Better Software - April 2008 - (Page 37)

I sort of fell into the testing field: I learned testing on the job from some really good people. I used to think that was exceptional, but over the years, I realized that very few people actually plan to be testers. Sometimes people use it as a stepping stone to development, but very few people set out to test as the end goal. Then, once you become a tester, the next step is unclear. The perception often seems to be the choices are stagnate or go into management. - Ben Simo, Software Tester Sadly, Ben is not alone in his dilemma. Where accountants and professors have a detailed professional career ladder, in many test organizations the ladder only has one rung. Ben is quick to add, “In my mind, this isn’t just a problem for testers, but often for all of IT. Often the IT managers are the least qualified managers in the organization. They chose management as the default, because they saw no where else to go.” Shrini Kulkarni, a popular blog author and software tester, recently pointed out that a management job often leads to dealing with personnel evaluations, invoices, payments, recruiting, budgets, and other aspects of running a business that may not seem interesting to technical people. Many testers prefer solving technology-related problems. Therefore, many testers are more interested in a technical career ladder, but they may not see one with their current employer. If we are responsible for our own professional development, as Alicia Yanik pointed out in the December 2007 issue of Better Software, we need to develop our own professional growth strategy. In other words, if your company does not provide a professional development system, one option is to build your own ladder—figure out where you want to be and work with the company to recognize that growth. market focus, and differentiation. In other words: charge less per hour, know your customer better, or be “special.” Charging less per hour may not be feasible, but if you do, then everyone competes in this fashion and the result is a price war. The winner of a price war is whoever has the lowest cost structure. A market-focused tester limits himself to a particular niche, such as Department of Defense contractors, medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and so on. This can work for some contractors and job-hoppers, but if you want to stay in the same company, it doesn’t help much. Everyone at your company is a specialist in that field. The third approach is differentiation. People willingly pay twice as much for a bottle of Coca-Cola than a bottle of the generic stuff—and the same goes for automobiles, laundry detergent, macaroni and cheese, and even hotel rooms. For example, Donald Trump has managed to make his name synonymous with “expensive … and worth every penny.” In one episode of his television show, he essentially slapped his name on bottles of water and doubled the price. There are so-called “name brands” in software testing, too—people who have made an effort to be better known than their peers. This “branding” style of differentiation is reputation and perception, but sometimes the product actually can do something unique and different. For testers, this means specialization, often in a sub-field that your company does not currently have. By making this specialization explicit (defined in our job descriptions), we can demonstrate added value to the company and then build our ladder. But … What Specialty? Inventing a completely new specialty can be scary. It not only must be an area in which you are interested but also must be a role that your organization needs filled. But if the organization needs it, why isn’t it already being done by someone else? Jerry Weinberg suggests generating ideas for new specialties by taking two existing things and intersecting them [2]. Figure 1 shows a few examples of roles APRIL 2008 BETTER SOFTWARE Another Way to Look at It Software testing is a business, and you are the product. Your goal is to increase the value of the product. There are three common strategies [1] that we can use to accomplish this goal: cost reduction, www.StickyMinds.com 37 http://www.StickyMinds.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Better Software - April 2008

Better Software - April 2008 Contents Mark Your Calendar Contributions eLightenment Technology Speaking - A Change Would Do You Good Code Craft - A "D" In Programming, Part 1 Test Connection - Learning the Hardware Lessons Management Chronicles - The Art of Persuading Management Cover Story - Incremental and Iterative Development Developers...Start Your Engines Where Do I Go From Here Product Announcements 10 Things You Might Not Know About... The Last Word - Software Quality and the Prisoner's Dilemma Ad Index

Better Software - April 2008

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