Last year, I had a surprisingly popular post about My Job as a Tester<\/a>. I\u2019ve changed roles since then, and I\u2019ve been thinking about an update, but for a variety of reasons, I\u2019m just not ready yet. The biggest reason is that although I\u2019ve been on the team for five months now, my role is still evolving. Once it settles into a bit of a groove (and as other factors resolve), I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll post a recap.<\/p>\n Recently, I\u2019ve been working a lot on pieces of implementation of test infrastructure for my team. Although I\u2019m still heavily involved in testing strategy and test \u201cstuff\u201d, the goal of most of my current work is to enable<\/em> good testing. Since I sometimes describe my role as an improver of tests, testers, and testing<\/em>, I\u2019m still on target with my own vision. <\/p>\n While reflecting recently on what I\u2019ve been doing vs. what [anyone else] does as a tester (and catching up on reading, I pondered the fact that what I\u2019m doing now isn\u2019t really testing as \u201ctraditionally\u201d defined (whatever that means). However, what I do is<\/em> making testing better \u2013 but am I more of a \u201cproductivity engineer\u201d than a tester? Brent Jensen has this description<\/a>:<\/p>\n A tester\u2019s job is to accelerate the achievement of shippable quality<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n By that definition, I suppose I\u2019m right on the money. But I know there are people (who will likely tell me I\u2019m damaging the craft, or that I\u2019m mean to them) who don\u2019t call what I do testing \u2013 I\u2019m cool with that. I still like my job and my business card still says \u201cTester\u201d.<\/p>\n By far, my favorite favorite thing to do as a tester is design tests. I love the challenge of crafting a suite of tests that enable team members to make well-informed decisions about product quality (at least that\u2019s the plan). Testers in this role may be part of a whole-team approach where they have a test\/quality focus, but have shared team goals. Or, there may still be \u201cdevs\u201d and \u201ctesters\u201d, but the wall between the two is minimal, and everyone works together (most of the time, at least) to make sure the product achieves both shipping and quality goals. Brent\u2019s definition works pretty well for this role too.<\/p>\n Design overlaps execution. The Think-Design-Execute loop is tight in good testing \u2013 this is true whether it\u2019s entirely, partially, or non-automated (or inversely, entirely, partially, or non-manual).<\/p>\n Which leads me to two test roles that, while they definitely exist, I could say they\u2019re dead to me. But they\u2019re not really dead \u2013 I know that. What they are is more\u2026irrelevant. Given what I do, where I do it, and a smattering of other context indicators, two test roles are off of my radar.<\/p>\n The first is the test-automation only role. I think the role of taking manual test scripts written by one person and then automating those steps is a bad practice. I know some people like to do this stuff, but I think it\u2019s a waste of time. What you end up with are tests that either should have been automated in the first place, or tests that should not<\/em> be automated. Fortunately, while I acknowledge that these roles exist, I\u2019m happy to work in a world where these roles do not exist. <\/p>\n For lack of a better term, I\u2019ll call the final role \u201cwaterfall-tester\u201d \u2013 even though I know this role exists at some (fr)agile shops as well. This is the when-I\u2019m-done-writing-it-you-can-test-it role. Test outsourcing is the most common manifestation of this role, but it exists anywhere where testers only provide value at the end of the cycle. I know In the end, I\u2019m not exactly sure what this means to anyone but me. As I\u2019ve mentioned (and tweeted) before:<\/p>\n\n
great<\/strike> fantastic testers who love this role, and I\u2019ve been in this role myself in the distant past. Today, however, I don\u2019t want to think about testing something where my contribution hasn\u2019t been part of the end-result from the earliest stages. Again, while I fully acknowledge that testers live in this role, I\u2019m happy that it isn\u2019t part of my testing world.<\/font><\/p>\n
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