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• 4 Feb 2010 Rob Lambert wrote:
  Nice post Lanette. I think you're right about toxic tests. I'm not so sure about them being dished out as punishment. the reason i say this is because I'm not so sure that people realise the tests are toxic.
  
  Not in the places I have worked. These toxic, boring, repetitive tests are the norm and the testers know no difference. It's testing. It's why they hate testing so much. It's why managers believe automation is the silver bullet.
  
  Occassionally someone like yourself will arrive and change things for the better. I've seen these environments change slowly when testers with a positive and creative outlook arrive.
  
  Great post.
  Good luck with the presentation.
  
  Rob..
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  1. 4 Feb 2010 Lanette wrote:
     Great point Rob! I am just putting together my ideas on this now and they are a bit disorganized. When I first started looking into test case bloat I wasn't sure how to explain these tests, but I've found there are some tests that are harmful but people are unable to give them up. It is so hard to break through that irrational addiction to these tests to show that life really is better without them. I'm trying to share those findings, but in this post I sort of went off into a rant. I think I need a few posts. One about the responsibility and opportunity that a contractor, intern, or offshore team represents, and how they must "BE US" and we can't treat them as an "us and them" and expect to do well. My other point about the toxic tests I'm just looking into now. I think that it is hard to be aware enough as a test org to identify which tests have become harmful and now cost more than they are worth. I'm going to go into more depth on that and I may try baking some of those ideas here in public just to get this sort of feedback that really helps.
     
     I'll think about how we know some tests are toxic and what that means.
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• 4 Feb 2010 Jon Bach wrote:
  Speaking of toxicity, I once worked with someone who had no sense of smell. She tells interesting stories about that, like the fact that she was always picked to scoop the catboxes at home. But she didn't mind.
  
  I've been lucky enough to have interns like that. They usually haven't developed an allergy to the toxicity that stupid test cases have for me, but it's an experience they might need so they can appreciate what a good test looks like.
  
  I try to give entry-level testers a range of experiences -- from the tedious to the investigative. Anything can build skill if it has a lesson behind it. The thing is, sometimes they learn their own lessons and other times you will want to engineer lessons for them.
  
  The important part of this blog for me has to do with attachment (which you hint at in paragraph 4). I bet you can do a separate blog just on that?
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  1. 4 Feb 2010 Lanette wrote:
     I have heard that it's also tough to taste without a sense of smell. Was that true for her?
     
     I do agree with you that I need to blog on a few topics instead of all smushed together. First, when it comes to interns, contractors, trainees, or anyone who you are to train that old fashioned "lord over them" and "hazing" attitude really is a pet peeve of mine. My first mentor is the reason I love testing and in his honor I always try to make sure I'm a good introduction to testing for others. I'd love to get into a talk about entry-level testers and how do you know when to invest time and when to let them learn their own lessons freely without structure of any kind.
     
     I also want to go into depth about what are these toxic tests and why do we get so addicted to them? Why do they call us when we try to put them down?
     
     Part of what I'm trying to say here and in my slide about having "no one else to send" is this concept that "us" is all testers on our team. If it isn't worth doing it isn't worth maintaining automation for in most cases either, or spending money on others to do it.
     
     In office space when they stop paying Milton and let him keep working I think of some of the test cases that have slipped through the cracks and someone is testing in the dark between old boxes of files.
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• 5 Feb 2010 Thomas Ponnet wrote:
  "If I get an intern it is MY duty to make them a great tester."
  Agree with that, the responsibilities are clear.
  "Not to waste their time and talent on a menial task."
  As James has pointed out ALL tasks are a learning opportunity and any task is fine as long as I'm willing to do it myself.
  "I may ask them how they would solve the problem and see what they come up with for me, but do not assume the people you train are not as intelligent and driven as you are. "
  I agree with the first part but not the second. I don't want to go into the intelligence bit but I'm certain that I work or have worked with people who were not as driven as I am in the software testing field. While this might not be politically correct I don't actually see this as a big issue. They might see testing as their 9-5 job but are giving football classes for kids in their spare time which is what drives them. Who am I to say that they are wrong? Work life is only one part. And yes, as a test manager I WISH that everyone would be driven to learn more about the testing craft. I can offer some help, provide my time, books, internet links, etc but at the end of the day they are free to accept it or not. I'd like to have a team full of driven people who blog about their test experience, know several script languages, present on conferences. But the reality is that I haven't and that's OK as well. We shouldn't close our eyes and assume that everyone wants to put a lot of time and effort into their jobs. Because for some it's just that, a job which brings in the money to enable them to do whatever else they're interested in.
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  1. 6 Feb 2010 James Bach wrote:
     If you don't want to be politically correct, then I'm puzzled why you aren't saying the obvious: All testers who are not driven and ambitious in testing should be fired.
     
     Just fire them! We don't need them. They don't make testing better. You say "at the end of the day they are free..." Yes, exactly. They are free to go work somewhere else. But why would anyone else hire them, either? Does this come up in the job interview "Oh, I just want to tell you that I plan to slack off as much as possible and never read a book about testing or anything else to get better at my job. I hope that's okay. Now, when do I start?"
     
     There are plenty of people with ambition out there. There are plenty of people who care about working and doing a good job. Why do you think that projects should be a charity program for lazy people?
     
     I don't believe there are such things as toxic tests. There are toxic testers and toxic managers, though.
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• 7 Feb 2010 Thomas Ponnet wrote:
  James,
  I had to think about why I disagree with most of these comments, so it took me a bit longer to reply.
  
  "All testers who are not driven and ambitious in testing should be fired."
  
  I think it depends from which perspective you're looking a. If I am the owner of a company I only want the best people to work for me. I take measures to ensure that this happens. That seems to work in small companies but not in
  
  bigger ones, ie several hundred employees upwards. I'd rather say that "All testers who are not drive and ambitious in testing shouldn't be hired in the first place."
  
  My wife worked in Blockbuster 10 years ago as a permanent member of staff and one of the managers couldn't understand why the temps, almost exclusively students ,didn't put any effort into working there. Of course their main
  
  concern was to get the money to finance their University fees. There's a parallel for testers as well. If you get anyone in and ask them to do menial tasks their ambition won't be high. But that might just be what management expects
  
  anyway so is that a problem? Maybe not for that company, but for the testing craft, most definitely.
  
  If someone is not driven and ambitious in their job, why is that? Is that because they're lazy? If so, by all means, fire them. Is it because they haven't had the support yet and don't know where to start? Depending on the details I'd be
  
  willing to give them help - this is where a large gray area is. Is it temporary as they have something on in their personal lives? If someone is ambitious but can't put the effort into work due to personal reasons it depends what kind of
  
  company they're working in and what their line manager is like.
  As a line manager I look at this from two perspectives, what's good for the company and what's good for the person. Sometimes both match, sometimes they contradict each other. If I have the person on my site they work better and
  
  harder but I have to believe that their work doesn't suffer for a great length of time. There's a big social component in there that I don't want to go into right now. You'll note that I'm talking generally here, to me it doesn't matter if
  
  we're talking about a tester or any other job.
  
  Saying that we should only ever work with the best people that there are is not realistic in my opinion, if you are working as a permanent member of staff in a large company. If you're self-employed that's a different story. It might be
  
  realistic from your perspective taking into account your experience in the field. In my opinions it's not realistic for everyone working in the testing field.
  
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• 7 Feb 2010 Thomas Ponnet wrote:
  The difference between permanent and self-employed to me is that if you're a permanent worker you'll have to live with the staff that are there. You can try and change that but if you don't get the support of the powers that be,
  
  there's only two options - leave or work with what you have. For quite some time I choose the second option (my opinions on recruiting were ignored) and I'm sure that I helped make good testers out of poor ones. Not great but
  
  good. Through patience and determination these people are now reading books and articles about testing and learn to enjoy it. It's a slow and painful process. The underlying question "is it worth it?" I can't really answer. I want to
  
  believe that by doing that I'm helping the testing craft.
  Teaching someone who wants to learn is relatively easy. Convincing someone that they want to learn and then teach is much harder and takes more time. I'm not convinced that we should fire people because they haven't seen the
  
  light from the beginning.
  Having said all that, I'd be happy to take on a new job and work with driven and ambitious people. Being able to choose to work which people I want to work with and not having to rely on someone who doesn't value what we do
  
  becomes more and more important to me and I can't see me continuing with the philosophy I described above much longer.
  
  I feel that there is a lot more to be said about this but the reply is bloated enough as it is, I only recently started writing my own blog so will need some time to become more concise. I'm happy to discuss this topic in more detail though.
  
  Thomas
  
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