Comments on: Why Do Some Testers/Test Managers Have a Siege Mentality?

By: Lidor Wyssocky

Lidor Wyssocky — Sun, 22 Oct 2006 15:30:16 +0000

Hi Johanna,
Maybe part of the answer is for both “sides” to be more cooperative:
http://blog.qualityaspect.com/2006/10/20/sleeping-with-the-enemy/
Lidor

By: Roman Rytov

Roman Rytov — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 08:12:07 +0000

The siege mentality can be driven by a number of factors. A few of them:
1. QA boss reports to a R&D boss. No separation of powers, hence, one ought to be sieged (guess who - the major developer or the major tester). Ensuing here stands lack of control, decision power, etc.
2. QA positions are treated as less valuable in the company. Naturally QA positions require not as vast and not as deep experience as developer’s ones. Starting as a QA and advancing to a developer is a standard route. Although it’s natural it shouldn’t diminish the power of QA and the top management must impart the notion of importance of QA team and its criticality for the company success. Emphasizing its role makes finding right people for QA a very challenging task though.
3. Working in a sequential (not parallel) mode makes two teams (Dev and QA) have a feeling of WE and THEY vs. just one WE. The two teams must work together from designing features and all the way to the fixing bugs (but still report to two different bosses).
Sieged QA team makes overall efforts if not useless upfront but at least very inefficient and growing a productive QA team is a complex task for company management.

By: F. Schophuizen

F. Schophuizen — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 19:54:19 +0000

Hi Johanna,
There are several points I disagree with you.
“Testers have to develop” is not true for black box testing, only for white box testing. Black box testing requires a proper understanding of the functional and non-functional requirements.
“Waiting for requirements to be perfect” is presumptious. There is no point in testing if you cannot tell right from wrong, so it it legitimate to wait for requirements to be stabilized. Stabilized does not means it’s perfect, but it is “good enough”.
“How else [than by developing] can they [testers] know how to create good test systems?” is also presumptious. If you take a test drive with a new car you plan to buy (to verify against your requirements), you don’t need to know how to build one.