Have you ever wondered how the most interesting people in testing world started their way? Or- what were the biggest challenges they had to face?

So make yourself a cup of coffee and read a short interview with these people!

These are the 5 questions we asked:

1. How did you start your way in the testing world?

2. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges & opportunities for testers today?

3. Do you have any funny or interesting anecdote to share with our readers about your way in the software testing world or in general on testing?

4. What is the one piece of advice you would give to any tester starting his way today?

5. How do you believe the software testing world will look like in 5-10 years?  What will be different and what will be the same?

5 Testing Questions with Mike Sparks –

The tester we chose to interview next is in no other than Mike Sparks- 

Mike is an expert in all kinds of testing- from manual testing to automation testing. He is a QA manager and the designer of an automated testing tool, Tellurium (www.te52.com), which has allowed him interact with testers all over the world.

These are his answers to our questions:

1. How did you start your way in the testing world?

Like most people it wasn’t intentional.  At the time I was working at a small software company as a project manager when we started developing a new massively complex tax collection and billing application.  Realizing the need for a much more formal testing department to ensure that the application was of the highest quality possible, I made the jump into a new QA Manager role.  From there it was all about reading and learning as much as I possibly could about testing, testing tools, and testing best practices.

2. In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges & opportunities for testers today?

I think the biggest challenge for testers is the lack of “perceived relevance”.  You have a number of large companies that invest heavily in testing and ensuring application quality, but most organizations treat testing like an afterthought.  It can be difficult to do an assessment of your application, determine how much testing you think it needs, and then have your organization constantly undermine that by reducing the amount of testing time and resources that are available.  Going through that over and over again with every release can drive you crazy.

The best way I’ve found to get past that is to NOT take testing personally.  If your organization continually decreases the amount of testing time it’s not because of YOU, it’s due to deficiencies further up the development chain.  If something important doesn’t get tested because you don’t have enough time it’s not your fault, it’s the fault of the organization for not placing a higher value on the testing processes.  Understanding that will help keep you sane.

But that challenge can also lead to a substantial opportunity to educate and enhance your organization’s development process as a whole.  Let’s face it, no one wants to see their application fail.  By educating yourself on good testing practices and learning about how some of the larger organizations do their testing and development, you’ll be ideally positioned to be able to pass along lessons learned not just about testing, but design, development, and support as well.

3. Do you have any funny or interesting anecdote to share with our readers about your way in the software testing world or in general on testing?

I used to write a series for Testing Experience Magazine called “The Adventures of Captain QA” where the lowly tester Roy would be forced to save the day from his company’s clueless CEO, Seymour Profits.  It started as a one-off idea to help elevate the role that testing plays in the development process, but turned into a series that tackled testing misconceptions with a fun super hero twist.

I’d personally love to see more fun stories, comics, videos, etc about testing.  By not taking ourselves so seriously we’re able to better pass along valuable lessons learned to other testers and bring more amusement back to the profession.

4. What is the one piece of advice you would give to any tester starting his way today?

No matter what people tell you, there isn’t one “right” way to test.  Just like every organization does development differently, everyone tests differently as well.  And that’s okay, not everyone is going to be doing boundary value analysis or user acceptance testing, especially at the beginning.  The important thing is that you take the time to understand your application, identify your priorities, and then work towards them.

5. How do you believe the software testing world will look like in 5-10 years?  What will be different and what will be the same?

I’m a big fan of using the recent past to help us attempt to predict the future.  Unfortunately if you go back 5-10 years and look at what testing WAS compared to what it is now, I don’t see a lot of differences.  That’s not to say that someone won’t come out with a magical testing tool that will change everything, but there have been a lot of new tools released over the past few years and it doesn’t seem like we’re collectively leaping forward.

I think one reason for this is the natural segmentation of the testing industry which makes it difficult to generalize about the whole.  Your organization may be willing to spend more money and resources on testing than my organization, which means that you’re able to do much more than I am.  Therefore your trajectory over the next 5-10 years will likely be substantially different than mine.

That said, there are few things I’d LIKE to see over the next 5-10 years.  One thing in particular is an easier way to test and develop for all of the various devices and platforms that are available (desktop, tablet, mobile, etc).  There are services out there now that assist with this, but I’d love for an intuitive and easy method for making sure that your application just works, rather than you needing to call out specific screen sizes or browser versions.

I’d also love to see more companies move testing further up the development chain.  Rather than having it be the last thing that happens, it should be one of the first things that happens, with testers sharing ideas during the early design and development process.  The quicker we can confirm that something doesn’t work, the more time and money everyone will save long term.

Visit our 5 testing questions with Derk-Jan de Grood