Testers, want to know how to positively influence programmers?

Recently, in the comments, the legend about the Black Team , told by Tom DeMarko in her book “The Human Factor”, caught my eye once again. The book is wonderful, and the legend is stupid. One would like to wish that DeMarko had to work with such testers all his life!

The time has long passed when testing was hard labor, where unwanted or careless developers referred. The time of peaceful mutually beneficial coexistence has come. But some programmers, having read the book of a clever uncle, begin to be afraid of evil testers. And the well-read managers, and even worse, are beginning (oh, horror!) To cultivate and implement.

In order to somehow compensate for this negative, I decided to publish several excerpts from the articles of Michael Bolton, which advocate exactly the opposite style of relationships with teammates. Today is the first passage.
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So, you want to know how to influence programmers in a positive way ?

• Tell programmers that your main goal is to help them look good , and then start believing in it . Your job is not to shame, not to blame and not to play the role of evil. I do not think that we have the right to even talk about it as a joke, because it is not funny.
• You are always the bearer of bad news. Give yourself this report, and deliver the bad news with sympathy and restraint.
• You too can be mistaken. Be skeptical of your own conclusions.
• Focus on researching and studying the product, gathering information about it, and not just confirming the facts that we already know about the product.
• Inform about what you have learned about the product in a format that determines the value of the product, and that demonstrates the threats to this value.
• Try to understand how the product works at all levels that you can imagine, from the highest to the lowest. Keep in mind that the product is complex; so when a rash idea arises about how to simply fix a problem or find all the errors in the code, you have the opportunity to stop and think things over.
• Take a genuine interest in what programmers do and study the code if it suits you. At the very least, find out at least a little about how the code works and what it does.
• Never tell programmers how they should program. If you are really sure that this is your role, make sure that you do not lose your sense of reality: how will you like it when they give such advice to you ?

Continued here: Testers, want to know how to influence managers in a positive way?

about the author

Michael Bolton is one of the most active evangelists of the context-oriented testing school. He has over 20 years experience in testing. Michael regularly speaks at conferences, conducts trainings and seminars, has been a regular columnist for one of the most popular testing magazines in the field of testing Better Software since 2005 and has a wonderful testing blog www.developsense.com/blog.shtml

On November 17-18, Michael Bolton will hold in St. Petersburg a two-day training "Rapid Software Testing", developed by him in collaboration with James Bach. Details here: habrahabr.ru/blogs/testing/105133