I was reading this very nice article about this famous fable "Grass is always green on the other side of the fence". It reminded me of an conversation which i had with a IT Engineer some time back. He wanted to move from his present company due to few reasons which gives an insight into confused IT engineers mind. Somehow i feel like that the same confusing situation is present in every Software Engineer's mind or rather the phenomenon is more common in entry level candidates as they don't know what is that which they exactly wanted to do. Some get fascinated by the Higher salaries, some by onsite opportunities and some just want to jump without proper analysis about the type of work which the Organization where they are going to join will be offering them. I feel that this situation is more prevelant among the group of people who are in early Years of experience levels say people with 1-3 years experience. Here goes the conversation:
IT Engineer: What is the promotion cycle in Company X? Do they give any weightage to previous experience?
Madhukar: Since u have around 1.5 years exp only earlier hence u might get prmotion to senior software engineer at least after 2 years but that all always depends on your performance. It might happen earlier as well. If you had around 4 years to 5 years of prior exp then they would have taken you mostly as senior engineer, but not now.
IT Engineer: 2 years after I join them or of total experience?
Madhukar: 2 years after u join them would be an ideal time, however it might happen earlier as well.
IT Engineer: ok
IT Engineer: and do they have salary blocks for Engg and senior Engg?
Madhukar: no..average hike will be 10-15% or 12-16% every year like other companies normally give but this as well depends on the performance.
IT Engineer: ok and what is the componenet of there salary like basic pay, felxible benefits and Specail compensation plan etc.
Madhukar: lta, basic, bonus, gratuity etc.
IT Engineer now stops asking questions. I thought why not i ask him some questions just to know his opinions.
Madhukar: What difference does it makes if you are not hired as a Senior Software Engineer at Company X...?Means what is your take on this?
IT Engineer: Right now I am working as Senior Executive Quality and if I stay with this compnay longer I would become lead executive by end of this year so If I decide and go to Company X ... then I would have to start as fresher and then after minimum two years I will become what I am right now.
Madhukar: Ok why do you want to change your present job when u feel u have so much opportunities at the current company?
IT Engineer: tell you honestlyI was thinking of leaving my organisation 3-4 month back
Madhukar: hmm ok...
IT Engineer: and now this came to me like a surprise because i was not expecting anything like that now and here in my company in last 3- 4 month things have improved a lot.
Madhukar: So what are your priorities and long term goals?
IT Engineer: I learnt a lot in this company and still I am learning and if i stay here for another 3-4 months I would get the oppurtunuty to impement CMMi in my company.
Madhukar: What CMM level does Company X has?
IT Engineer: they dont go for CMMi, they say they have there own standards.
Madhukar: Then what is the compelling factor which says you to change since in this case you will be moving to a place where you will not be able to work on your interest area. Lets say a company Hires you as a Lead In qualtiy will you join that company? I mean to ask what do you look while making a change Designation, Money, type of work? what?
IT Engineer: right now I looking for more money because I took a home loan and want to repay that fast and I know that kind of profile I am looking for ... is always challenging
Madhukar: How will joining Company X help you in that? What is your total expenses at present location after spending on room rent, food, transport and all like going to your hometown once a month etc......If at Company X you have a higher take home salary then on the other hand you might also have higher expenses per month in the new city as well.
IT Engineer: thats what making me rethink each and everytime because my major concern is this only.
Madhukar: means i am interested to know how does joining Company X gaurantees you that you can repay home loan quickly.
IT Engineer: yes true
Madhukar: Hmm which means designation does not matters?
IT Engineer: it wont help me, Designation do matter to me.
Madhukar: How? Don't you feel that all these designations are the fancy names given to just seperate out people and make the people happy....Ok what are your responsibilities as a senior QA engineer at present role..and how do you gaurantee that being Senior QA at Company X also will give you same? Might be Company X's definiton of Senior QA and the roles and responsibilities is quite different than other companies.
Madhukar: In India if you are not promoted to a higher level by attaching a fancy tag to your
Visiting Card then people start to change the companies and thats the game companies play to lower down the attrition rate,....The Thumb rule in India is 0-2 Years Entry Level, 2-4 Years Senior Engineer, 4-6 Years Lead..., 6+ years Manager
IT Engineer: yeah you are absolutely correct as i told you that I was not at all expecting the call from Company X once i received a call I thought why not to give an interview and see where i stand in the market clearing the first round gave a confidence and then clearing a second round gave me more confidence
Madhukar: Ok, i was just asking the questions because of my curiosity.
IT Engineer: ok
Madhukar: It was not meant to demoralise you or stop you from taking any decision....I just wanted to know if you have thought from all angles and was just making you realize the impact which this decision can have at a later stage.
The discussion continued for a long time and i made few observations: Software Engineers in early career just dont realise the big picture and want to change companies because of money, better work, onsite and several other reasons. We should always see as to what extent we fit in the next company, what goals and benifits are fulfiled and finally we should not move by the feeling that better things exist on the other side. Better things do definitely exist however they needs to be explored properly.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
The uTest Testing Community: Get Paid for finding Bugs
Found out a pretty interesting new concept uTest, check it out.
By joining uTestTM you will become a member of the world's first online community of software testers and gain access to the uTestTM Testing Platform. As a Tester in our community, you will be the first to try exciting and innovative applications, many of which are pre-released and have yet to be introduced to the public. Our network of testers (whose experience ranges from common consumers to highly trained testing professionals), forms a community from around the globe dedicated to experiencing and helping perfect bleeding-edge technology.
Our Testers enjoy extremely flexible hours - so you can work when you want to and at your own pace. In addition, the uTest Testing Platform can operate on any machine connected to the internet, which means Testers can work anywhere they want: from the comfort of their own home to their local coffee shop.
By joining uTestTM you will become a member of the world's first online community of software testers and gain access to the uTestTM Testing Platform. As a Tester in our community, you will be the first to try exciting and innovative applications, many of which are pre-released and have yet to be introduced to the public. Our network of testers (whose experience ranges from common consumers to highly trained testing professionals), forms a community from around the globe dedicated to experiencing and helping perfect bleeding-edge technology.
Our Testers enjoy extremely flexible hours - so you can work when you want to and at your own pace. In addition, the uTest Testing Platform can operate on any machine connected to the internet, which means Testers can work anywhere they want: from the comfort of their own home to their local coffee shop.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Appreciation and its impact......
Was thinking from a long time to write some thing and after a long time here i am with my thoughts on a topic rarely in the discussions. The inspiration for writing this came from Shrini whose views i love to read.
I had a recent conversation with Shrini on testing ERP applications which made me write my experiences.
ERP , the vast ocean of Enterprise applications, I was doing this testing for an ERP application some time back and due to a showstopper in the application for which i was developing automation scripts i thought of doing some testing of my own. To my surprise i was finding bugs which could have been caught long time back and which were so obvious, this raised my curiousity to test it more and i started doing exploratory testing. As i was finding more and more bugs my excitement was rising.
I managed to find some 50 odd bugs in 2 days and was extremely happy that i found some real trivial and amazing bugs in the application. Then started the real challenge of explaining the management about the importance of rapid testing versus scripted testing as somehow i have the feeling that scriptd testing is considered by the management as a robot which will perform all jobs by itself and once completed we can run them to find if any bugs have been injected when a new build was released.
Here goes the conversation:
Me: I would propose ET (Exploratory Testing) for testing this application as i dont find any value addition in doing scripted testing which i have been assigned which does not finds the bugs which ET can find.
Manager: Why?
Me: Its been more than 2 years since the development for this application started and and still their are so many bugs in the application which should have been caught by now. I would like to know from you what are the benifits of we doing scripted testing when it is serving no purpose.
Manager: Well i feel that their is already another group who is looking after this aspect of the application.
Me: You mean to say after the exploratory approach of testing.
Manager: Well i don't know what is exploratory testing ( The manager is from a development background), i only can suggest you at this moment that we have some goals to achieve and we have clear directions from higher management of how we achieve the same hence your priority should be to perform scripted testing.
Me: But it is not finding any bugs which should be our goal.
Manager: I already told you that other groups are taking care of this.
Me: ( I knew no other such group is doing this kind of testing) I would like to know who is that other group and if such a group exists then i would like to see how they are performing testing as according to me these bugs should have been identifed by now.
Manager: At this point i have no clue as their are so many teams working acroos the Globe so it would be difficult to identify and provide you the details, hence you pay attention to your goals for this year that is scripted tests.
Me: Are you aware of something called “Pesticide Paradox”?
Manager: No, what is this pesticide killer you are taling about.
Me: Well bugs are like pesticides in software terminology. As pesticides over a period of repeated application of a specific pesticide acquire immunity to it and fail to show their presence, in the same manner software bugs fail to show up and become immune to repeated application of specific Test cases which we call scripted testing. Might be some bug is lying in the system which our tests dont navigate through at all.
Their are still so many bugs lying in the application but since the way we are looking at quality is just to make sure that the important business processes keep on running hence we are not seeing the so many hidden bugs which makes me more concerned about the quality of the product.
The discussion continued for a long time and the output was negative as due to vastness of ERP applications generally quality is given a backseat and thing which is made sure is that the main functionality or the Business flow should work properly which the customers are going to use.
Customers also being not taught about the application and with limited knowledge just know what they have to follow to complete a scenario and follow the same steps. The scripted tests also are made sure so that they cover the business flow. So many bugs are left in the application and no one complains about it simply because the business scenarios are running and thats what customers are going to use, but what if the customers deviate from the normal process and do a bit different?
The attitude for quality should be present during testing and this should be well supported at an organizational level, for this we still need to educate ourselves a lot and give due respect to quality.
I had a recent conversation with Shrini on testing ERP applications which made me write my experiences.
ERP , the vast ocean of Enterprise applications, I was doing this testing for an ERP application some time back and due to a showstopper in the application for which i was developing automation scripts i thought of doing some testing of my own. To my surprise i was finding bugs which could have been caught long time back and which were so obvious, this raised my curiousity to test it more and i started doing exploratory testing. As i was finding more and more bugs my excitement was rising.
I managed to find some 50 odd bugs in 2 days and was extremely happy that i found some real trivial and amazing bugs in the application. Then started the real challenge of explaining the management about the importance of rapid testing versus scripted testing as somehow i have the feeling that scriptd testing is considered by the management as a robot which will perform all jobs by itself and once completed we can run them to find if any bugs have been injected when a new build was released.
Here goes the conversation:
Me: I would propose ET (Exploratory Testing) for testing this application as i dont find any value addition in doing scripted testing which i have been assigned which does not finds the bugs which ET can find.
Manager: Why?
Me: Its been more than 2 years since the development for this application started and and still their are so many bugs in the application which should have been caught by now. I would like to know from you what are the benifits of we doing scripted testing when it is serving no purpose.
Manager: Well i feel that their is already another group who is looking after this aspect of the application.
Me: You mean to say after the exploratory approach of testing.
Manager: Well i don't know what is exploratory testing ( The manager is from a development background), i only can suggest you at this moment that we have some goals to achieve and we have clear directions from higher management of how we achieve the same hence your priority should be to perform scripted testing.
Me: But it is not finding any bugs which should be our goal.
Manager: I already told you that other groups are taking care of this.
Me: ( I knew no other such group is doing this kind of testing) I would like to know who is that other group and if such a group exists then i would like to see how they are performing testing as according to me these bugs should have been identifed by now.
Manager: At this point i have no clue as their are so many teams working acroos the Globe so it would be difficult to identify and provide you the details, hence you pay attention to your goals for this year that is scripted tests.
Me: Are you aware of something called “Pesticide Paradox”?
Manager: No, what is this pesticide killer you are taling about.
Me: Well bugs are like pesticides in software terminology. As pesticides over a period of repeated application of a specific pesticide acquire immunity to it and fail to show their presence, in the same manner software bugs fail to show up and become immune to repeated application of specific Test cases which we call scripted testing. Might be some bug is lying in the system which our tests dont navigate through at all.
Their are still so many bugs lying in the application but since the way we are looking at quality is just to make sure that the important business processes keep on running hence we are not seeing the so many hidden bugs which makes me more concerned about the quality of the product.
The discussion continued for a long time and the output was negative as due to vastness of ERP applications generally quality is given a backseat and thing which is made sure is that the main functionality or the Business flow should work properly which the customers are going to use.
Customers also being not taught about the application and with limited knowledge just know what they have to follow to complete a scenario and follow the same steps. The scripted tests also are made sure so that they cover the business flow. So many bugs are left in the application and no one complains about it simply because the business scenarios are running and thats what customers are going to use, but what if the customers deviate from the normal process and do a bit different?
The attitude for quality should be present during testing and this should be well supported at an organizational level, for this we still need to educate ourselves a lot and give due respect to quality.
The point i like to highlight here is:
If the software testing team gets appreciation and their views are taken with due respect then we have many passionate testers who can do wonders for the company.
Sadly we dont find such managers and stakeholders, everyone is busy in thinking that why should i put my head in this dirty work, let me do what i am assigned to and achieve the objectives and goals assigned.
Appreciation and freedom given to express views and taking prompt actions on the same goes a long way in building good testers.
What do you say?
Madhukar.
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