All Over Software Jobs: Re: [agile-testing] Are testers equally valued on agile teams?

Tuesday, January 03, 2012

>>If you're a tester on an agile team, I'd like to know your experience.

Lisa, do we really need to distinguish between testers and developers on our teams?

Yes, we have people with different skills, but in the end everyone tries to deliver business value and build great software.

Everyone on the team is contributing in a different way, e.g. some might be writing lots of tests, some are "just" coding, some automating the UI, some are doing manual exploratory testing, ... but they all work together to deliver a great software product.

>>Do you feel that all team members are equally valued?

Moste people that I talk to (developers in my case), have a bad attitude against a person called tester.

"They are trying to destroy our work and are monkeys that hit all buttons on a keyboard and click on weird locations on the screen."

I think testers are not equally valued, because there is this wrong assumption on what they do.

What can we do to overcome this situation?

My 2cents

.peter.gfader. (current mood = happy)

http://blog.gfader.com

On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:12 AM, Lisa Crispin <lisa.crispin@gmail.com> wrote:

I've pretty much always felt that, as a tester, I was valued as highly as programmers or others on the team, even in non-agile shops. Not that I haven't had to earn my credibility, but generally I've felt like an equally valued team member. But perhaps this is because I started out my career as a programmer? I've heard lots of stories of testers who were treated like failed programmers or the like.

Since agile values promote the whole team approach, cross-functional teams where all roles have equal value, I'd like to think that there's no caste system on agile teams.

If you're a tester on an agile team, I'd like to know your experience. Do you feel that all team members are equally valued?
thanks
Lisa

--
Lisa Crispin
Co-author with Janet Gregory, _Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams_ (Addison-Wesley 2009)
Contributor to _Beautiful Testing_ (O'Reilly 2009)
http://lisacrispin.com
@lisacrispin on Twitter
http://entaggle.com/lisacrispin