Today I gave a presentation at the Agile Testing Days. The room was packed and we talked about the way the testing profession in evolving. 5 years ago the Dutch Test Association published a book that described the changes in the testing profession. I was one of the 7 authors and we organized a few workshops on the theme. Last may we hosted a retrospective workshop during which the participants evaluated the 2012 predictions. Key question during this workshop was: What is the status of the profession and what skills and role should a tester take in order to add value and a job. In my 2017 ATD presentation I shared the results that of this workshop.  I shared the highlights of the book, told what predictions were correct and which were incorrect. But most of all I will shared the opinion of or fellow testers: What do roles do they have now, and what roles do they expect to have in 5 years from now. Join this session if you are sometimes worried about the sustainability of your role, if you want to specialize yourself but wonder what specialisms are a safe bet, if you want to stay ahead of the game and be prepared for the future.

1. My slides are / will be available for you at:
Trends and Future in
Software testing
Derk-Jan de Grood
https://djdegrood.wordpress.com/

3. 3
“The only constant I am sure of
Is this accelerating rate of change”
Source:[PeterGrabriel–downsideup]

4. 4

5. What…
has changed in the test profession?

6. 2012

7. Authors:Huib Schoots, Hans van Loenhoud, Derk-Jan de Grood, Anko Tijman, Pepijn Vorst, Andreas Prins, Jeroen Rosink en Ard Kramer

8. Doelen vanavond…
Themessage

9. IT is rapidly chancing
If you do not act, you are left
behind
Align with future demands

10. Predicted trends

11. Some predictions we made in 2012
• Dominant economies will shift (Europe lacks behind)
• Demographical changes (many more young people)
• From ‘owning’ to ‘using’
• Governmental control on e.g. security and finance
• Environmental awareness and different usage of
energy
• Digital transformation and new business models

13. Changes that affect us…
Test Profession
Work &
Organization
World &
technology

14. TrendsTesting
becomes
part of the
business
Testing
becomes
part of
Develop-
ment
Testing
shifts to
production
More tool
supported
Thinking in
value
chains Personal
approach
important
More
attention
for legal
aspects

15. Development in the test profession
• Testing will be done by everyone
• Testers task will get more diverse
• Testing should be faster and more efficient
• Testing will become more versatile
• Technical & process compliance is important

16. P120

18. May 2017

19. Workshop TestNet
20
How did your work change over
the last 5 years?

20. Workshop TestNet
21
How did your work change over
the last 5 years?

21. More Less Started Stopped Keep
• Teamwork
• Exploratory
testing
• Automation
• Global TestStrat.
• Cloud
• Releases
• Security
• Feedback
customers
• PRA
• E2E testing
• Working
individually
• Detailed scripts
• Manual Testing
• Formal
acceptance
• Reporting and
Logging
• Test planning
• Uniform tests
• Test automation
• Using tools
• Open source +
own build tools
• Real time test
results
• Integrated tests
• Using Production
Data
• Value driven
decision making
• Data driven
decision making
• Agile SCRUM
• Auditing
• Testers that can
only test
• Detailed test plan
• Manual written
test reports
• PRA (while doing
devops)
• Quality Focus
• Specifications
• Drafting test
cases based on
specifications
• Hardcore Testing
• Keep learning
• Waterfall
• UAT
22
How did your work change
over the last 5 years?

22. More Less Started Stopped Keep
• Teamwork
• Exploratory
testing
• Automation
• Global TestStrat.
• Cloud
• Releases
• Security
• Feedback
customers
• PRA
• E2E testing
• Working
individually
• Detailed scripts
• Manual Testing
• Formal
acceptance
• Reporting and
Logging
• Test planning
• Uniform tests
• Test automation
• Using tools
• Open source +
own build tools
• Real time test
results
• Integrated tests
• Using Production
Data
• Value driven
decision making
• Data driven
decision making
• Agile SCRUM
• Auditing
• Testers that can
only test
• Detailed test plan
• Manual written
test reports
• PRA (while doing
devops)
• Quality Focus
• Specifications
• Drafting test
cases based on
specifications
• Hardcore Testing
• Keep learning
• Waterfall
• UAT
23
How did your work change
over the last 5 years?

23. More Less Started Stopped Keep
• Teamwork
• Exploratory
testing
• Automation
• Global TestStrat.
• Cloud
• Releases
• Security
• Feedback
customers
• PRA
• E2E testing
• Working
individually
• Detailed scripts
• Manual Testing
• Formal
acceptance
• Reporting and
Logging
• Test planning
• Uniform tests
• Test automation
• Using tools
• Open source +
own build tools
• Real time test
results
• Integrated tests
• Using Production
Data
• Value driven
decision making
• Data driven
decision making
• Agile SCRUM
• Auditing
• Testers that can
only test
• Detailed test plan
• Manual written
test reports
• PRA (while doing
devops)
• Quality Focus
• Specifications
• Drafting test
cases based on
specifications
• Hardcore Testing
• Keep learning
• Waterfall
• UAT
24
Testing becomes part of
the business
How did your work change
over the last 5 years?Testing becomes part of
Development
Thinking in value chains
Personal approach
important
Testing shifts to
production
More attention for legal
aspects
More tool supported
Test facilitator
Acceptation manager
Super tester
Business consultant
Cultural host
Auditor
Programmeur

26. Annotation
• The test manager still active
• The programmer is not present in the group, but this
is logic (test conference)
• The test facilitator and super-tester are predicted well
• The test coach was not foreseen, but some testers act
as test coach.
• Test automation has a big emphasis (was the
programmer, but testers make a distinction)

27. Benchmarking:
What do our peers say?

28. The Key Areas Where Testers Need
to Grow
By Josiah Renaudin - June 28, 2017

29. “Software testers have been forced to learn new skills
and become more adaptable in order to maintain
relevance in the development lifecycle.”
Skills
• Automate test
• Code
• Shift left
• Involved in application
creation
Understand
• DevOps
• Performance
• Security
• Cloud

30. Evaluation:
• Automate tests: aligns with Automation officer
• Code: seems to be missing in our 2017 transition
matrix
• Shift left aligns with RE but might be
underemphasized in our 2017 transition matrix
• Involved in application creation: could be part of Ops
engineer/ Dev engineer and Mobile app specialist
• Use the right tools: nicely covered by the tool
researcher (what would his role be? Supporting team
with tool knowledge and be on the lookout for new
opensource solutions, teach testers to use the tools.)

31. The state of the Software Testing
Profession 2016–2017
“The role of tester continues to evolve and adapt
thanks to the increasing influence of automation,
DevOps and Agile. Responsibilities and skill sets are still
expanding to include more technical skills and domain
knowledge. And, most importantly, the role of tester
seems to be holding strong for the foresee-able future”

32. What will these
task be ?
See state of testing
report…
Does this include
Cloud,Mobile, Etc

34. Where is the e2e tester? We
seem to be missing the
automation in our workshop
group
Maybe add: Customer/Sales
support and training

35. Avoiding Continuous Bugs: Speed
and Quality in DevOps
By Jeffery Payne - July 28, 2017
“All software should be releasable—including being
adequately tested in a production (or production-like)
environment.”

36. CI/CD is growing
Avoiding Continuous Bugs: Speed
and Quality in DevOps
By Jeffery Payne - July 28, 2017
“All software should be releasable—including being
adequately tested in a production (or production-like)
environment.”

37. Skills you need to be a good tester
Josiah Renaudin:
Understand
• DevOps
• Performance
• Security
• Cloud
Note: that shift left
skills are less
dominant than
automation
Customer/Sales
support and
training, helping
user testing

38. Where will you be in 5 years?

39. Future plans
Was expecting
more people to
move out of testing
into agile coaching
We stay in our
testing profession !
[State of testing report 2017]

40. Choices must be made

45. New Magazine

46. 9th world quality report
More emphasis on
Test strategy and
design

48. But most of all…
Stay alert
be curious,
enjoy your profession,
and keep learning