Jon Bach’s STPCon Spring 2012 Keynote

Jon Bach walked up to the podium and (referring to his readiness as the presenter) asked us how to tell the difference between a tester and a programmer:  A programmer would say, “I’m not ready for you guys yet”.

STPCon Spring 2012 kicked off with the best keynote I have seen yet.  Jon took on the recent Test-Is-Dead movement using a Journalism-Is-Dead metaphor.

He opened with the observation, “Did anyone get a ‘USA Today’ delivered to their room this morning?”

“No”. (something as a tester I was embarrassed not to have noticed.)

And after a safety language exercise, Jon presented a fresh testing definition, which reflects his previous career, journalism:

Testing is an interrogation and investigation in pursuit of information to aid evaluation.

Jon wondered out loud what had motivated the Test-Is-Dead folks.  “Maybe there is a lot of bad testing in our midst.”  And he proceeded to examine about 7 threats (I think there were more) that he believed could actually make testing dead.  Each testing threat was reinforced with its metaphorical journalism threat and coupled with a quote from the Test-Is-Dead folks. 

(I listed each threat-to-testing in bold text, followed by its journalism threat.  I listed an example Test-Is-Dead quote for threat #3 below.) 

1. (threat to testing) If the value of testing become irrelevant – (threat to journalism) If we stop caring about hearing the news of what is happening in the world. (implied: then testing and journalism is dead)
2. If the quality of testing is so poor that it suffers an irreversible “reputation collapse event”.  If “journalist” comes to mean “anybody who writes” (e.g., blogs, tweets, etc.).
3. If all users become early adaptors with excellent technical abilities.  If everyone becomes omnipotent; they already know today’s weather and tomorrow’s economic news.
   
   For this threat, the Test-Is-Dead quote was from James Whittaker, “You are a tester pretending to be a user”.  The context of Whittaker’s statement was that testers may not be as important because they are only pretending to be users, while modern technology may allow actual users to perform the testing.  Bach’s counterpoint was: since not all users may want to be testers and not all users may possess the skills to test, there may still be value for a tester role.
   
4. If testers are forced to channel all thoughts and intelligence through a limited set of tools and forced to only test what can be written as “executable specifications”.  If journalists could only report what the state allows.  Jon listed the example of the Egyptian news anchor that just resigned from state media after 20 years, due to what she called “lack of ethical standards” in the media’s coverage of the Arab Spring.
5. If all the tests testers could think of were confirmatory.  If all the journalists did not dig deeper (e.g., If they always assumed the story was just a car crash.)
6. If software stops changing and there is no need to ask new questions.  If the decisions people made today no longer depend on the state of the economy, weather, who they want to elect, etc.
7. If the craft of testing is made to be uninviting; into a boring clerical activity that smart, talented, motivated, creative people are not interested in.  If you had to file a “news release approval” form or go through the news czar for all the news stories you told.

Jon’s talk had some other highlights for me:

• He shared a list of tests he performed on eBay’s site prior to his eBay interview (e.g., can I find the most expensive item for sale?).  Apparently, he reported his test results during the interview.  This is an awesome idea.  If anyone did that to me, I would surely hire them.
• He also showed a list of keynote presentation requirements he received from STPCon.  He explained how these requirements (e.g., try to use humor in your presentation) were like tests.  Then he used the same metaphor to contrast those “tests” with “checks”; am I in the right room?  Is the microphone on?  Do I have a glass of water?

Jon concluded where he started.  He revealed that although newspapers may be dead, journalism is not.  Those journalists are just reporting the news differently.  And maybe it’s time to cut those unskilled testers loose as well.  But, according to Jon, the testing need for exploration and sapience in a rapid development world is more important than ever.