distributedlife

Today a fellow tester came up and whispered to me. “Since your presentation and filling out my assessment I realised I didn’t want to be in management anymore.” They way she whispered it furtively, suggested that this was a bad thing. I asked her what she really wanted to do. “I want to test software and report defects; I want to talk to developers and help make something. I don’t to spend all my time writing reports or managing staff.”

Now I don’t think that my test lead and test management road map painted a picture of terrible drudgery and boredom and I certainly don’t think we can get by without this discipline.

In my experience it has been that good testers get promoted to management the same way that good anybodies get promoted. Having good people up the chain can be a good thing. Except that management and testing are two different skills and the less test management and test leadership you do the less experience you have. Read this excellent article from Rands on the moving from engineering to management.

All I think I have done is reignite a testing flame that had been blown out slowly by the burdens of management. Testers that stay in the field do so because they like testing and realise it is a great job. It isn’t filled with the drudgery of office work; eyes flicking between clock and screen as our souls are slowly destroyed.

That was one of my goals of the road map; to inform testers both new and old about exciting opportunities that do exist within the field. It isn’t all regression testing and wasted cycles.

Get the full details on the disciplined approach to software testing.