Turns out I’m not a context-driven tester… Rikard Edgren
In many years I have loved most of what is written by the people behind the context-driven school of testing.
But I have also felt that there is something that isn’t a perfect match.
For a time I thought it was because I saw a few different tries to push people to different schools – which I had ethical problems with – but I realize it is possible to belong to one school, but not push opinions and school membership onto others.
I also had the idea that the school had stopped focusing on people (who aren’t mentioned in What is context-driven testing?), but I realize that was just one blog post, people are still the most important part of the context, see http://www.context-driven-testing.com/
I came a little bit closer when I disliked CAST 2009 theme Serving Our Stakeholders, feeling that testers were diminished and put in a hierarchy of some sort (I would rather focus on the whole team with joint ownership.) But I have realized that serving in this context means giving, not doing what somebody else has ordered.
Finally I have come to the conclusion that the reason why I’m not a context-driven tester is that there are too many contexts where I wouldn’t (wanna) work (which implies a kind of context-imperial testing.)
Examples are situations where testers aren’t allowed to step out of the scripts, or if bugs not stemming from requirements are ignored, or situations where you don’t interact in any ways with other parts of the development, and other departments, or where you only are allowed to be involved for a very short period of time, or where you know that no one wants to create great software, they just want to release at time.
The opposite of these examples are “very good practices for me”, and I totally embrace the exploratory style of testing, and try to use all possible methods and techniques that could be beneficial to the goal I like: world-class software.
As a tester, I don’t feel I can be context-driving, but I have the luxury of choosing which rides to join.
Fine, but are you driven by the current context?
And if you never quit your current job, wouldn’t that qualify as still being driven by the context (though it is the same)?
If so, are there some boundaries for when you actually quit being context driven and instead actively search for the same or similar context elsewhere?
Have you changed with the context on your current workplace or have you been context-specific or context-imperial (I know for a fact that you aren’t context-oblivious)?
I guess that many people who see themselves as context-driven share your thoughts about contexts where they wouldn’t like to be in. And many try to work in (or seeks) the “best context” as possible. And actually many “have the luxury of choosing which rides to join”. But does that imply that they aren’t context-driven?
Lets assume that you do not work for your company for the rest of your life. Would you then change from being a context-imperalist to context-driven again? If you were a consultant working on your own company, would you then think differently?
Or is it so that in your current situation today, you feel like an imperalist? If it is so, then perhaps “It turns out I’m not a context-driven tester” is a bit overdramatic?
Even though I have been at the same workplace for 10 years, the context changes all the time, with new people and new projects.
And of course I am driven by this, but at the same time I am also driven by things in myself: passion, pride, intrinsic motivation.
So yes, there are very many good things from the context-driven school of testing, but it isn’t such a perfect match I would want it to be in order to belong to the school.
I might change my mind, but this is how I feel right now.
Just a minor clarification: When I asked if “you” were driven by the context, I guess that I implied “your testing” or “the testing that you conduct” in that.
Of course a person can be driven by many things, including his own feelings, but wouldn’t you consider that to be a part of the context?
The people involved are a very important part of the context, as I see it.
I am not trying to convince you to change your mind, but if it is a matter of you not wanting to work in other contexts than current, then it might be so that you happen to be very satisfied with your current work. Nothing wrong with that!
I strongly suspect that you are more driven by the context than many other people out there, but you don’t have to belong to any school for that reason!
It is just that the title of this post doesn’t include the “school” word… 🙂
I’m a member of the Context-Driven School of testing. That means I pick my solutions based on the problems I face. Therefore I make it my business to gain skills to understand testing problems and craft appropriate practices as needed.
I guess I don’t understand people who follow an ideology other than “let’s understand the situation and do good work accordingly.” But aren’t you doing that?
Of course, I carry a context with me– the context of what I am good at doing and what I like to do; the context of my personality and experiences. That doesn’t make me context-imperial, because I don’t insist that everyone else do things my way– only I don’t get involved in projects that want things that I don’t want to give them. I get to choose my context, too.
Henrik: If my feelings, knowledge, experience and values are part of the context, I am even more of a context-driven tester (but still not feeling as part of a school.)
I’ll try to be more precise in forthcoming post titles, even though it might be difficult to include all content there 😉
James: Yes, I try to understand (and re-understand) the situation and do the best possible work. I try to not be sloppy about understanding the situation, and maybe that’s enough to be context-driven.
But at the same time I think all testers in the world should at least consider testing things outside the requirements (content-driven testing??)
And I think testing is just a part of a more important whole (there is no “school of creating great software”.)
And I am many more things as well, maybe that’s why I don’t want a label.
I feel I can agree with the principles of “context-driven testing”, they make sense to me and I have found the term to be a useful statement. But my issues or questions on the “school” are the following:
1. As far as I have understood the concept, it basically states the obvious so I dont see the need to label myself.
2. To me, adopting to the environment in order to survive is one side of a coin. The other side is about changing your environment to facilitate survival. I feel that context-driven testing puts all its focus on the ‘first’ side of the coin, i.e. on the short-term approach. (“Ultimately, context-driven testing is about doing the best we can with what we get”, http://www.context-driven-testing.com/ ).
A comment on my comment above:
I had the opportunity to talk to James Bach about my questions (as I just attended his RST course – great course!).
1. According to James there is a need for this “school” in the industry as this is not “obvious” to a lot of people. I will accept this argument considering that he has seen far more of the testing industry world-wide than I could even probably imagine. However, accepting the need of the “school” does not mean I feel the need to label myself.
2. Turns out context-driven testing does focus on both sides of the coin. Either I have missunderstood what I have read, did not read all info or the information “out there” is mainly focused on one side of the coin. Anyway I am glad I got a chance to sort this out.