Elevating the Role of the Tester

Clearly I am a fan of testers. “Life’s work” and all that may have something to do with it, but here’s another part of the story. I like testers because they work on the treacherous border between an eager, often impatient business that is ready to get its product out the door and a hungry marketplace full of users that will crush tools and solutions that don’t live up to their expectations.

It’s a high pressure position and, let’s face it, fans are few and far between when the prevalent perception is that the test team is what stands between you and launch glory. But the right tester doesn’t mind being there because testing—at its best— is about simplification. We cut out all the noise and get down to the essential question: Does it work or doesn’t it?

This question and how to apply the right answer is always the goal of a Galmont tester.  The daily meetings, group problem-solving and trainings I shared with you in my “Tale of Two Cities” blog entry last month are examples of how our Galmont rural onshore testing team here in Lexington works together each day to approach every testing challenge: with logic and a shared foundation of proven testing skills. The beauty of attaining simplification in an otherwise chaotic environment is in the application of proven, consistent, and repeatable solutions.

At Galmont, our goal is to build test teams with universal testing skills—core skills that transfer from environment to environment and application to application, in addition to focusing on specific technologies, tools and domains. We give our testers the analytical skills required to boil down any system or product to its base requirements. From there, Galmont testers apply universal test design techniques that anticipate and identify defects and problems.

Why has achieving a powerful baseline analytical skill set become Galmont’s tester development approach? Because technology constantly and quickly evolves. Domains, platforms, program languages and applications will change, but the constant for success must be testing teams who can break any system down to its fundamental requirements and purpose to determine viability and effectiveness. By focusing the lion’s share of tester development on test design techniques and analytical capabilities in addition to specific tools and systems, Galmont is building teams that our clients can rely on for their full gamut of projects and for the long term.

In my view, we are elevating the role of tester by providing QA professionals with a universal skill set that allows them to contribute business-critical value and insight to any project. Will that elevate the status of a Galmont tester?  Absolutely!  We are in the business of excellence and world class testing practices.  Will it keep project teams from feeling any and all exasperation when testing is “holding up” their go-to-market schedule? Well, probably not. But don’t worry, excellent testers are tough. We don’t mind the heat.