Who is the tester?

In my current and primary projects the testing is not done by software testing professionals – and it’s probably for the better too! It is in contexts like these:

1. A Microsoft Dynamics “D365O” implementation of health registration forms. Tested by public service clerks partly comparing to the previous solution, partly testing the new system platform.
2. Moving 700+ servers running 50+ applications from one data center to another while keeping everything from mainframe to SaaS integrations live. Tested by the application staff that have maintained the system since for ever (10+ years).
3. Implement at standard commercial off-the-shelf tool for 2000+ IT savvy users. To most users this tool is their primary work tracking system, so they get to test it too.

In contexts like these the act of testing done by subject matter experts of the field – infrastructure specialists, public service clerks, support staff, application developers and the like. These persons qualify as the “customer” in the Modern Testing Principle that “the customer is the only one capable to judge and evaluate the quality of our product“. They might have a testing /role/ during the project, but that is because of their high domain knowledge, but at the end of the project they continue with their “real business job” of using the system to produce stuff for the business.

It’s not their job to know ISTQB from “MT Principles” and “RST methodology“. That is up to me, as the manager of the testing. My role is more and more about the guidelines for the testing and the facilitation of the people doing the testing. My reach goes so far as to ask them to think about how the product fails and succeeds. But I cannot expect them to know checking from testing.

Long gone are the days of managing testers that put all their skill into the niches of the testing craft. There are less software testing professionals doing the testing in projects like the above. Part of it is, that the describing the whole system explicitly is simply to expensive in time and money. This makes the requirements inherently fuzzy and undefined. And part of it is that learning the skills simply takes to long. Some technical tests require skills of a certified VMware specialist, others having an eye for every unwritten tacit business rule.

Another angle is that the skills that the usual software testing specialist brings to the table is handled on a lower level. Testing is done by the organisation (like Microsoft) that builds the standard solutions and commercial off the self systems (SAP, D365O etc). Another is that the test techniques of the software testing field simply no longer applies. I mean how does boundary value analysis add value to enterprise data center transition executions, when the system under test it not even software?

The better tester is neither the software developer nor the software testing specialist. It’s the person who ponders:

• How could this go wrong…
• I wonder if…
• For this to work, we need to do…

Come to think of it, everyone in the project does that! Some do it more explicitly, some do it more experimental. Everyone evaluates how their actions add value to the people that matter (at some time).