I was pleased to hear Alan and Brent respond to my post “The black box tester role may be fading away” in AB Testing – Episode 43 (starting at 9:52). Their primary response was to my claim:

“The project structures they describe seem to be on the leading edge of the future of the software testing role. In my limited view of the software industry, I don’t see many companies that are anywhere near Microsoft in their evolution.”

They don’t think they’re really on the leading edge. I suspected that they would protest, because it’s human nature – everything is relative. If the organization I’m working with has a long way to go to achieve something that theirs is already doing, and I feel that theirs is a good enough exemplar, I don’t need to seek out something that’s even better. But from their point of view, they want to improve with the help of others who have gone even further, so their sights are set on others who have gone beyond. I’ve seen many software organizations recently that are so far behind in their evolution that it’s easy for me to point to Microsoft (which granted, I’ve also found many reasons to malign) and say that they’re far ahead of the pack.

These organizations that are behind the curve are generally surviving, and their companies are usually still making a profit. I saw this many times in my consulting. They are more or less successful and often don’t feel a strong need to make significant changes. This is where the traditional approach to software testing will hang on for a long time and keep the black-box testing role alive. At least for me, though, these are often not desirable places to work, and they may eventually find that it’s difficult to hire talented testers. Note that I’m more concerned about some of the antiquated traditional practices like scripted manual testing than I am with the black-box tester role itself, for now.

By the way, I’m amused that Alan introduced me as “our good friend,” but then didn’t seem to know whether that was okay to say. I’ve found that calling someone a friend often makes it so. I owe you guys a hug.