Testing Me in Production

It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter, LinkedIn, Slack, and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory.

I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be.

Perhaps you'd like to join me?

--00--

"For your annual review, I’ll need to see evidence of what you produced this year."

From the way you phrase that question I suspect you're after some kind of output of my work that you can use to judge whether I'm doing my job well?

Could we say you're testing me in production?

No, no, you're right, this is a serious matter.

To the extent that I am producing things, I'm not making widgets identical to some tolerance margin at a predetermined rate on a production line.

But I can certainly provide output for you, in the form of test notes, code that I've written to extend my testing capabilities, review comments on documents and Jira tickets and so on. But I fear that, if I do, it will not be easy, at this end of the year, to relate that work to the context in which it was done.

It might help me to help you if I have some idea of the factors you'll base your judgement on. I can try to find specific examples that fit your needs. Even then, I still fear that much of what I do won't be present.

For example, the knowledge and context that I bring to conversations about what we're building and how we're building it, the collaboration that I have with other members of the team on their work, the process improvements that I've initiated and so on.

I'm not saying that outputs are irrelevant but I think that questions about my approach to work, the outcomes of my work, and the satisfaction of customers with my work might also be interesting?

I am trying to work in ways that enable my work to be acknowledged and respected. If you're not seeing that, I think it's reasonable for me to invest some of my time in making my work more visible to you. I'd like to agree with you that we'll make a concerted effort to do that in small increments on a regular basis rather than annually.

Would it be possible for us to change the way we do this kind of assessment, in a way that gives us both the benefit we're seeking?
Image: https://flic.kr/p/b8fA22

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