testing

Does ISEB produce better testers?

Recently during local conference keynote there was announcement of ISTQB Latvia board created and a group of local testers did their examination. I later mentioned that I was in that group and did some comments about the test. Later, during a coffee break - I was asked something like this: so if there are two newbie candidates and the only difference between them is that one is certified, which one would you prefer? My first answer was the one with certificate. But then on a weekend I recalled how we do hiring interviews. One of my favourite sentences was at least he is not spoiled with wrong thinking of what a testing is. And this is exactly what the certification will do to a person without experience from a real life. A simple proof for this is the following fact: in the ISTQB compliant book I mentioned above there is the last paragraph in a lot of chapters noticing something like “however - in real life things are not typically done this way”.

http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/5486?topic=306121
Ainars Galvans on Mon, 28/05/2007 - 08:29.

I did the ISEB myself, under duress, as it was expected at some point a couple of years ago that test people SHOULD have this unqualified qualification. I came up through testing in a less formal fashion, choosing projects on the cusp of new technologies and methodologies. The ISEB course proved testing methods have adapted very little since the 1980’s. The most worrying point for me is that ISEB testers are being hired and contractors/consultants, with very little testing experience in real-life scenarios. While having an ideal is a good baseline for moving forward in testing, adaptability and reactive response is key to QA on modern software projects. Testing is not seen as the more interesting part of software development, and armies of ISEB testers bleating about negative testing, boundary testing, requirements does not endear QA to management.

The important contributions testers can make is assisting in the release process with as effective testing as is practically possible, documenting test processes and improving on them, integrating and developing professional relationships with project members. These things are in no QA course, they are learnt. If there are no requirements, create a set of test cases that fill the gaps. If there are impossible timescales, list the risks, then adapt the test process to maximise the value. Reactive and adaptive is what the modern tester should be.