Page - 235 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

Next-Generation Software Testers: Broaden or Specialize! 235 Fig. 3 Tester knowledge and skill set knowledge in testing, we do not expect testers to choose between follow-up areas suchas testmanager, testanalystor technical testanalyst.Weexpecttesters tocover all three areas and become a true professional. As an example, there are fewer and fewerdedicated test managersor test leads.Many testers todayareembeddedin an Agile team,as such theyperformtesting tasks, but also coachandsupportbusiness analysts doing functional user-story-based testing and developersdoing automated unit testing. Being a tester in an Agile team also means you are involved in tasks that were originally in the exclusive domain of the test manager, e.g. product risk sessions, estimations, retrospectives, reporting,etc. Note there are many other means of acquiring the same testing knowledge and skills; ISTQBis just oneoptionandused hereas an example.There areoften great tutorials at testing conferences that discuss interesting topics and areas. There are also many highly practical courses available in the market, e.g. on test automation. Ofcoursealternativesexist todoingformal trainingaswell, e.g.mentoring,on-the- job learning,etc. NotJust theTester! Therewillmost likelybeprofessional testers in the future,butevenmoreso testing as an activity will remain to be extremely important and challenging. Not only the tester performs testing activity, also other team members, e.g. developers and business analysts, will perform testing activities especially as a result of Agile