Software Testing - Time to shrug off that slumber ?

Sometime back I was invited to a Chennai city college to deliver a lecture on Software testing to an audience of senior students and faculty of computer science department. During the course of the session I was surprised to realize that not many in the group were aware of 'Software Testing', as a concept, barring some studies on the topic as part of their curriculum. Later few weeks back, when I again faced a similar audience at a college in deeper Tamilnadu I learnt that they have also not heard much about it. Earlier my own nephew who has been working in an IT major was putting up a long face and was about to break down narrating as to how  he has been 'unceremoniously' shifted to a Testing project after having worked so long in development , which he was obviously enjoying. The above in a nutshell summarize the awareness or the lack of it about software testing among people who matter.

Initially it was rather shocking to realize how a potential area such as software testing could be considered so low and how some could afford to be even ignorant about its relevance and importance. Some reading and searching revealed that the problem does not lie with a single entity but at a larger level.  

On joining an organization, various emerging technologies and platforms attract the young freshers and the crowd gets sucked like a fly to an oil sheet. Only the leftovers, which have little choice, are allocated to testing. Thus, this part of the life cycle has somehow acquired a dubious distinction of "last Choice".  In the 1970s anyone joining a bank branch will first be allocated to the dispatch section and people used to feel low about it. The testing situation is akin to it though bankers later realized that dispatch is the most important point of entry and exit where one can learn and be updated about all communications of the branch!

No job is mean and particularly if the software majors are investing and allocating huge revenue for Testing Services as exclusive business units, should one not think about the importance of such an opportunity? Where are we missing the bus, how to dispel the misnomer and attract the best of talents to this elite practice?

The Industry, Training institutes and the Academia have major roles to play here. 

Taking the last first, at the academic level, testing as a concept is yet to be recognized as its potential as job earner has not been realized and thus the whole concept sadly fail to catch the eye of the syllabus makers. Testing is just being touched upon only in a couple of chapters at the college level. Here too, the focus seems to have been only from the perspective of clearing the exams and getting an engineering degree and not from the vocational perspective.

Even century old Universities have curriculum which carries only questions worth 16 marks. Students can easily browse through these chapters from some popular books and if they choose to , can even conveniently opt to omit the same if they are confident of other options!  This myopic approach is bound to cost our students dear in terms of job options. Also, if this negligence is the result of an ill conceived notion that a developer need not be aware of the nuances of testing, then we are in for serious trouble. Certainly this is not the way to prepare the students for an industry which as per NASSCOM is expected to earn India around $ 15 billion @ by 2020 (http://m.businesstoday.in/story/are-software-testing-firms-worth-joining/1/184788.html)

At the Industry level, IT companies, as part of Initiation & later at induction levels, should have exclusive sessions on promoting this practice by underlying the benefits such as multiple domain exposure in quick time, better travel opportunities , to name a few.  No doubt, some are already into it but then clearly there seems to be more room for improvement considering the hesitation among the entrants to the testing practice. HR could also be directed to look deeper into the feedback through the exit interviews and provide crucial stats on attrition due to dissatisfaction on testing assignments. Organizations must also review periodically their policies and liberalize the awards and incentives doled out to those who acquire certifications and exhibit additional efforts to specialize in Testing. These initiatives are to be so humongous that they should create healthy competition and provoke entrants to opt testing ahead of others. When such practices erupt, the real impact and importance will be felt across the aspirants.

The Training Institutes which provide considerable number of trained Test engineers to the Industry always starved of testers have a good opportunity to prove their worth and have a greater role to play. They have the whole field before them, but only few have grabbed it so far.

Compared to the other two, the training institutes' choices are more complex but then so are their opportunities. On the one hand they need to sharpen their course content to attract the talent and lure them to the testing arena. On the other hand, they also should focus on how to make their candidates surge ahead of others and make them stand out as 'winning candidates'.

Their course coverage no doubt includes the basic concepts and requirements for one to start his/her testing career. But, when one competes against lakhs, it is necessary to have some differentiators which will provide the candidates the cutting edge to surge and dip their noses across the finish line. In the absence of such differentiators, the list of 'also rans' will continue to accumulate.

Training institutes should think differently and associate more with the Industry to learn about their practices, to be aware of major expectations from and challenges of testing and should modify their training methods accordingly. It is no more sufficient to produce simple testers but if they could provide resources that have an insight into such key challenges and visions to meet them - only such institutions are likely to stand out and be sought after both by the trainees and the industry.  There is also a good scope to design curriculum according to the trainee's line of specialization in the college, so that freshers get more easily attracted towards it. For this, more interactions with the industry and their key resources that create testing opportunities is a must.

That the government is insisting on even public sector units who develop their software in-house to subject themselves to a third party audit and certifications is a welcome indication on awareness and acceptance. So far even some of the IT giants were treating testing as a part of their development team but with the client expectations of an Independent testing team clearance, all organizations bent on quality outputs have started employing such teams as quality gate keepers to bring in better customer satisfaction. Such focus on testing only promises to increase the need for more testers and the above arms should do well to equip them as otherwise, there is every possibility of our friends across the border with enormous resource potential making their foray into this area too!  It's time to shake off the slumber to remain in the race.