Are you part of the faceless masses?

I was on my way home the other day when I happened to talk to a woman who works in HR in some consultancy company. We were talking about how to get oneself hired to a company and how to be one step ahead of the other applicants. With recent discussions with James Bach in my pocket I became challenging her claims about employing oneself and best practices thereof.

What she suggested was that by certifying one can have an advantage in the job market. If one is not certified there is no knowing what the person can or can’t do, right? Certification is the first gateway to rule out incompetent testers, right? I had some thoughts about this prior to talking to James but some of the arguments that I had been using were lacking momentum. James gave me some golden thoughts in how to be one step ahead of the cattle of unskilled certified testers (I believe that if skilled they will see that the certification will not get them employed).

Certified terminology

Certification by name certifies a certain characteristic of a person, object or organization. It is not comprehensive but directed to a specific area. It can be achieved by passing an audit, an examination, a course of some kind, to name a few. Certification is not to certify the skill of doing something but the knowledge of some fashion. It can be of terminology, syntax, operating system details, etc. None of these, however, point toward the skill of doing something.

The certification where you get certified by defining a set of terms is quite usual. You get the information from books and then you take the test, usually multiple-choice examination to ease the assessment process. You can basically get a certification by guessing the right row of answers, having a list of those answers achieved by cheating, or by memorizing a set of terms. Because the test doesn’t aim to assess the understanding of those terms the value of it is quite minimal.

As terminology changes from company to company, from context to context, we do not need to memorize a set of terms and apply them by force. We need to understand the meaning behind the terms we use and to explain them. Then, if conflicting with the other terms within that context, the use of terms must be adjusted. If you say “testing” and mean “systematic evaluation of the quality of the system using various techniques applicable to the context”, and the organization uses “uggabugga” for that same meaning and “testing” for coffee tasting, it might be good to adjust the use of terminology for that context. If you just keep using the term taught to you by some book somewhere, you will drive yourself unto a cul-de-sac of misunderstanding.

Proving skills and standing out

The testing certification provided by ISTQB is a good example on how certify a tester without any skills to actually test. It is a book examination, essentially. More so, there is a course aiming to pass the test. I’m not going to talk about the syllabus at all, but about the skills taught at the course, or the lack thereof. The certification doesn’t aim in proving skills of the tester. A tester with no experience in testing can go to the certification examination and pass before doing any testing at all.

A recruiter going through applications for a job look for something that might look for certifications as a proof of skill. When confronted by a certification that by nature does not measure skills but the knowledge of terminology (which obviously is the wrong way to go) the recruiter might confuse the person having skills. This is not to say that the applicant doesn’t have skills, they might very well have a huge set of skills, but they are not the characteristics that get you to the interview.

“If you don’t get to the interview then you cannot show your skills. That is why I use the certification to get to interviews!” I hear you. Read more.

Rising over the masses

The recruiters have a hard decision in determining who to call to interviews and who not. They look for something that stands out! You might think that a certification gets you the interview. Stop there for a moment. How many other applicants you think do the same thing? How many of the 500 applicants to a Test Engineer job have the exact thought of having a certification as a ticket to interview? 50? 100? 450? This obviously depends, but think this: The certification makes you part of a mass of people. By using a generic way to stand out, you’re “massifying” yourself – you become part of a gray mass that doesn’t stand out in any way.

Like I asked in the beginning, “Certification is the first gateway to rule out incompetent testers, right?” it actually is so. But it not a gateway only to rule out incompetent testers, it is there to rule out incompetent recruiters. A person without proper testing knowledge, skills and passion does not know how to recruit a good tester. He may know a little and thus relies on the magic of certification, at least a little. Even the most unqualified recruiter is looking for SOMETHING to make the call who to call to the interview. By having 90% of the applications look the same, they have a hard time deciding. The gateway works so that it rules out the certified testers and leaves those that have the spark, the passion and the skill. Do you want to be the one getting the interview or be ruled out because “you don’t have the spark”?

First thing recruiters see is the application. We are force-fed the template from recruitment agencies and we use that. We are afraid to be different and difference is what you should be aiming for! Instead of creating a dull list of what you can do and schools you’ve been to, do something else! Write a bug report where you describe your behavior and characteristics. Do an interview of yourself and post it like a newspaper column. Send them a video of you testing a product while explaining what you’re doing. I could go on and on! Be outrageous, but professional. The point is to make a statement. Send a filled template and you’re doomed.

Conclusions

When I had explained myself to the HR person on my way home, she said: “Well you’re obviously a guru, so you don’t need a certification.” That is not correct, although I briefly basked in admiration. I’m not a guru any more than the next guy. I have passion and I’m not afraid to show it! I have goals and I’m not afraid to tell them! I have a hard built reputation as a tester and I'm not afraid to promote it! (Maaret might say “He’s cute when he rambles.”)

Every single tester can be a professional, and they should. Every single tester can apply to a place where they want to work and get employed, and they should. Be ambitious, be excited, be passionate. And show it. Don’t fall into marketing trap and be part of the mass – be you!

And get refining that CV right now!

Flashback to Learning

I rarely have the concentration span to write complex and analyzing posts. If I believe that the subject has more to it than I can scribble in 90 minutes, it will more likely become a candidate for an article and will be more fine tuned than a regular blog post. Now I thought I would write an update to my blog describing the second day at the Rapid Testing Course, but then I thought writing another a diary-like entry was not exciting enough - and I want my scribbling to be at least a bit exciting.

So why do I have to make a blog post about something that I’m not willing to investigate? I don't! That's the beauty of it! But I want to make a quick post on something interesting. In order to do a blog post from something that requires little to no research it could be about an experience that is worth sharing. This post is not from today’s class but from past but the topic was brought up today in the class.

James Bach and Michael Bolton use the Socratic Method to help learn stuff in their courses. To simplify, they ask a bunch of questions from a tester to squeeze out an answer - not possibly the right answer but one good enough. I got my share of the method in the class but I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about an event that happened 4 months ago. (Enter fairy bells tinkle and a wobbly picture to demonstrate a flashback...)

I wrote a white paper about six months ago about heuristic testing implementation that was discussed in a Peer testing session late last year. The article was about to be published in a testing magazine and it was fine tuned for couple of months by the editor and a couple of voluntary proofreaders. I still wanted to have a comment from James Bach and Michael Bolton as I have a respect for their opinion in all testing related issues. And so I sent a reviewed draft to them and waited for approval.

What then happened, I couldn't expect. I had high hopes on the content of my article as it had been reviewed multiple times by bunch of different people. I thought I was in a verge of a breakthrough and praises would that flying my way. Instead, James’ reply was simple:

“I'm completely opposed to this.”

What followed was an exchange of emails between me and James about the problems with the article. It concluded in a suggestion to remove the essential elements that I based the article on. I thought James had got it all wrong and I requested him to discuss the difference in views that we seemingly were having. Skype was the medium of choice.

We ended up talking for 90 minutes. First we were talking about the article itself and he clarified some points he had made earlier. Then James challenged some of the essential elements of the article and I tried to defend them as best I could. All the while doing so I thought better descriptions for the principles I was using. I was on hot coals during the conversation: if I had chosen a bad wording for my answer, he would grab it and ask the real meaning behind the words I was using.

The article did not survive, but I did. Later I was a happy to have endured the barrage and decided to hone the article so that I could later publish with pride and joy. I never really understood how much the discussion had given me, though. I had learned some very valuable lessons. The critique on the article was secondary compared to the practice I got performing under pressure and all the while holding to my beliefs. As James said in the course today, there is none worse than tester who is “pathetically complying”. I could have said “OK. I won’t publish! Just don’t yell at me.” and I would have lost all my credibility. I learned how to defend something even though I might be wrong. Ilari Henrik Aegerter gave me a coaching session once where we practiced exactly that: how to be able to defend your point. And so I became better at explaining myself and defending my point under pressure.

What I would have done differently is that I never really tried to sympathize to James’ point of view as I so aggressively tried to get mine across. I could have got more out of the conversation if I had listened more carefully and sought for meanings and advice that he gave between the lines.

Having shared this experience also enforced the learning that I experienced, for I was able to verbalize some of the stuff that I had thought only briefly. Next steps for me are to revisit the article bearing the real purpose of the article in mind, and try to make it better (if not perfect). The article is resting and collecting dust currently, but I will tackle the beast soon enough. I believe that the Rapid Software Testing course will give the inspiration boost that I need to get it done (although I think extrinsic motivation plays no part in this, as I already WANT to finish the article). Too bad I didn't sign in for the Let's Test! conference with the paper. ;)

One down two to go!

And no, I will not link the King Diamond song here (even tho it’s cool). This blog post is about my experiences from the first (my second first day) at the Rapid Software Testing course by James Bach. I seem to be one of the lucky few who actually are able to have two goes at this amazing adventure to the deep dungeons of an exploratory testing mind.

Like I tweeted earlier, I fell into traps; the most obvious traps that can be set for a tester. I know I can do better so here’s a quick analysis on what happened and what could I have done better:

http://morningandotherstories.wordpress.com/2011/12/

Context: When I was confronted with a testing problem without a context, the first thing to do is to determine the context. Right? Here’s what I did: I thought I might sound too clever on asking and challenging, so I answered the question without determining the context. This lead into questioning my answer and making me realize that “we’re shooting live ammo here”. So I decided to sharpen up.

• I could have done what I (try to) do every time I’m facing a problem: Understand the context, the people involved, the background, the current status, the mission, etc; communicate with the client, stakeholders, testers, etc. That could have brought the whole problem into a new light. I fell into a clever-trap. 

Pattern and mental models: I had the advantage/disadvantage to see the formula for a pattern beforehand. The task was to determine what the pattern was. Those that have taken the RST course will remember this, right? I remember the point of this exercise being to break the assumption and to focus and defocus. Again, my previous knowledge bias struck in: I completely ignored testing the product and did some of the procedures I had seen done in previous classes. The pattern was the same, however, so basically I didn't lose anything…

• …EXCEPT FOR EXPERIENCE! I could have spent the time testing in ways I had not tested before. Now I had the time to do something different. Instead I tried to look good by using Excel (like James Whitaker, I think) and I made a simple script to produce test data. I didn't even bother to check the logs, as I had checked them numerous times before. Should they have changed the behavior even a bit, I wouldn't have been able to identify the pattern. I fell into a showman-trap.

http://members.multimania.co.uk/mrmal13/saints/amardas.htm

Documenting: The task was simple: Write tests and justify all of them. James specifically asked everybody whether they had made a justification for ALL the test they were going to run. An exploratory tester documenting test cases and justifying them all with specific, detailed texts? Can you picture that? I could hear myself saying within my head “Yes, James” without even questioning my so obvious bias. I tried to be a good boy and wrote them cases and then feel pride.

• The exercise was about justifying the testing but in a different way. My doing inexpensive testing and discovering something worth discovering, one can justify a more expensive testing. Like James said: “The cheap tests pave the way for the more expensive ones. They are the scouts that look for a good spot to place the artillery.” That comment alone is worth its own blog post. But instead of being inquisitive, exploratory tester, I became a test designer that is going to get fired. I fell to the guru-awe-trap.

So my first day was a success: more learning than I hoped for. I also thought that I had some form of advantage of knowing the stuff from previous, but it seems that I had misunderstood (or belittled) some basic principles of Rapid Testing. I felt some of the stuff explained more comprehensively, with sidetracks to bulk up the areas where I thought the content was thin (namely the modeling and project elements of Rapid Testing). I do wish James would have covered the modeling heuristics with more depth, but I will leave room for other areas for the next two days.

What I’m looking forward is the process of Rapid Testing itself. I somehow missed a whole lot on that subject when Michael Bolton was teaching the course. Also to hear more about the oracles would be nice. We scratched the surface today but we’re still to cover some of the mnemonics that I frequently use, like CIDTESTD, HICCUPPS, etc., but it was nice to see an update to SFDPOT with the Interface addition. I will be using that when I reinvigorate the workshop in near future.

The importance of the context

So as I’m heading home, I will share this one particularly funny event that happened in the beginning of the class. Here’s the story without context:

James Bach spit on Aleksis Tulonen.

If you add context, here’s what really happened: Some poor fellow was getting given the “Socrates treatment” by James and he had an act prepared for the response the guy was going to give. He asked a question and set a trap onto that question. He knew the answer would be something “horrifying”. So he took a sip of water after asking the question. When the poor fellow answered James theatrically spit the water from his mouth as if being so stupefied by the answer that he just couldn't bare it. Unfortunately the aim of the jet of water was a bit off. Aleksis, who happened to sit in the front row next to me, was a victim of the poor aim. Aleksis’ phone and computer got some droplets on them as collateral victim of this splendid act. Hopefully tomorrow’s newspaper doesn't have a title “A testing consultant got spit on by a guru”.

What it going on in my head? (Before the Rapid Software Testing course)

Today begins the Rapid Software Testing course here in Helsinki. The course is mastered by none other than James Bach.

Anyhow, this blog post is a vent of my thoughts before the event and to explain some of my goals and expectations towards the course.

It has been some time when I previously talked to James Bach in Twitter or Skype, and to be honest I'm a bit intimidated. Not because of his status but mine. As a chairman to the Finnish Association of Software Testing I should pose some status as a testing professional. Not say I don't do testing but there's a chance that me not being able to do hands on testing regularly might decrease the status.

Also I found that as I didn't have any innovative things to say (due to being a bit isolated from the presence of other testers) I have failed to register as a speaker to some of the most expected conferences. Namely the Let's test! 2013. I hope that this course in addition to the like-minded people attending will wake up the sleeping beast within me to get cracking on the testing stuff again.

As for the course, me having attended it once before, I feel I'm in a different position than ones that haven't attended the course. I feel I have to know all the stuff better than any. But instead of being disheartened, I believe I can turn this into an asset. To have some distance to the subject might even make the event better for me. I have had the time to challenge the previous stuff and to filter out what doesn't fit into my daily work.

I mentioned that I haven't done hands on testing for few months. That doesn't mean that I have not used the exploratory testing principles to guide my work. As a maintenance manager I need to be able to grasp the concept of the issue really quickly to determine the proper course of actions to take. I have used the heuristic approach and namely the CIDTESTD-heuristics to guide through the first parts of the case analysis. Also as I need to know what goes out of the company, I need to sometimes do some testing for the implementation done by the developers. They are usually tested thoroughly but this is to give me a grasp of what has been done and how it actually works.

So I believe that when James invited me to join the course, it was the best thing that could happen to me even though the learning doesn't directly support my testing. More so I'm really expecting to have good chats with the James and other attendees of the course. I know at least that Aleksis is coming and it's great to see them both in person! This is gonna be a ride to remember! :)

Like I mentioned in Twitter: A gallon of coffee and some pastry should get the man ticking.