Why Not a Testing Standard?

The Cambridge Tester Meetup last night was a discussion on testing standards. Not on the specific question of ISO 29119 (for which see Huib Schoots' excellent resource) but more generally on the possibility of there being a standard at all. It was structured along the lines of Lean Coffee with thoughts and questions being thrown down on post-its and then grouped together for brief discussion.

I've recorded the content of the stickies here with just a little post-hoc editing to remove some duplication or occasionally disambiguate. The titles were just handles to attach stickies to once we had a few in an area and I haven't tried to rationalise them or rearrange the content.

Enhance/Inhibit Testing

Testing is a creative process so can't be standardised.
Testing doesn't fit into a standard format, so how can there be a standard for it? (Do we mean "good testing" whatever that is?)
New tools, technology might not fit into a standard.
Standardisation destroys great design ideas by encouraging/forcing overly broad application.
Can a general standard really fit specific project constraints?
Each tester is different.
A standard limits new thinking.
Could a standard be simply "Do the best you can in the time you have"?

Who Benefits?

Who do certifications serve anyway? What do they want from them?
As litigation becomes more prevalent who is protected by a standard? Customers, producers, users?
With a standard, companies can be "trusted" (QA-approved sticker).
People outside of test are usually very opinionated. Do standards help or hinder?
End users care because of the possible added costs.
A testing standard would provide false reassurance for companies.

Communication

How does an agile team fit in the standard?
Too much documentation? Standards may cause the need for more documentation to show compliance.
Standard language for communicating test ideas.
Divide the testing community - good or bad?
Respond to feedback and criticism.

How Much? or Alternatives

Do we need an alternative at all?
Where are the standards for science, consultancy, product management, development?
Use as much or as little of a standards as needed?
Could a standard be subjective?
Standards for products, or the process of creating products?
What else do we need or want instead?
Could a standard cover the minimum at least?
A standard should be flexible to adapt to project constraints.

Useful Subsets

Can a single standard fit different products? (Angry Birds vs nuclear reactor).
Uniformisation of some testing (bring up the baseline).
There are already some government standards.
Infinite space of testing. Can a standard capture that?
Can some aspects of testing be covered by standards? If so, which?

Can't we Just Explore?

Scientists do. Why can't we? (But what about mandated science?)
Approaches in methodologies used set out in a common understood format could help consistency.

Fear of Being Assessed?

Are testers just scared of being evaluated or taking responsibility?
I'm too shy.
Could it open up law suites, blame and other consequences?
Should you insure yourself or your company against any not conforming to the standard?
Anything unstructured used as an addition to, rather than part of, the primary approach. Stops people hiding?

Show Me the Money?

What is the motivation of those seeking to create certification? (Rent-seekers?)
It's just to make money for ISO companies.
Adds organisation to a "messy" activity.

Certify Testers Not Testing

Can you differentiate certifications for testers from certifications for pieces of work? (c.f. Kaner)
Can you say "product tester by a tester certified XYZ"?
How would recruitment distinguish between testers and checkers?
An independent body to audit the testing/tester on real project work? (Who audits the auditor?)
Qualification vs certification vs standardisation.

Standards in Other Industries

Learn more about standards in other industries and how they dealt with their first standard.
Standards in e.g. car safety are on the result of the work not the methodology?
Universities and schools start teaching testing. Should they teach about the standards?
Standards to help produce evidence of testing not just test plans, which are usually fiction.
"Informed" standards (courses, talks etc), "in-house" standards?

Misc

Are objections to certification objections to theoretical risks but in practice it's possible to have something good enough?
Would companies without testers need a testing standard?
Development standards to be closely linked to testing standards.
Easy to find jobs abroad (if there were standardisation).
A standard would be good as a product.
Would a standard really impact our day-to-day job?
Is the standard simply a reason to justify testing?
Is the idea of a standard predicated on an outdated idea of testing?

As you can see there was no shortage of ground to cover but, with only a couple of hours, plenty was necessarily shallow or not dug into at all.

To pull out a handful of points that I found particularly interesting: we were not shy about asking questions and we were prepared to aim them at ourselves; we bumped into the distinction between certifying product, tester and testing multiple times; we didn't really explore what we meant by standards, certification and qualification and what the differences between them might be; while the discussion was entered into with an open mind (which was the remit) there were sometimes implicit assumptions about what a standard must entail (inflexibility; lots of documentation etc) which were mostly negative and where positives were proposed they tended to be viewed more as possibilities.

P.S. There's a few photos.
Image: https://flic.kr/p/7rddEr

Comments

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