The Future of Testing? GRRrrr!

I really enjoy lean coffee conversations. I am energised by the rapid-fire topic switches and love it when I get exposure to multiple perspectives. The time-boxed aspect of the activity is a turn-off for some, keeping things relatively shallow, but it's one of the great advantages of the format for me: I know that I'm only investing a certain amount of my time, and it's usually small enough that the return is worth it.

All of which is background context for my experience at the first Cambridge Tester Meetup event for over a year, an online lean coffee, this week. I died a little inside when I saw The Future of Testing ticket placed on the board. I felt the pain of internal necrosis spreading as it was voted up. I winced while my pre-frontal cortex withered into a tiny blackened stump at the precise second that Devops, automation, and quality champions were tossed into the discussion.

The? Future? Of? Testing? GRRrrr!

For as long as we are building things that matter for people that matter and care about the outcomes it's going to be necessary to think about problems and potential problems, about risks — to who, of what, and when — and priortise mitigating activities. This is testing.

Sure, the people we're doing it for will change.

Sure, the technologies with which we build the things will change.

Sure, the contexts that all of this takes place in will will change.

So testers might need to change.

So testing approaches might need to change.

So testing tooling might need to change.

But the thinking, the critical thinking, the systems thinking, the testing, that is not going away.

Don't believe me? Take ten testers from ten different contexts and compare what they do today. Why will the degree of similarity and difference be any different tomorrow?
Image: Discogs

P.S. Apologies to the others in my group if you felt I went off on one on this topic.

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