“the future of software testing” preparing your …...preparing your team for the future fabian...

Preparing Your Team for the Future

Fabian Scarano, PA Consulting Group,

Denmark

Europe’s Premier Software Testing EventWorld Forum Convention Centre, The Hague, Netherlands

WWW.QUALTECHCONFERENCES.COM

“The Future of Software Testing”

Contribution to EuroSTAR 2008

Fabián Scarano

Thursday 13 November 2008

Preparing your Team for the Future

© PA Knowledge Limited 2008. EuroStar 2008 presentation Nov.ppt

Welcome to the

Future


Agenda

Preparing the scene

Communication and abstraction

Creativity, stress mitigation

The future tester’s profile

SOA example

Teams and inter-teams performance

Conclusion


Produce more, Perform better, Care for your Team

Higher

customer

demands:

Quality,

Performance,

Availability

Shorter

product

cycles: Agile,

extreme,

rapid

Competition is

tougher: Test

specialist,

knowledge

area, high IQ

Leverage

Scarce

Resources

Maintain

High Quality

Achieve and

Sustain

Competitive Speed

ITDo we make the

most of the tester’s

potential when we

focus on excellent

technical skills, a

special knowledge

area and requiring

a high IQ?


Produce more, Perform better, Care for your Team

To make the most of our test team it is necessary to focus on the technical skills, a high

IQ and the soft skills

Which soft skills areas?

Abstraction, creativity, optimism and communication within the team

Open mind to: working together with different cultures, accepting “wild” solutions,

exercising more empathy

Integration of teams with diverse goals and optimisation of the final product with the

different teams

If emotional competences are relevant today, in the future they will become essential for

any competitive test team in the market.


Communication: Abstraction

Is the process or result of generalisation by reducing

the information content of a concept or a observable

phenomenon, typically, in order to retain only

information which is relevant for a particular purpose(Wikipedia)

Is the thought process wherein ideas are distanced

from objects(Philosophical terminology Wikipedia)

Red

Happiness

3

R4

How did the language of mathematics develop? And what is it

that enabled us to use this language not only to manipulate

quantities and shapes, but ultimately to model our world and

Universe, to successfully predict eclipses and the return of the

comets


Example: Requirement Specification Definition Case

Cantor is our user and he is defining the set of Requirements, which the test team has to

review, organise test cases, discuss with project manager and plan. He knows that it might

not be that obvious and then he offers a crash course of infinite sets

N= Naturals Z= Integers

Q= Rationals R= Reals

1)

2)

Some definitions:

- A set is a collection of elements

Some sets of numbers are

- The cardinality of a set is the number of members it

contains

Notation: for set S the cardinality is |S|

- Two sets have the same cardinality if they can be put

to a one-to-one correspondence; or, If A ~ B, then |A|

= |B|

|N|, |Z|, |Q|, |R| & |N| = 0

- A set is countable iff its cardinality

is either finite or equalt to

Now N Z Q R∩

When we know that in the interval [0,1] we can have all the N or [0,1]

∩

1 / N

Then, is it true that∩ ∩ |N| < |Z| < |Q| < |R| ?

0


The set of Integers has the same cardinality as the Natural numbers. For every Integer

number I can assign a Natural number that can count it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

0, 1, -1, 2, -2, 3, -3, 4, ….

3)

The set of Rationals has the same cardinality as the Natural numbers.

For every Rational number I can assign a Natural number that can count it

1 2 3 4 5

1 1/1 2/1 3/1 4/1

2 ½ 2/2 3/2 4/2

3 ⅓ ⅔ 3/3 4/3

Then

|N| = |Z| = |Q| are denumerables because the cardinality is equal to 0

Intuition in this case is false. The inequalities |N| < |Z| < |Q| < |R| are false; however not all

infinites are equal in cardinality!



If we assume that we can put the Reals into a one to one correspondence with the

Natural number we get to an absurd. Take the Reals between 0 and 1, express all the

fractions as 0.ddddd…. Now under our assumption try to pair off the natural numbers

with the Reals between 0 and 1.

4)

0 1<

5) The continuum hypothesis (CH) asserts that there is no

cardinal number a such that

0

0The set of Real numbers is uncountable or |R| >

< a < c


Definitions:

- A set is uncountable if its cardinality is greater than 0

- The number of real numbers is the same as the number of points on an infinite line,

where c is the cardinality, hence c =|R|

If we assume that this is true then = c


Humor

Optimism

Creativity


Humor, Jokes and Optimism Creativity

* Wikipedia

Optimism

Creativity

Is the tendency of particular

images, stories or situations to

provoke laughter and provide

amusement*.

Freud stated that we build sensors in our

mind, like barriers to stop the forbidden or

unwished thoughts.

The strength of a joke relies on the

description that fits simultaneously in two

different frames. Where the first meaning

has to be transparent and innocent, while

the second one is disguised and

censurable.

Some investigations show that

optimism is directly related to the

way one experiences and

understands the reasons for

negative situations; the feeling of a

certain degree of influence and

control over circumstances in life Observe that this is one

way to foster creativity,

there are several

different aspects


Humor, Jokes and Optimism Creativity

* Wikipedia

Optimism

Creativity

Creativity has been attributed

over time to divine

intervention, cognitive

processes, the social

environment, personality

traits, and chance ("accident",

"serendipity"). It has been

associated with genius,

mental illness and humour.

Some say it is a trait we are

born with; others say it can be

taught with the application of

simple techniques.

More than 60 different

definitions

Is a mental process involving the

generation of new ideas or

concepts or new associations of

the creative mind between

existing ideas or concepts*.

Exploratory testing

Scripted testing

Flexibility planning

Reporting

Feedback

Etc.


Belief of Control

* Albert Bandura, Stanford University

Self-efficacy Is the belief

that one is capable of

performing in a certain

manner to attain certain

goals*

People's beliefs in their

coping capabilities

affect how much stress

and depression they

experience in

threatening or difficult

situations, as well as

their level of motivation.

Perceived self-efficacy

to exercise control over

stressors plays a

central role in anxiety

arousal. People who

believe they can

exercise control over

threats do not conjure

up disturbing thought

patterns.

Self-efficacy does not refer to the actual control and

influence, we have in a specific circumstance in our

lives, but the skill of believing that we exercise control

over it in the way we think and handle the situation.

Different research show that

the degree of self-efficacy has

significance in our skill to

handle stress.

Observe that a

person can

have a low

degree of self-

efficacy in a

specific area

and a high

degree in

another


Belief of Control

The need to have exaggerated control over everything will on the other hand increase the risk of stress

and burnout, and it is one of the characteristics of the “type A-behaviour” or “The hurry-up syndrome”.

Another important aspect to manage stress is to leave aside some tasks, especially those, which we

have insufficient influence to solve.

Optimism is in this case closely associated with the belief of feeling control of situations related with

stress, it is also valid in this case that an overdose “may kill”.

Physic

al and

Psycholo

gic

al care

Degree of control

HelplessHopelessBoredomDepression

Type A-behaviourBurn-out Over control


The Future Testers’ Brain

Planning

Tester’s

specific skills

Multicultural tester’s

gland Tester’s abstraction

centre

Tester’s communication skills area

Tester’s belief of control cell

Multidisciplinary tester’s cell

*Development, management and user patience, understanding, delivery delays, explanations, etc span

*

*

*

Tester’s optimism particle

Tester’s social network

power pack

Shipping software risk hub

Tester’s creativity and problem

solving centre


Do you believe that this will still be a joke in the future?

Would you rather have in your test team female or male testers?


Multicultural, Multidisciplinary

The Future

Test team

Work environment

Universal product

Localisation

Global Understanding

Work environment

Diverse interest areas

Wide-ranged pole of

contribution

Social level impact

Tendency

Shifts involve

different time

zones

Fast handover of

tasks

Tendency

Optimising the team

Broad Coverage

Efficacy, Identity &

trust


Example: Test Team in a bad coordinated SOA environment

What happens when SOA test team fails a good integration test?

Ask Brenda


Some of the new SOA testing challenges

Testing services that do not have a user interface. There are two types of

interfaces:

– A user interface

– A programmatic interface

Data-driven business logic within services. Changes in data and state often

result in synchronisation with other services

External services to the organisation, using messages to communicate

As SOA is evolving, security testing will have a higher priority and profile.

Besides that, test must include the user interface as well as the

programmatic interface

Predicting the future usage of services to assist with performance, load,

stress and scalability

Tools are unavoidable to a successful implementation and CM

State, messages and enterprise bus are specially tested


The team and the specialist tester

- Risk of silo effect

- Complex Inter-team awareness

- Trust among teams

- How to achieve team Identity?


Team identity

The Challenge

Team efficacy

Team efficacy

Team identity

Team identity

Trust among members

Trust among members

If the three essential conditions for team effectiveness are trust, efficacy and

identity, the challenge is to integrate these in an inter-team frame.


Teams

Diverse range of talents: Planning, collecting and exchanging information, coordinating a plan. Not only engaging in the intellectual parts; but a balance of different profiles

Emotional capacity to face difficult data fosters an affirmative environment and encourages proactive problem solving, seeks opinions on task processes.

Team self-awareness, communication, task processing, self-evaluation and constructive feedback no longer remain within the team focus, but expand to the inter-team terrain

“High-IQ team members do not make out a

High-IQ team or clever inter-team

collaboration”


The Future Tester ...

is us breaching the

path


Main Bibliography

Bobby Zachariae, ”Stress-kompetence”, Denmark

Marvin Minsky, ”The Society of Mind”, MIT

Albert Bandura, ”Self Efficacy”, Standford University

Hannah Hoag, ”New Scientist”, London

Peter Suber, ”A Crash Course in the Mathematics of infinite Sets”, Philosophy

Department Earlham College

Torry Harris, Business Solutions Inc, US, 2007

Fabian Scarano

PA Consulting Group

[email protected]

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