Let passion be our guide Martin Jansson

I am passionate about testing. This passion gives me energy,  the fire that makes me what to excel and get better at testing. It is this passion that I share with my co-workers, customers and my employees, hopefully growing their interest in testing and sharing my visions and goals. I use it to paint my views on a better tomorrow in the testing community, as I see it.

Would this passion then make us more biased in our testing than someone dispassionate? I think not. Everyone is biased from time to time.

Passion is synonym with ardent, blazing, burning, dithyrambic, fervent, fervid, fiery, flaming, glowing, heated, hot-blooded, hotheaded, impassioned, perfervid, red-hot, scorching and torrid. Dispassionate can be seen as not showing, and not affected by emotion, bias, or prejudice. Would it even be possible to compare the two in a testing duel?

My CEO has told me that he want competent and honest people in his company. He says, “Imagine having competent and dishonest people, that would be terrible.” I like those traits, but I would also like to add passionate as a trait.

As a customer or employer, would you want a tester who is passionate or a tester who is dispassionate about their beliefs in testing? Isn’t it so that we are just passionate over different things, which naturally is ok?

3 Comments
Rikard Edgren May 24th, 2010

My vote goes on the passion route, because I don’t think there can be any “evidence” for complex and subjective things like quality and software testing.

However, it is a too easy choice between passionate and dispassionate.
Passion, for me, is about strong feelings. In Sweden they sometimes say that “professional” means “leaving your feelings at home”.
So maybe we should contrast passionate against professional?
Yes, you can have both, but you have to pick one before the other.

Henrik Emilsson May 25th, 2010

I don’t think that anyone would like to have a dispassionate tester, if asked.

I think that the interesting thing is how your passion is manifested.
What would count as positive vs. negative values regarding software testing passion? I.e. which passion is appropriate (according to your belief)?

Henrik Emilsson May 25th, 2010

(expansion of last comment):
Maybe even some keynote speaker at EuroSTAR is passionate about testing, but you might not agree and share the same passion.

Passion is subjective; which means that a person that thinks that he is positively passionate about something can be perceived differently according to an observer.
So in my case I would think twice when hiring a passionate tester whose passion completely contradicts with my passion and view on software testing (note that I do welcome diversity).