the kinship, the inspiration, and, sadly, even the commiseration I also feel with the testing community.

And if you have a negative view of marketing…I get it. I really do. There are a lot of bad marketers out there whose actions would give you little reason to think any differently about us. And when that’s the case, negative perceptions, biases, hurtful assumptions, judgement, misunderstandings, a perceived lack of value to the rest of the organization, labeling as nothing more than a cost center – and others’ belief that all you do can be automated– testers, does any of this sound familiar?

Jenny Bramble showed a slide yesterday at the start of her session on risk-based testing that said, “What is my job?” And the answers were, for anyone in the room who was a tester, probably pretty obvious. But how obvious would they be to anyone outside of testing?

• Ask questions, absorb answers, translate them
• Defuse bombs
• Evaluate and communicate risk
• Verify that systems under test perform in the ways that stakeholders expect – or help reset those expectations

It might surprise you to know that, in many ways, those are all my job requirements, too. But there was another one in her list that stopped me in my tracks.

Educate other humans about testing.

This wasn’t listed under her hobbies. Or her “things I’ll hopefully one day have time to do.” She views this as part of her job. And, it was incredibly humbling to suddenly understand that it’s absolutely part of my job to educate others about marketing, and I haven’t done that enough. I’ve definitely told other marketers what my job is, and how I think I’m pretty good at it, how I heavily rely on my team, and why others should consider doing the things I do, too. But how often have I actively sought out to proudly inform and educate the other teams at the organizations I’ve worked for, so that they value my work, promote our joint accomplishments, and my own personal favorite, seek out my involvement early in their own initiatives—rather than saying, afterward “How would you have helped?”  

In this day and age, when companies are looking for any and every opportunity to cut costs – it made me think that, for me, “educating other non-marketing humans, about marketing, could very well be something that keeps me from having my costs cut.

When I was “welcomed” into the office by that super-friendly developer, I eventually found my way back to marketing’s corner of the floor, and someone asked if I’d had any trouble finding the building since it was my first time in the city. I said, no, and that thankfully, a complete jerk had let me in the door.” “Oh, the developers? They’re all like that. They hate us,” he said. “Not as much as sales!” someone else remarked, and everyone laughed. And while that may have been true, the only valid reason for that hate, in my opinion, was that nobody on my team appeared to have ever tried to change that. Or that you could enable that change by simply explaining to those that undervalue or misunderstand you just how valuable you could be, and want to be to their own initiatives?

(To the testers in the room)

• If someone asked a developer at your organization what you do all day – how off would they be?
• Does sales understand that high quality software, with a continuously rich UX, sells better than the alternative?
• Do the PMs really “get” how by sharing customer feedback with you—all of it—how it could help you get their new releases or patches out the door on time?
• Does IT know that the code thrown over the wall from those pesky devs might be far less risky if your team was given the time or resources you needed to test it?
• Did your DevOps team or management do an awesome job of modernizing the development and operations processes – but fail to understand why testing might need the same attention?

Jenny’s right. It’s not their job to figure out your value on their own. It’s yours. And mine. Thankfully, testers like you, and marketers like me, are clearly contributing so much value to our organizations, we just have to make sure we educate others, and not just ourselves.