The Changing Face of Software Development

I just returned from a successful trip to Melbourne for Iqnite 2014. I was lucky enough to be attending as a speaker this year. My talk was on Caterpillar's journey to ISO-9001 certification. Something that took a lot of effort and a project I felt was worthy of being Nominated for "Best Process Improvement" at the Australian Software Testing Awards. It was a tremendous honour to win the award and collect it on behalf of what is a pretty awesome team here at CAT in Brisbane.

What I came away with from this conference was how much software development is changing. This conference wasn't just about Software Testing. It was really about Software Development from the angle of people dedicated to Quality. This really hit a chord with me as its something I have been thinking about for some time. I felt that the game was changing but I couldn't put my finger on it. This conference helped me get my finger on the pulse of the industry.

"The Tester is Dead, Long Live The Technical Tester" is a talk I gave a few times in Brisbane in 2012. Fast forward 2 years and its a case of the "Tester" is dead as a sole function. You see if we are to truly to move into agile the traditional roles that have existed for the past 10 + years need to die in order to allow Agile to flourish.

Don't get me wrong we still need people dedicated to quality but to have someone dedicated to Testing is not going to work not even someone dedicated to automated testing. We need people who are dedicated to delivering a quality product. To a certain degree this means developers need to die too. In an agile world and even in a modern business world to have someone dedicated to one task is a luxury.

So although I have been practicing Agile in many forms over the past 8 years. Today marks the start of my new Blog "The Journeys of an Agiletronaut" I feel if I am truly to embrace agile then I too must also look at my skills. Being a Leader in Software Development over the past 8 years has left my technical skills a little rusty. So bare with me as I learn how to be a leader in an Agile world and hopefully I can learn and teach a few things along the journey.

 

STANZ 2009 a success

Well 2 of my team have just returned from STANZ 2009. From all reports it was a success even if numbers were down.

I wish I could have gone too but I look forward to the team putting together some presentations and sharing them with others and the Quality Academy.

If you also attended the conference and would like to share please feel free to join the quality academy site. As a wetpaint site it is very easy for followers to contribute.

Exploratory Testing Results

Exploratory Testing Results

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Justify your existence

I just returned from the Testing SIG for the Australian Computer Society. Today's topic was on Test Metrics. It was a good collaborative session on the topic of testing metrics and how they can be used to put it simply justify your existence.

It made me think back to when first started testing at Runge. Testing was non existent and there was a lot of skepticism about the need for more employees who drain money rather then adding to the bottom line.

It was hard work metrics were non existent. So we had a lot of work to do but while waiting for the metrics to come through. We didn't just sit back, we needed more testers and fast. So we were forced to act and not just justify our existence but need for more testers.

One of things we did the best was to celebrate the losses. Like when a bug made it through to the client. This may sound crazy but for us it was a perfect time to go and speak to our internal clients. We would deflect the attack on us by joining them. Our testing was not good enough but while we were agreeing with them. We would ask how we can improve it?

All of a sudden these testing guys weren't that bad. Actually they were really good because it meant they didn't have to do all the testing. Slowly we won the little people over. This was how we justified our existence. For you see the little people talked to the big people. They mentioned how much more time they had to go earn money with the testers around.

So if you don't have all the metrics you think is needed to justify your existence. Maybe you can try what we did.

A blow to certification credibility from within

I recently received a newsletter that is sent to training providers of the ISTQB. It was rather interesting as it gave a detailed results table of the pass fail rate in Australia by training provider. But the information I found most interesting was an analysis of recent Advanced level exam results. along with the news that the ISTQB made the decision to increase the examination time for Advanced level courses.
"At the meeting the Advanced Level examinations
were discussed at length and a decision was taken
to increase the Examination time from 2 to 3 hours.
Please ensure that all of your Advanced candidates
are aware of this significant change."
I see this as a real blow to the advanced level certifications and was surprised that it came from the board. The reason i say its a blow is because I feel that perhaps the time was increased to fix the extremely poor success rates for advanced level courses. Something that I felt gave them credibility.

Below is the table of the results.

Training Provider League Table from 01/01/2008 to 03/04/2009
These statistics are based on ANZTB foundation exams only.

Trainer	Pass Rate	Total Exams
Equinox	95%	40
Other *	86%	872
Revolution IT	92%	458
Planit	92%	51
Software Education	87%	89
The Testing Consultancy	96%	46

* Other relates to candidates who sat public exams.

Training Provider League Table from 01/01/2008 to 21/04/09
These statistics are based on ANZTB Advanced exams only.

Trainer	Pass Rate	Total Exams
Equinox	33%	6
Other *	46%	48
Disqover	100%	4
Planit	61%	76
Software Education	63%	19

* Other relates to candidates who sat public exams.

Another interesting stat is that the ANZTB gains $300 per foundation exam. With 1556 exams in the past 15 months the ANZTB has made $466800. Not bad for an organisation that gives the impression of being a reputable not for profit group similar to the ACS.

Certification to be or not to be

I have been reading a lot about certification recently and have found a lot of negativity coming from bloggers in the USA. In particular I found James Bach's blog very interesting.

I have had a few conversations regarding certification and the ISTQB this year and I thought I would blog my view.

The Pros

• Attempting to gain certification shows a genuine commitment to improving your craft.
• It gives testers around the world the ability to learn the same base level of knowledge.

The Cons

• Non practicing testers are gaining the certification and calling themselves testers.
• The certification is being promoted by some as a must have to gain your next job.
• Some feel gaining the certification means they are a good tester and can stop learning more.

So where do I stand on this topic? well I am neither for or against certification. I really like that we have some standard knowledge being spread across the globe I think that is really positive. But I really hate the fact that a lot of the courses are being run for pure profit.

In my team I have promoted self study of the course content. I have expressed to my team that the piece of paper at the end of the course and exam is not what is important. The most important part is that we are learning more about our craft. I am not looking for my team to blindly follow what they learn. But i feel that armed with more knowledge of their craft they are better equipped to make decisions on how to test.

Test Automation

I just started a new topic on Test Automation on the testing academy site.

It made think back to when I first started to play with QTP. It seemed so easy with the play and record options during the trial period. It wasn't perfect but I put that down to a lack of training.
A few months later we had a few copies of QTP but not enough time to use it. QTP was fast becoming expensive shelfware for us. We had a few tests but they didn't do a lot and needed constant updates.

I finally found some time after a big release and as I recall I spent about 3 weeks working on it and at the end of it I had a handful of tests automated. I then brought one of my team members onto the project (Adam Arnold). We worked together and started to bounce ideas off one another. Our automation was increasing at break neck speed. But we continuously hit problems with record and play back and third party software our company used. It was frustrating but we stuck with it and eventually got pointed in the right direction by a few old pros in the field.

Record and play is used in the sales pitch and that is about all its good for as we discovered. We found out the hard way that automation is hard work. So I hope to start building this new topic to help everyone else avoid the same headaches.

I have had a look around and decided that wetpaint offers a good service and it also allows readers to contribute.

http://qualityacademy.wetpaint.com/

it has only just begun but i will be adding to it reguarly.

Cheers,

Darren

http://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenmryan

Well I have started to get this academy idea off the ground and am looking for a web host to use, any ideas?