Melissa Tondi discusses the changing landscape of the role of testers, the challenges of hiring, and a way to shift the pendulum back to balance technical acumen with a user advocacy role. Presentation at Test Leadership Congress 2018. http://testleadershipcongress-ny.com

1. The Tester’s Role - Balancing
Technical Acumen and User
Advocacy
Melissa Tondi
Test Leadership Congress

2. What are we Talking About?
• The Pendulum mindset
• The changing landscape and timeline of the role of
testers (my POV)
• The QE traits and skills that address both technical
acumen and user advocacy

3. The Pendulum

4. Testing – the Changing Landscape
15-20+ Years Ago – Early on, test/QA Teams were usually staffed from
within the business or end users
7-15 Years Ago – The influx of commercial tools and the mis-
conception that these tools were a silver bullet solution (and
eventually, open source) glided the pendulum past the middle briefly,
but gravitated to the technical left
Present- 7 Years Ago - The Software Engineer/Developer in Test
(S/DET), Automation Engineer and other specialized roles have
inundated the open Testing positions and the pendulum shifted and
has stayed mostly on the left

5. Quality Engineering!
What it isn’t
• Mistake Finders – although sometimes we do find these
• The “catch-all” for failed processes
• The only team that is responsible for testing within the
SDLC
• The owners of all quality

6. Quality Engineering - What It Is
“Define, Design, Build, Execute, Measure, Report”
Engineering
• Define – success, outcome and measurements
• Design – a comprehensive strategy
• Build – the solution
• Execute – the solution
• Measure – the results
• Report – not only the outcome, but interesting info along the
way

7. Quality Engineering - What It Can Be
“Influence the Building of the Software before the Software
is Built”
Like the Pendulum, we strike a balance between technical
acumen and user advocacy – with equal emphasis on
both over a measured amount of time

8. QE – Traits to Consider
Early Adopters and Embracers of Technology!
• Curious
• Don’t just ask, “How is this supposed to work?” but
“What happens if I do this?”
• Old School – Where will this break?
• Ability to not only “think” like a user, but “act” like a user

9. QE – Skills to Consider
Strike balance between traditional Specialist roles and
moving more toward Generalists
• Test Automation – Start Small
• Run, Troubleshoot, Edit
• Accessibility
• Functional Security
• Blend Soft Skills with Technology
• Adapt to more forums of communication

10. Summary
• Why the Pendulum? It seeks balance
• Understand the trends that sometimes get us off balance
– and seek balance when new things are introduced
• What QE is and what it isn’t
• Traits and skills to consider

11. Let’s Talk!
• LinkedIn: Melissa Tondi
• Twitter: @melissatondi
• Email: melissa.tondi@gmail.com