I'm in a peculiar position right now. I am a manager of a manager who manages test manager managing themselves and a tester. Confused already - I am too.
The dynamic is clear through. I get to let go the tester for not thinking their work isn't worth paying for. And that is kind of what I am thinking. But it is not that straightforward. All testers, gather around, this needs a lot more than just throwing it at your face like this.
What Good Testing Looks Like
Having been a tester for such a long time and still being a tester on side of my other dark-side managerial duties. I know what good testing looks like and I would buy some in a heartbeat. Some examples of that testing I vouch for are embodied in people like Ru Cindrea (and pretty much anyone at Altom I have seen test, including past people from Altom like Alessandra Casapu, pure testing brilliance), Elizabeth Zagroba, Joep Schuurkes and James Thomas. And my idol of all times, Fiona Charles, who I attribute to a special blend of excellence in orchestrating testing of this kind.
If there is a phrase that good testing often comes to me with, it is the words *exploratory testing*. Not the exploratory testing that you put into a single task as a reason to say that you need extra time to think, but the kind that engulfs all your testing, makes you hyper focus on results and aware of cost of premature documentation as well as opportunity cost, and positively pushes you to think about risks and results as an unsplittable pair where there is not one without the other.
These kinds of testers have product research mindset, they are always on the lookout of how they invest their limited time the best in the context at hand and they regularly surprise their teams with information we did not have available regardless of how much automation we have already managed to accrue.
Seniority much?
While it may sound like I am describing very senior people, I have seen this in 1st year testers, and I have seen lack of this in 10th year testers. It is not about level of experience, it is about level of learning, and attitude to what it means to do testing.
What does it look like when the work may not be worth paying for?
While writing documentation and notes and checklist is good, writing test cases is bad. Generally speaking of course. So my first smell towards recognising I might come to a case of testing not worth paying for is test case obsession.
Test Case Obsession is counting test cases. Defining goals of test automation in perspective of manual test cases automated. Not understanding that good test automation means decomposing the same testing problems in a different way, not mimicking your movements manually.
Its listing test cases and using the very same test cases framing them into "regression suite", "minor functionality suite" and "major functionality suite" and avoiding thinking about why we test today - what is the change and risk - and hoping that following a predetermined pattern would be a catch all important with regards to results.
If this is what you are asked to do, you would do it. But if you are asked to follow the risk and adjust your ideas of what you test, and you still refuse, you are dangerously on the territory of testing not worth paying for. When that is enhanced with missing simple basic things that are breaking because you prioritise safety and comfort of repeating plans over finding the problems with lack of information your organization hired you to work on, you are squarely on my testing not worth paying for turf.
The Fixing Manoeuvres
I've done this so many times over the last 25 years that it almost scares me.
First you move the testing not worth paying for into a team of its own and if you can't stop doing that work, you send it somewhere where it gets even thinner on results by outsourcing it. And in 6-12 months, you stop having that team. In the process you have often replaced 10 testers with 1 tester and better results.
Manager (1) - Manager (2) - Manager (3) - Tester
Being the Manager to Testers, I can do the Fixing Manoeuvres. But add more layers, and you have a whole different dynamic.
First of all, being the manager (1), I can ask for Testing Worth Paying For (tm) while manager (2) is requiring testing not worth paying for, and manager (3) and tester being great and competent folks find themselves squeezed from two sides.
Do what your manager says and their manager will remove you.
Do what your managers manager say and your manager will nag you because they have been taught that test cases are testing, and know of nothing better.
Long story, and Morale
We have an epidemic of good managers with bad ideas about how to manage testing and this is why not all testing is not exploratory testing. Bad ideas remove a lot of the good from testing. Great testers do good testing even in presence of bad ideas, but it is so much harder.
We need to educate good managers with bad ideas and I have not done my part as I find myself in a Manager - Manager - Manager - Tester chain. I will try again.
Firing good people you could grow is the last resort while also a common manouvre. Expecting good testing (with mistakes and learning) should be what we grow people to.
