thoughts from the test eye

I believe one of the most important traits of testers is that we bring new perspectives, new ideas about what is relevant.
I probably believe this from my experiences from the first development team I joined, so I will tell you about the future by telling an old story.

This was in Gothenburg, 15 years ago, and we developed a pretty cool product for interactive data analysis. Data visualization, data filtering and calculations, and we could even use the product on our own bug system. The team consisted of quite young men and women who had all gone to Chalmers, the technical high school in Gothenburg.
They had taken the same lectures, they had done the same exercises.
They collaborated well, using the modelling tools, and the thinking thinking patterns, they had learnt in school.
They weren’t exactly the same of course, they had different haircuts, personalities, specialities, but all in all, they had roughly the same ideas about how to design and develop products.

I was the first tester in their team, and I had not gone at Chalmers. At University I read philosophy, musical science, history of ideas, pratical Swedish; and rather stumbled on testing because I wanted to be a programmer. I did not think at all like the rest of the team, and that was the good part!
I saw perspectives they didn’t see, my set of mental models contained other elements than theirs.
So when they agreed a solution was perfect, I asked “but what if this box isn’t there?” or “can we really know that the data is this clean?” or “what if the user tries this?” or “isn’t this too different from this other part of the product I looked at yesterday?” or “how on earth should i test this?” or “how useful is this really?”
They were a great team, and they used my perspectives to make the product better.
I felt valuable, and maybe that’s when I started loving testing (well, maybe earlier, I have always enjoyed finding big bugs, and I will always love it. But that’s more a kind of arousal, I am talking about a deeper love, when you feel that you provide value others can’t.)

So when we get to 2030, a lot of things will be the same, and a lot of things will be different. There will definitely be a need for people carefully examining software, and bringing new perspectives, and new questions. A richer set of mental models are needed, regardless if we are called testers or something else.
But it will be new, new perspectives, and you should look out for these, and use them.
You should learn stuff, you should test software appropriately, you should embrace new situations and perspectives, and you will be ready in 2030.
I hope I will too.