Skip to main content

Tester's service promises


My company has a monthly news letter, each month having a different theme.

The theme of the news letter is "Service promises" where we discuss and think what is and what should be the service promise we give to our customers. This got me thinking, what is my service promise as a tester, and then spent an hour creating them. Here's the list


Tester's service promises


     I promise to test
     I promise to tell if something threatens my ability to test, including my own lack of knowledge
     I promise to try to find out my testing purpose, i.e. why I am testing
     I promise to try to decide what and how I test to fit the purpose of my testing
     I promise to report everything that to me look like things that could threaten the value of the system (to someone that matters)
     I promise not to find all the bugs in the system I am testing, nor to give out information that would for someone look like I have
     I promise not to test everything in the system, nor to give out information that would for someone look like I have
     I promise to do my best to understand the context, the business and the risks associated with them, in order to do better testing
     I promise not to become a gatekeeper or a sentinel of quality. My job is to provide information in order to assess and analyze the quality, not to demand a certain level of it.
     I promise not to label myself as a quality assurer. My job is to provide information in order to assess and analyze the quality, so that other people can assure it.
     I promise to make mistakes, admit the mistakes, and learn from them.
     If given trust, I promise to make more mistakes.
     I promise to not to try to look good in the expense of other people, including but not limited to analysts, coders, other testers, end users, and project managers
     I promise not to keep all these promises. But I promise to try.
     I promise not to do things just because I am told to do so.
     I promise to try to fight the apathy, cynicism, and fear that sometimes tries to take control of my work. As fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.
 

O yea. I also promise to rethink, remove, and add some of these promises.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I don't report bugs

I don't report bugs . Bug is such a loaded word that people understand very differently, that instead of using it and explaining what I mean by it I rather just use other words. Like observations, thoughts, surprises, ideas, alternatives, or something similar. (And no I don't use fault, defect, or error either). Bug has also quite a negative connotation. "Reporting a bug" is kind of like telling someone that they've been served. And as we are actually giving away the gift of information, why wrap it in such a nasty package? And maybe more importantly it is very likely that whatever you might have to say is wrong. If not plain wrong, then at least incomplete. So I like to approach the kind of situations with the assumption that I am probably wrong. Cutting off anything that might sound arrogant makes stuff quite a lot easier. Especially after you realise later on that you have been wrong. I leave plenty of observations unreported . I don't want to waste

Testers of past be the IT stars of the future?

Been noticing two a bit conflicting themes lately. 1. Testers getting (or pushed) to be more technical and write test automation code 2. Articles listing future IT core skills as widely non-technical So whereas many testers are moving to work more on test automation, the vital skills of the future may be such as: - Creativity -  Analytical (critical) thinking  -  Activ e  learning  with a growth mindset   -  Judgment and decision making -  Interpersonal communication skills - Complex Problem Solving Which sounds almost like a list of vital skills needed for an exploratory tester.  So we should perhaps remind the ones starting a testing career or moving away from it, that also these skills are something that can be quite valuable in the future as well. Maybe even the most valuable.

Testing drunk

(My first blog writing ever.) I've been thinking a long time that it's funny how many bugs I find by accident. Try to do something, make a mistake and boom - a bug is found.  Making the mistakes intentionally doesn't quite work - that's why they are called accidents I guess.. So I've thought of ways to make myself more prone to accidents, coming up with an apparent one; testing drunk. TUI (testing under the influence). So this I gotta try. More to come on that later.