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Tester Career Path (alternative)
Submitted by Ainars Galvans on Mon, 19/02/2007 - 18:02.
people issues
If you do well as functional tester, what are you career choices besides the management path? The formal answer is either automation/ performance tester or moving away from testing to QA (improving procedures, developing methodologies, acquiring certifications such as ISE or CMM, etc.) or different field such as BA or anything.
Today I want to give the informal answer to that question. I basically suggest to learn how to use your intuition or subconscience to see a pattern in small things and draw conclusions from that, just like Sherlock Holmes did it. If you are skeptic about those "skills" – try to answer why dr. Watson was constantly failing to draw significant =conclusions, although was always able to understand them once described by Holmes?
I’ve been most honest bloggin before but this it the first time I’m going to acknowledge what a fool have I been believing and even teaching the answer above.
Confession: my story
A few years ago I had in my CV the whole spectrum of different experiences such as: development and different testing (functional, integration, performance), team leading, QA/procedural and even working directly with customer representatives. That was a moment when I moved closer to management as I got about 15 people team to manage. Working with management who saw testing reflected as different graphs and defect rates I’ve used to idea that the key factor (learned the term KPI) is to make sure that metrics moves as expected and improve them through providing directions to my team (start regression earlier, postpone defect retesting, reduce scope, switch from function to scenario testing, etc.). I somehow withdraw my belief in tester’s skills that a year ago I recognized in myself as the key factor for the project success. As far as I remember I believed that this is due to project specific context.
No, I simply gave up my faith and accepted a new god – the process (the controlled, measured and statistically improving process).
Alternative career path: Sherlock Holmes
I’m not a big fan of serials and only seen casually parts of few series for HOUSE M.D. who pretends to be “a medical descendent of the Sherlock Holmes stories”. There is something special because even in medicine (based on tremendous knowledge and history of practice) there is a place for “observational genius with the ability to see a pattern in small things and draw conclusions from that”.
I’ve seen a scene where his boss say that he is not 2 million $ (or something like that –sponsor’s provided money) worth. Between the lines she is admitting that he is worth a lot. It’s not that he perfectly or twice as fast does what surgeon is supposed to do. No, he just knows how to do the right things – somehow, mystically, he knows it better than others.
So I suggest anyone who loves testing and want to improve yourself and especially those who believes to stuck in “I’m good enough already” try to become Sherlock Holmes or House in testing. Improve your “ability to see a pattern”. You will need a practice, a lot of practice and faith in that ability. Those who don’t believe in intuition or subconscience as not confident enough sources will most probably fail improving that.
Today I want to give the informal answer to that question. I basically suggest to learn how to use your intuition or subconscience to see a pattern in small things and draw conclusions from that, just like Sherlock Holmes did it. If you are skeptic about those "skills" – try to answer why dr. Watson was constantly failing to draw significant =conclusions, although was always able to understand them once described by Holmes?
I’ve been most honest bloggin before but this it the first time I’m going to acknowledge what a fool have I been believing and even teaching the answer above.
Confession: my story
A few years ago I had in my CV the whole spectrum of different experiences such as: development and different testing (functional, integration, performance), team leading, QA/procedural and even working directly with customer representatives. That was a moment when I moved closer to management as I got about 15 people team to manage. Working with management who saw testing reflected as different graphs and defect rates I’ve used to idea that the key factor (learned the term KPI) is to make sure that metrics moves as expected and improve them through providing directions to my team (start regression earlier, postpone defect retesting, reduce scope, switch from function to scenario testing, etc.). I somehow withdraw my belief in tester’s skills that a year ago I recognized in myself as the key factor for the project success. As far as I remember I believed that this is due to project specific context.
No, I simply gave up my faith and accepted a new god – the process (the controlled, measured and statistically improving process).
Alternative career path: Sherlock Holmes
I’m not a big fan of serials and only seen casually parts of few series for HOUSE M.D. who pretends to be “a medical descendent of the Sherlock Holmes stories”. There is something special because even in medicine (based on tremendous knowledge and history of practice) there is a place for “observational genius with the ability to see a pattern in small things and draw conclusions from that”.
I’ve seen a scene where his boss say that he is not 2 million $ (or something like that –sponsor’s provided money) worth. Between the lines she is admitting that he is worth a lot. It’s not that he perfectly or twice as fast does what surgeon is supposed to do. No, he just knows how to do the right things – somehow, mystically, he knows it better than others.
So I suggest anyone who loves testing and want to improve yourself and especially those who believes to stuck in “I’m good enough already” try to become Sherlock Holmes or House in testing. Improve your “ability to see a pattern”. You will need a practice, a lot of practice and faith in that ability. Those who don’t believe in intuition or subconscience as not confident enough sources will most probably fail improving that.
