Page - 234 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

234 E. van Veenendaal Discussing the skill sets of T-shaped testers, we should also be aware of the proportions between ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ aspects in the skill set. Depending on the environment, the need in each family of skills will differ. Those who have very deep and narrow expertise in the field can become over-skilled, as employers don’t tend to pay for skills they don’tneed.Thosewho have broaderskills can feel the lack of expertise in their key discipline at some point and will need to catch up on it in the short term if required. Hereafter the four knowledge and skill options identifiedfor theT-shapedareelaborateduponwithexamples. 3.1 Deepening: TestingKnowledgeand Skills Today’stesterneedstohaveafull toolboxwithvaryingtestmethodsandtechniques. Working in a team, depending on the context and charter, the most appropriate methods and techniques shall be selected from the toolbox. Trying to define the toolboxfor the tester,andthus the testingknowledgeandskills required, theISTQB productportfoliocanbeusedasareferencemodel.Althoughthereismuchcriticism on ISTQB in some testing communities, from a content point-of-view there is withoutdoubtmuchinterestingknowledgeandmaterialavailableacrossmanyareas oftestinganddocumentedinthevarioussyllabus.ISTQBtodayismuch,muchmore than thebasic ISTQBfoundationlevel syllabus. Ifwe take theISTQBproductportfolioasastartingpoint(seewww.istqb.orgfor the latestversionof theportfolio),manyinteresting topicsandsyllabiareavailable. Tryingtodefinetherequiredtestingknowledgeandskills, it isat leaststrangetosee that ISTQBdoesnotconsiderAgile testing tobeapartof thecoresetofknowledge andskills. It is definedwithin theportfolioasa separate stream. Also interesting to seeis that testautomationandmobileapplicationtestingareconsideredasspecialist areaswithin testing. Today, these are almost like standard requirements fora tester. The fact that these were originally defined as specialist areas by ISTQB perhaps shows how quickly the market changes. What is defined as a specialist area today couldwell bea commonrequirementforknowledgeandskills tomorrow. The picture in Fig. 3 is by no means intended to be complete or based on some extensivesurvey.It is intendedtoshowonahighlevelwhatisexpectedfromatester in termsof testingknowledgeandskills todayandfor sure tomorrow. Having attended an ISTQB Foundation course (and having passed the exam) and then stating you are a professional tester ready for the future is almost like a joke. A 3-day ISTQB Foundation course is based on a well-founded syllabus, but it only teaches the basics and principles of testing and doesn’t get the job done. One will also need to be trained in Agile testing, which I believe is core and not optional forany tester. The real meat is in attendingmore advancedhands- on, practical courses or workshops in which you will learn how to actually apply testing practices in various contexts. These advanced courses should include areas such as test automation and mobile application testing, and of course should be taughtfromanAgileperspective.FollowingtheT-shapedconceptandhavingadeep