I
want to discuss a topic seldom touched in this site. The recognition of
a tester’s skills. There was quite a discussion on SQAForums about the best tester .
The dilemma “who is best known not necessarily is the best at what
they do“. I want however to recognize testers in our company who are
the best at what they do and motivate others to become better at what
they do. Also to hire those who are good or has a potential and
willingness to be good at what they will do.
There is a formal activity designed to evaluate performance and productivity: performance reviews and there are tester titles/skill levels - also formality. I'm going to analyze them with this blog.
Experiences that caused me to talk about it
I’ve participated in describing the test levels (several times) and later improving them. I’m now a part of a special “working party“ (consisting of 2 persons) who is designed to approve each tester skill level change (increase). I’ve done a lot of performance reviews and was one of few persons in a company who found some value in that process other than following the corporate guidelines. And still I’m not happy about the processes I’m taking part in.
Details, examples, what’s wrong
For those who does not work in a large company with defined list of skill levels or positions – this is quite simple. They have list like functional tester, test engineer, QA analyst, etc. optionally complemented with advanced, specialist, expert. Each skill level has description typically including types of tasks and duties the person is capable of (optionally – typical tasks the person is supposed to perform).
I’ve never seen it include the evaluation of a “performance/speedâ€. I don’t mean diligence I mean ability to achieve the desired results with less effort. Testers are mostly problem solvers in my context. Skills not only determine which problems they could solve, but also – how fast. Suppose tester A is capable to solve 7 but tester B – 8 out of 10 problems, but it takes twice as much time for the tester B. If however tester A could solve the first 7 problems twice as fast as B he will have plenty of time to ask/search for solution for the last 3, while B will be left with 2
There are a lot of testing tasks that would take few times more effort for less skilled tester although each of them are capable to do it. Unfortunately there is also this vision of tester whose only task is to press buttons in certain sequence, so that the only skill you need to improve your performance is typing (typewriting) skill. It maybe the case in certain contexts like 100% scripted manual regression testing. It is fortunately not my context – I’m afraid I wouldn’t survive it.
The purpose of evaluating skill level?
I’m not against it. I know at least few good reasons having those skill levels evaluated:
- it evaluates testers usefulness for company and even help to decide the salary
- it makes a tester transition from one project to another (which happens quite frequently at least in my company) smooth – so the new boss knows what to expect from a tester and what tasks to give him
- it recognizes tester skills and show them path for further growth, especially taking into account that certifications are not among practitioners seen as skills recognition (which is also my attitude)
Skills in computer games (RPG)
I’ve used to play computer games a lot. RPG games was one of my favorite. The idea is to spend endless hours developing your character by killing monsters (well, there are also those quests, however). Killing brings experience which enables you to improve your skills. There are a lot of different skills in different disciplines like fighting: sword, dodging, parry, etc. Magic: fire, illusions, destruction, etc. etc. There are two basic needs for skills: 1) you are able to learn do certain actions (like specific spells) only once you skill is great enough 2) your efficiency (damage done on target, failure rate, how fast you got exhausted, etc.) at doing the actions increases as your skill increase.
Few games have only one of those two or are designed to make one of them more significant. I loved the most balanced ones. In those games one very experienced and correctly developed character is better that two less experienced or wrong developed, better than pack of little experienced and hundreds of novices.
What so specific about a tester
Tester credibility is issue number one. I’ve observed through 10 years of experience that once I earn credibility my performance improves as I don’t have to waste my time proving that I do the right things, especially when I follow context-driven methodology.
The issue number two is the wide variety of tasks functional tester is really supposed to do as tester is supposed to test any software written in any language following any architecture for any business.
For developer the main skill is the language, business analyst – business domain, designer – architecture type. For tester – generic skills in testing, analytical/critical thinking, communication documentation, etc.
I tend to think of a tester as a jack-of-all trades. And still there are a lot of place for specialization. In our company some areas of deeper specialization include performance testing, api-level, exploratory testing. Scripted black-box testing is never considered a specialization worth to mention – supposed as generic testing skill.
http://testingreflections.com/node/4569
There is a formal activity designed to evaluate performance and productivity: performance reviews and there are tester titles/skill levels - also formality. I'm going to analyze them with this blog.
Experiences that caused me to talk about it
I’ve participated in describing the test levels (several times) and later improving them. I’m now a part of a special “working party“ (consisting of 2 persons) who is designed to approve each tester skill level change (increase). I’ve done a lot of performance reviews and was one of few persons in a company who found some value in that process other than following the corporate guidelines. And still I’m not happy about the processes I’m taking part in.
Details, examples, what’s wrong
For those who does not work in a large company with defined list of skill levels or positions – this is quite simple. They have list like functional tester, test engineer, QA analyst, etc. optionally complemented with advanced, specialist, expert. Each skill level has description typically including types of tasks and duties the person is capable of (optionally – typical tasks the person is supposed to perform).
I’ve never seen it include the evaluation of a “performance/speedâ€. I don’t mean diligence I mean ability to achieve the desired results with less effort. Testers are mostly problem solvers in my context. Skills not only determine which problems they could solve, but also – how fast. Suppose tester A is capable to solve 7 but tester B – 8 out of 10 problems, but it takes twice as much time for the tester B. If however tester A could solve the first 7 problems twice as fast as B he will have plenty of time to ask/search for solution for the last 3, while B will be left with 2
There are a lot of testing tasks that would take few times more effort for less skilled tester although each of them are capable to do it. Unfortunately there is also this vision of tester whose only task is to press buttons in certain sequence, so that the only skill you need to improve your performance is typing (typewriting) skill. It maybe the case in certain contexts like 100% scripted manual regression testing. It is fortunately not my context – I’m afraid I wouldn’t survive it.
The purpose of evaluating skill level?
I’m not against it. I know at least few good reasons having those skill levels evaluated:
- it evaluates testers usefulness for company and even help to decide the salary
- it makes a tester transition from one project to another (which happens quite frequently at least in my company) smooth – so the new boss knows what to expect from a tester and what tasks to give him
- it recognizes tester skills and show them path for further growth, especially taking into account that certifications are not among practitioners seen as skills recognition (which is also my attitude)
Skills in computer games (RPG)
I’ve used to play computer games a lot. RPG games was one of my favorite. The idea is to spend endless hours developing your character by killing monsters (well, there are also those quests, however). Killing brings experience which enables you to improve your skills. There are a lot of different skills in different disciplines like fighting: sword, dodging, parry, etc. Magic: fire, illusions, destruction, etc. etc. There are two basic needs for skills: 1) you are able to learn do certain actions (like specific spells) only once you skill is great enough 2) your efficiency (damage done on target, failure rate, how fast you got exhausted, etc.) at doing the actions increases as your skill increase.
Few games have only one of those two or are designed to make one of them more significant. I loved the most balanced ones. In those games one very experienced and correctly developed character is better that two less experienced or wrong developed, better than pack of little experienced and hundreds of novices.
What so specific about a tester
Tester credibility is issue number one. I’ve observed through 10 years of experience that once I earn credibility my performance improves as I don’t have to waste my time proving that I do the right things, especially when I follow context-driven methodology.
The issue number two is the wide variety of tasks functional tester is really supposed to do as tester is supposed to test any software written in any language following any architecture for any business.
For developer the main skill is the language, business analyst – business domain, designer – architecture type. For tester – generic skills in testing, analytical/critical thinking, communication documentation, etc.
I tend to think of a tester as a jack-of-all trades. And still there are a lot of place for specialization. In our company some areas of deeper specialization include performance testing, api-level, exploratory testing. Scripted black-box testing is never considered a specialization worth to mention – supposed as generic testing skill.
http://testingreflections.com/node/4569
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