EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference 2008 presentation on Where Do Old Testers Go? by Herman- Pieter Nijhof. See more at conferences.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/past-presentations/

1. Where do old testers go?
Herman-Pieter Nijhof

2. Walkthrough
 Why this topic?
 Career path: managing your future
 What are timeboxes we are looking at
 Satisfiers
 Looking back to look forward

3. Why this topic?
Every Tom, Mike or Jane thinks about the future!
Some factors make it special for testers:
 Our specialty does not provide us with a lot of examples yet, it is still very young
 We tend to create our own unhappiness by being really critical and setting very high
expectations
 We tend to be front-runners, discovering everything ahead of everybody else
 We tend to be very structured, thus requiring a lot of structure

4. We love it, it’s the best job ever
 At this moment testers are in higher demand and more expensive than programmers
 Test managers are becoming more and more powerful in projects
 Business users are starting to listen to testers more and more often
 Testers are in high demand but their expertise or potential is still being underutilized

5. We love it, it’s the best job ever
But testers do have a reputation
 Personal
– Testers have a reputation of being overcritical
 No formal history
– no training on testing on any educational institute
 Misconception
– everybody has done some testing, therefore anybody can do it
 Status quo
– in who's interest is it to change the current status quo between
testers, developers, designers etc?

6. Satisfying satisfiers
Elevator pitches
 Challenge
 Perspective
 Respect
 Recognition
 Growth
 Adding value

7. How they did this in the ‘old days’
Here are some traditional methods:
 Fate
 Pre-destination
 Cristal ball
 Time travel
 Nostradamus

8. How do we do it today
 Science fiction - will we explore the stars?
 Dreams of globalization - will we have world
peace?
Your guess is as good as mine

9. Timeboxes
 NOW!
 Next year
 Far future

10. Nothing in IT ever stands still, neither do we
What can we do to take the lead in this?
 Perspectives for testers
 Perspectives for employers

11. Some examples of what you might become
 Release managers / project managers
 Programmers / designers
 Key-user / business user
 Chairman Eurostar
 Test expert / test manager
 Test program Mmnager
 Happy analysts / navigators
 Farmer, cook, anything outside IT

12. Roles and responsibilities of employer & employee
A career is never a static item, but changes
continuously
The initiative lies initially with the employer
The initiative shifts to the employee as that
employee gets more experienced and more
precise in his needs
The initiative becomes shared for the ‘old’ testers
and the employer to find a common ground were
both find their balance

13. What do you want?
 And how to ask for it!
 If you want a hand in creating your future start
writing it yourself!
 We need to find common grounds
 Do testers grow old as testers?

14. Are old testers better testers?
Maybe not better per se, but definitely different
 More experienced
 Better versed in ‘old languages’, ‘old platforms’, ‘old tools’ etc.
And there are rather a lot of those.
 Think then do, not do then think
 A more mature way of communicating
 They don’t run like mad, but proudly stride!
 They have different pitfalls
 And of course an infinite amount of great stories on testing

15. A look into the mirror, do you like what you see
Self reflection is a powerful tool.
Some techniques that may help you:
 Requirements traceability
 Risk based
 SOA
 Prototyping
 Agile
 Waterfall
 DSDM

16. What do you tell St Peter?
Please visit the Escher museum here in The Hague: http://www.escherinhetpaleis.nl/