Testbash Dublin #NoTest
Ad Testbash Dublin I had the pleasure meeting Bob Marshall who did an interesting talk/workshopish over organizational therapy. Afterward, we had an interesting discussion about this subject and also about #notest. Bob wrote an interesting blog about Testbash Dublin in which he uses this model:
I find the blog quite abstract and I feel the need to elaborate on his blog from the testing point of view, using his simple model.
I do agree with Bob that there can be a lot of discussion about the definition of testing. I don't want to go into that discussion. There is one point we all can agree on: testing is never a goal; it serves a purpose. During our discussion, Bob asked me some questions which can be linked to the model: it is all about your strategy (cliché) and that your strategy is for an (important) part, based on values. for example, your high level of confidence or lack of confidence and there testing comes in. These values are always lying underneath a strategy: never talked about but always present.
If you feel so confident that your product/needs can be built without testing, don’t test. If you don’t feel confident, test. But there are so many more strategies for increasing your confidence.
The reminds me of a great talk Sally Goble did a Test Automation Day in Rotterdam (2016) about the Guardian: they didn’t need testers anymore because they did software development the same way they wrote an article: you can change it all the time based on new information. If their problems, go back to the old situation, if you see new possibilities, just try it in production and see if it works if problems occur, go back, etc. etc.. So they monitored continuously to see if something goes wrong in production. So a strategy which is completely in line with the way the organization thinks (= strategy).
And of course, there can be many other strategies with or without testing and based on how much confidence you have or want to have (and one of the things I love is to create those strategies: very interesting and challenging to do, all about creativity).
The bottom line is that our values are of great influence on how we chose our strategy or to bring it back to a great quote from a colleague of mine:
“In god we trust, the rest we test”
(or #notest).
Thank,s Bob for the conversation!
