Meet Me Halfway?

It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, 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--

"Stop answering my questions with questions."

Sure, I can do that.

In return, please stop asking me questions so open to interpretation that any answer would be almost meaningless and certainly wouldn't achieve whatever goal you have, other than being directly attributable to someone other than you when the shit hits the fan.

Aaaaaaand relax. Let me try that one again.

We work in complex domains, with complex software systems, through complex networks of teams, each containing complex sets of human interactions. Why would you expect a simple answer when you ask for, say, the correct ratio of developers to testers for your underspecified project?

"It depends" is the cliched consultant answer to any business question (Mazzeo's Law), but it's well known, and mocked with a self-deprecating edge, in the Context-Driven testing world too. I rarely answer that way because it gives the questioner nothing.

It almost always does depend, though, on something or somethings, and if I "answer" your questions with questions it's because I care to try to give you a response that suits the context. And the context includes your needs.

As it happens, I've learned over the years that many people tend not to want to think about the context or the reason why they're asking the question and they react badly, as you have, when directly quizzed on those things.

So what I do these days, for the most part, is try to give a short but nuanced answer which demonstrates some of the variables, the complexity, the dependencies, the constraints, and my thinking and lets the questioner decide whether that's enough or they want to dig further.

If I didn't do that for you today, I apologise. But, at risk of asking another question, perhaps you can try to meet me halfway next time, eh?
Image: https://flic.kr/p/cYQF8j

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