Page - 231 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

Next-Generation Software Testers: Broaden or Specialize! 231 usersandcustomersdonotwant tocompromiseonquality.Tobeable tostill test non-functionalcharacteristicssuchassecurity, interoperability,performanceand reliability,or othercomplexaspects, e.g. systems-of-systems,highlyspecialized testers will be needed. Even more so than today, these specialists will be full- time test professionals with in-depth knowledge and skills in one specific (non- functional) testing areaonly. The concept of a T-shaped person is of course popular in the Agile world and refers to the need for cross-skilled developers,business analysists and testers in an Agile team,e.g.aScrumteam. Inpractice,manytalkaboutbeingaT-shapedtester, but only a few truly are. Let’s try to define the knowledge and skill set required to be a true T-shaped tester, but before we do let’s look into more detail on what the conceptofT-shapedpersonsactuallymeansandstands for. 2 TheConceptofT-Shape TheconceptofT-shapedskills,orT-shapedpersons, isametaphororiginallyusedin jobrecruitmenttodescribetheabilitiesofpersonsintheworkforce.Theverticalbar ontheTrepresents thedepthof relatedskillsandexpertise inasinglefield,whereas thehorizontalbar is theability tocollaborateacrossdisciplineswithexpertsinother areasandtoapplyknowledgeinareasofexpertiseother thanone’sown(seeFig.1). More in detail the horizontal stroke is composedof two things. First, empathy. It’s importantbecause it allowspeople to lookataproblemfromanotherperspective— to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Second, they tend to get enthusiastic about otherpeople’sdisciplines, to the point that theymayactuallystart topractice them. T-shapedpeoplehavebothdepthandbreadth in their skills. To better understand what a T-shaped person is, it is perhaps easier to first understandwhat theconverse,aso-calledI-shapedperson, is.AnI-shapedpersonis one who is a functionalexpert—their functionalexpertisebeing representedby the Fig. 1 T-shaped person Ability to Apply Knowledge Across Situations D E E P BROAD