16 | Training
Investment and yield:
The value of tester training
Although testing is gradually being recognised as a profession and natural
career path within the IT industry, not all know the real art of testing.
It’s one of the reasons why e-testing Consultancy has adopted the ISEB
tester certification scheme to run a series of structured courses leading to
recognised certificates in software testing. Senior tester Don Mills reports.
T
he initial ISEB (ISTQB)
Foundation Certifi cate
course has been a resounding
success. More than
48,000 people have now completed
these three day courses, run by
ISEB accredited training providers.
The certifi cation scheme is
effectively backed up by the British
Computer Society (BCS) and
Special Interest Group in Software
Testing, which defi nes career paths
for IT professionals.
QC, QA or risk management?
I used to teach people that testing
was all about software quality control.
This would often start arguments
about whether it was quality control
or quality assurance (see below), but
the point was that I saw its purpose
as enabling a project to keep the
quality of its work products under
control. This was and is done by
periodically measuring (testing) work-
product quality, and reporting back on
aspects that fall below par. And this is
necessary because, if you don’t keep a
constant eye on it, quality will rapidly
drift below par.
But there’s certainly something
to be said for the point of view that
testing can mean quality assurance.
One of my mentors in testing, almost
twenty years ago, was Boris Beizer,
from whom I learnt that: “The proper
use of testing isn’t finding bugs, but
preventing them.” This is indeed a
T.E.S.T | March 09 March 09 | T.E.S.T
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