Skip to main content

Value in QA Courses/Qualifications?

I have in the past questioned the value in getting certifications/going on courses for the sake of getting a certificate in testing.

Whilst I do still question the worth of such an issue, I have recently read some articles which has shown me there is more value in these courses/certificates than I previously gave them credit for.

The main positive that I can think of, upon completing a course like an ISEB Foundation, is that it ensures that testers are on the same page when it comes to communicating. A bug is a bug, or if I'm speaking to someone about Integration testing, they know exactly what I am talking about and won't get confused.

I think in ensuring that everybody is on the same page when it comes to discussing testing issues/testing activities, it helps in gaining respect and confidence from other teams and other team members, as we are all singing from the same hymn sheet. 

It isn't just about communication in the term of words however, it is important to understand what automated testing is for example, and when or how it might be useful, which you can possibly get from a course/certificate.

What I don't like about certificates is that they are mandatory in some roles/jobs, or the stigma associated with some, just because someone has a qualification, does not mean they are a good tester. I have met many testers with qualifications who I would question their ability, as well on the other hand I have met good testers who don't necessarily have the same qualifications who I think are awesome testers!

So, what I am trying to get at is that I don't believe that certifications should be a pre-requisite for getting jobs, nor should they be held in such high esteem as they are in some places, what they could and perhaps should be used for is ensuring that there is a level of understanding within/across teams. What I am open to is how we gain that level of understanding, in my opinion it doesn't have to be from a qualification, so long as there is something in place to ensure that we are all talking about the same thing, then I'd be happy. If people think qualifications help them get to this level, then who am I to judge? 
Labels:

Comments

  1. Phil Kirkham1 August 2013 at 06:11

    Spend some time on testing forums and you'll find many different variations on what is a bug, what is integration testing. Rather than trying to get people to use an ISEB definition isn't it better to learn how to communicate and understand what the other person means?

    and to carry on with this, you say "it is important to understand what automated testing is for example" - given the amount of blog posts and arguments about what it meant by this I'd like to know what you mean by 'automated testing'...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gareth Waterhouse1 August 2013 at 06:48

      Whilst it is good to learn how to communicate and understand, if the people using the terms understand them fully, then there isn't the need to spend time understanding what someone meant when really they meant something else?

      I'm not talking industry wide, my reasoning behind this is more around teams within a company, here it is important to have standard definitions for certain terms surely?

      With regards to 'automated testing' it was just a generic example to be honest :p

      But to expand, to me, automated testing is any testing that is done by a machine, doesn't matter if it's unit tests or acceptance tests, they are all a form of automated testing.

      Obviously there will be big discussions over some terms and when to use them, as people believe in different things, but in my opinion it's important to at least have some form of understanding within teams of what it is being discussed.

      Delete
  2. Sharath Byregowda2 August 2013 at 05:31

    I agree with your point that certifications should never be pushed as a mandatory requirement. But I still have my doubts that certifications can help achieve that "We all understand each other" - claim.
    My question is how hard is it for a team to introduce the team's 'words/terminologies' to a new tester? Will this simple step not solve someone sitting thru and spending loads of money on a certification? Also I find it interesting to know why a tester would use the same word in a different context. May be his/her word could be more appropriate to what I have been using?!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gareth Waterhouse2 August 2013 at 06:55

      You could, but in having the course before you join, you're more than likely understand what's being said and when to use certain terminology :)

      Delete
  3. halperinko20 August 2013 at 22:06

    The economic fight against certifications flushed the need for basic training down the toilet with it...
    With all the noise around it, people return to think that training is not required for testers.
    I think basic training as well as a life time of additional learning is a must for any tester.
    Some need the certification as incentive for learning.
    It may also backfire - when some don't learn testing but just for the sake of passing the exam.
    Basic (foundation) certification really has nothing to do as pre-requisite - it should be supplied to new employees by the company in case these don't have it yet.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Considerations when creating automated tests

We recently released to a number of teams our automated regression pack that has been worked on over the past few months. This regression pack tests legacy code, but contains a large number of tests.  As a bit of background, a number of teams are working on new solutions whilst some are still working on legacy code. With this in mind we constructed an email with a list of guidelines when creating new tests that need to be added to this regression pack.  I figured that these can be quite broad so should apply for any organisation, so thought it would make an interesting blog post...  So here goes,  when creating automated tests, it's important to consider and adhere to the following: - Think about data . The tests need to retrieve or set the data they need without any manual intervention - This should help them be more robust and easier to run without manual intervention. - The tests need to be idempotent - By making it so that each test is standalone and does...
Post a Comment
Read more

Coding something simple.... or not! Taking a screenshot on error using Selenium WebDriver

I recently wrote a little function that takes a screenshot at the end of a test if it has errored. What sounded very simple at the start turned out to be quite a bit of work, and quite a few lines of code to handle certain scenarios! It's now over 50 lines of code! I'll start with what I had at the beginning, this was to simply take a screenshot in the working directory, we are using SpecFlow and Selenium to run the tests, so we are going to check if the ScenarioContext.Current.TestError isn't null, if it is, then using Selenium, take a screenshot (note the below code is a simplified version of what I had at the beginning). [AfterScenario]         public static void TakeScreenShotOnError()         {             if (ScenarioContext.Current.TestError == null) return;             var screenshotDriver = Driver as ITakesScreenshot;             if (screenshotD...
15 comments
Read more

How to manage resources within new teams?

Working where I work we are constantly spinning up new teams to take on new workloads as business come up with new demands and new features they want developed and tested. The problem with this is how do we ensure the work of the newly spun up team is of sufficient quality. One method is by taking people from other established teams and placing them on the new team. This works great for the new team, but unfortunately it will oftenl eave the established team lacking in a resource whilst they try and fill the gap left by the person who has left. We are seeing this often with our offshore teams, it can be damaging to the team structure and the teams velocity, but try as I might, I can't think of another way around it. It's far easier to take 1 person from a team that is established than it is to build a whole new team from scratch. At least by leaving the core of a team in place, you should be guaranteeing that the new team are aware of any coding standards or any QA standard...
Post a Comment
Read more