TRT. 1st Meeting summary

We’ve finally had our first ‘Testers of the Round Table’ (TRT) meeting. Despite the fact that it got a little too formal at the beginning, we’ve managed to create a warm friendly atmosphere and had a pretty good meeting.

The following topics were raised:

1. Introduction and memo
2. The problem of testers’ education
3. Bad management and inadequate customer: ‘survival’ strategies
4. Microclimate within test team: its influence on testing efficiency
5. Tester’s efficiency evaluation
6. Job changing: how to make the right choice

1. Introduction and memo

Testers of the Round Table – is a community, created by testers and for testers. The goal of TRT is for testers to share ideas, discuss problems they face in everyday work, speak out about vital issues of testing, work out solutions for complex accidents.

Memo of TRT:

• Everybody is equal in learning
• Everybody has the right to have his own opinion
• Everybody can choose the way of education he likes best
• Everybody must be respected regardless whether he is right or wrong
• Nobody can criticize and blame other viewpoints based upon assumptions
• There is no ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ viewpoints – there are only different ones

2. The problem of testers’ education

This issue was discussed in the context of the countries of former USSR where there are no higher educational facilities that provide educational courses for testers.

I’ve emphasized the following ways the testers of the mentioned countries can acquire knowledge (each of those five points was discussed in pretty much detail):

• Certifications as a way for testers to: a) reorganize and restructure the knowledge they have; b) gain more knowledge as they proceed with studying for certification exams
• Getting knowledge from testing-related areas for better understanding of business domain they work with, using behavioral sciences to improve communication, applying various science principles and laws to improve testing practices
• Forums and Communities as places where testers can find answers for some complex issues, and to share opinions on tools, practices, metrics, etc.
• Blogging as a means of learning how to shape the thoughts into words and as a source for deeper understanding of the subject the tester writes about
• Mentoring as a way for testers to a) share their knowledge with others who seek it at the moment; b) to learn about a certain subject from a more experienced person in live communication

After that part of conversation was over another speaker took the lead. Oxana continued on ‘Job changing: how to make the right choice’ and ‘Tester’s efficiency evaluation’.

3. Job changing: how to make the right choice

We’ve covered the first several steps (where to start from, CVs, job interviews) of the process rather quickly and focused on the key aspect of the topic: how to choose the ‘right’ company from the give alternatives. Here the opinions vary:

Oxana proposed a way to compare alternatives based on the formula

where:

Gi – parameters value (according to selected scale)

Wi – parameters weight (total of ‘1’)

I opposed that you’ll probably not consider those factors at all if you like the way your interview went, or just ‘have the right feeling’ about a company. Also there is a ‘super-factor’ (e.g. your best friend works in one of the companies that you consider as an alternative) which also can outweigh all others tied together.

4. Tester’s efficiency evaluation

The keynote of this topic was actually ‘how not to evaluate tester’s efficiency’ supported by the examples from participants’ previous jobs. E.g. one of the TRT participants has mentioned a report he had to send out at the end of each week to his manager (the QA Manager)

- Test Case coverage, % (I’m not saying that this metric isn’t any good, but in order for it to be useful tester must conduct coverage analysis on some basis, while in the case it’s almost a random number)

- Created new tests, #

- Updated existing tests, #

- Tests ran (Manual, Automated, Performance), #; #; #

- Resolved issues (in current iteration), #

- Issues created, #

- Issues processed (verified, reopened, etc.), #

As you can see, this report will better describe activities of a Quantity Assurance dept. than a Quality Assurance one.

When Oxana was done with her topics she passed the lead to Victor who raised the following two questions: ‘Bad management and inadequate customer: ‘survival’ strategies’ and ‘Microclimate within test team: its influence on testing efficiency’

5. Bad management and inadequate customer: ‘survival’ strategies

This is a situation that can happen to any specialist. So, what to do when the customer is ‘inadequate’ and your PM happens to do absolutely nothing for the team.

My advice is to turn to your managers – in the case of a tester those are the QA Manager (the person who runs the QA Dept.) and some sort of PM Manager (the person who curate project managers). In most cases these people are very adequate and intelligent, so you’ll be able to work out a decent ‘survival’ strategy together. If ‘not’, well… then you probably should start updating your CV at the moment you realize that it’s a ‘not’.

6. Microclimate within test team: its influence on testing efficiency

The keynote of the topic was being initiative, creative and pro-active. No matter what the microclimate is, a great tester is always in the mood to make a difference. You do not need to wait for someone to take actions toward achieving the goal – do it yourself. If your lead cannot handle the team – do it yourself. The tester must not be afraid of the ‘witch-hunt’ that might be initiated against him, but do his job the right way no matter what.

To summarize all written above, I must say that the meeting went well. We’ve met all the criteria that have been set up for the meeting. We’ve learned a lot and had a great time communicating.

P.S. I want to say thank you to the 1^st meeting participant, so here I go: “Thank you guys, a lot!”