Page - 232 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

232 E. van Veenendaal vertical stroke in the letter I. There is ofcoursenothingwrong in beingan I-shaped person—afunctionalexpert.However, let’s imagineanumberof functionalexperts trying to work togetheron a new mobileapp. An app developer,an SEO expert, an analytics expert, a contentdeveloper, and an art directorhave a kick-offmeeting to decideona strategyfor thenewmobileapp. The SEO expert insists that you should build the app around a keyword map to make sure that the site’s structure mirrors an emphasis on keywords. The app developer insists that the mobile app be as easy to code as possible. The analytics expertsaysthat thenewdesignhastobebasedonwhat theappanalyticsshowabout usage of the current app. The content developer insists it’s all about developing interesting, engaging navigable content. And finally, the art director is insisting that app composition and brand beauty is the number one goal. Which one of these I-shaped people is right? How do we manage all these different opinionsand make decisions? No matter how good the I-shaped functional experts are at their individualfunctions,what they lack isnotonlyanappreciationof theirco-workers’ areas of expertise, but also the training to actually find solutions at the intersection of their respective functionalareas. Let’s now compare the I-shaped persons to those being T-shaped. A T-shaped person is typically multi-function aware, collaborative and seeking to learn more about how their function impacts others and the end product. T-shaped people are far more flexible, and more able to easily catch on to new trends, but are of course not as substantial in each adjacent discipline as in their primary skill. Contrary to the I-shaped person, the T-shaped specialist tend to get the general picture rather than immerse themselves indetails, unless it’s reallyneeded. Inaddition to I-andT-shapedconcepts, therearedescriptivevariations thathave emergedrecently, the mostcommonofwhichare (seeFig. 2): • π-shaped—twolegsofkeyskills connectedwith thedashofgeneralknowledge • M-shaped—three(ormore)key,deepskills Although the concept of going beyond T-shaped, such as π-shaped or even M-shaped is certainly an interesting one for some disciplines, it probably is not the way to go for testers. As we have learned over the years a certain degree of Fig. 2 Variations to the T-shaped concept