Testing - A Big Subject
I thought today that I'd use today's post to describe my idea of what great testing is. As I was sitting here thinking about how to begin, it seemed like Pirsig's writing students in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance - there's so much there that I don't know where to begin. In the aforementioned book, the blockage was broken when Prisig urged his student to narrow down what they were going to write about. The narrowing, in one case, went from the entire contry to a single brick in one building.
So, what's the single brick here? I'll posit that it's the answer to the question: What is the single most important thing that testing should do for an organization? I ask this question a lot to people, including those above me in the organization. And I have a hard time getting a clear answer. If I were going to work for a new group or company, getting an answer to this question would be a prerequisite to me accepting employment. There is more than one valid answer and the answer to this question tells me a lot about what's valued in an organization.
If I ran an organization, my answer to the question (thinking in generic terms and answering on April 8, 2007) would be this:
Discover and report the state of the product(s) produced by the organization.
I think this is the most valuable thing a test organization can do for an organization. There are other side effects that also have value. For example, discovering the state of the product may involve discovering problems with the products that, once they're known, can be fixed. Or, when attempting to define what is meant by "the state of the product" the tester may get more in touch with the user community that uses the software or learn more about the partners of the organization that use its products and bring that perspective into the organization. But I think of those as secondary or attributes of the main focus of testing: discovering and reporting product state.
One particular answer to the question makes me wary: "Testing should ensure a quality product." To me, that answer isn't helpful in that it doesn't give the testing organization any guidance on how to do its job. It also implies an abdication of responsibility on the part of the other parts of the organization. Every discipline; development, program management, testing, user education; should consider it their job to ensure a quality product. If you compartmentalize that responsibility in the testing organization your make it very likely that you will not ship a quality product. At best, you will make your organization inefficient. Quality should be in the product before the test team sees it.
So there it is, my answer to the question, "What is the single most important thing for the test team in an organization to do?" Do you agree or disagree?