I’ve worked in the IT industry for nearly 30 years on and off. I currently have no IT related qualifications or certifications to my name. I have a background in business analysis, with a bit of project management and portfolio management thrown in, but for the last 3 1/2 years I’ve been in testing. My current employer is a consultancy and wants me to do ISTQB because it carries weight with clients.
So of course I will get certified rather than rebel against the source that pays for the roof over my head and the food on my table, BUT…

I have little expectation of learning anything of real practical value through certification, because I don’t believe any course can teach some of what I believe are the most important skills for a tester – gut feeling, inquisitiveness, problem-solving, communication, diligence and attention to detail.

I have had a long and varied IT career, during which most of my jobs have presented themselves to me through people who know me and know what I’m capable of. Most of my jobs have found me, not the other way around. In recent years I have worked with certified testers who were useless and uncertified testers who were brilliant. If I’m ever in a position to call on any of them to work with me again – I know which I will choose.

[James' Reply: If I were you, I would reassess my career. You say you've had a long and varied IT career, and yet with all that time you have not become senior enough to feel you can say no to silly requests from your employer. If I were you I would chuckle and say, sorry, I'm not going to diminish my credibility by adopting a fake credential, no matter how much a confused client thinks it weighs.

All that I ask is that you don't take the fake certification seriously. Don't list it on your blog, don't join the ISTQB LinkedIn group (I won't link to people who feature the ISTQB anywhere on their profiles), don't give it credence.]

By their lazy and incoherent approach to testing vocabulary, the ISTQB encourages lazy and incoherent thinking about testing. Fortunately, most people who get certified quickly forget the official vocabulary.]

So I’m somewhat cycnical about it but I also see the mechanisms causing it – certification is here and it is driven by bigger forces than training providers. It’s driven by the corporate culture that requires the ability to mechanise the recognition of the skills of employees – the result is the dumbing down to the commonality of basics. It’s not just testing, I see it in the PM side and more recently the BA side (see the IIBA). The discussion there is exactly the same.
This trend for easy categorisation of skill sets is what is threatening quality education – and you can try to change corporate culture but I find it a losing proposition as it rears its head in one place as soon as I attend to the next one.

(When my wife and I immigrated to Australia we both suffered from this phenomenon. We both had unusual work experiences that could not be easily categorised by local employers. During job applications it became painfully obvious that we were often turned down because people found it too hard to work out the value we could provide and instead went with people who’d attended the local tertiary system).

So what is the option for a training provider. You yourself provide a fantastic alternative (In fact I’d love you to come over here and provide your training – if not I’ll have to save up to get over to the US). I will try to tread a middle path. Offer material to pass ISTQB foundation yes, but try to educate our clients of all the other means that exist to develop a quality test team (its’ not just training courses). I see it not only as an ethical issue but also as a commercial one – I need to be able to provide real value so the clients will want to come back. If I stick to certification only I don’t think I can go that far.

Stephan

[James' Reply: You are not a child. Stand up and make the craft better.]

[James' Reply: Yes, it's coming out through Scribner. Thank you.]

To make an example of how I see ISTQB… Think about them as a driving school. They tell you that you’ll be able to drive after you attended the course, more than that they give you a license (or something similar). Firstly they list you every single street sign on this planet. They tell you bout traffic lights but don’t explain what the colours mean and what to do when you meet one. Then they tell you about the practical side of testing, which would be “sit in the car, start the engine and drive”. Ok, but what about the pedals, what about the gears, what about the indicator or the steering wheel. How am I supposed to drive when I don’t know nothing? But everyone who thinks back to the times before he got the driving license will admit that the first lesson made you feel like WHOA! And that’s where everything started. You became curious and you had fun driving. And in my opinion that’s the only thing ISTQB is good for. They make you curious and you want to learn about driving (Well, I admit, any other course in this world – as good or as bad it might be – has the same effect.) Unfortunately not everyone wants to learn more, others stagnate and don’t move forward because “they are certified and know everything”. Do you want to share the streets with someone who doesn’t know what this box with the green, red and yellow light is good for? I for one don’t and I think this is where James aims with his criticism of ISTQB. It gives you this dangerous little resp. partial knowledge and therefore leaves you in the believe that you know about things.

On the testing part, what is is utterly ignorant about the exploratory testing promoted by them? (when I followed the course, that wasn’t in it).

(I will continu learning about testing, this is my job, and there’s nothing I like more for a profession than testing. Right now I am learning about automating things, delicious!)

[James' Reply: Three owners of testing training companies have told me words to the effect that "we don't like certification either, James, but our customers want it and it's too good a business opportunity to pass up." My reply to them is that just because we have ignorant customers does not mean we should play into their ignorance by selling them a useless product.

Finally, I was approached, years ago, to be the American leader of the ISTQB. The man who approached me was a German fellow with no testing background, but a keen belief that the ISTQB was going to be a profitable business. I asked him on what basis did he think that the ISTQB represented good testing practices. He replied that he had faith in his board of advisors. What does that mean? That means the man pushing the ISTQB as a business had no personal awareness of the substance of what he was selling.]

I am definitely not a tester who thinks she knows it all because I have that certain certification. I’ll go one better than that: the more I test and learn, the more I am convinced that there are so much things related to testing I don’t know.

Seeing how my team members react after they’ve went to the course, I am not the only one. They are all triggered to learn more, which I find very satisfying and which is good for their skills and the products and, let’s not forget them, the customers.

Testing isn’t easy, testing isn’t just click-click-click and testing is definitely not something you can learn from a three-day ISTQB course. But for me, for us, it was a starting point to:
1. Create the same language within the team
2. Learn more about testing
3. All the things I pointed out in my previous post

Please don’t generalize all testers who have followed that course into dumbo’s with an attitude.
Real testers have enough intelligence to think for themselves.
(and ok, my English is not that good…I know)

Thanks for replying, I appreciate that.

Martine

[James' Reply: Martine, the test you took had nothing to do with being a skilled or knowledgeable tester. The people who created and administered that test were not serious about testing, in my opinion, they were serious only about taking your money. It seems to me that people who pass that test and accept that certification are certainly not thinking for themselves, but rather are following thoughtlessly upon the heels of a similarly thoughtless crowd.

I hope you continue to learn about testing, and I hope you learn enough to renounce your certification. Bad certification programs, I repeat, are an embarrassment to us all.]

I understand your criticism, but please bear in mind ISTQB also has qualities that you might not have thought about.

[James' Reply: I don't think you understand my criticism. Part of my criticism is that the ISTQB has seduced you, and people like you, into thinking that you know more than you do, and into thinking that testing is easier and simpler than it is. It is apparent from your list that you have been seduced rather thoroughly. I'm afraid you are part of the dumbing down of our craft.]

You are correct that not every decision we make is metric driven. But, individually and in aggregate, the quality of those decisions will be reflected in the metrics. I would also completely agree with you on what constitutes the education of humans. But the original thread was on the value of certifications and training and their impact on improving the state of software quality. It is to that issue that I was directing my comments.

[James' Reply: Numbers are meaningless without context. Your 4% number is presented without context. I know better than to take such a number seriously, but many will see you say that and believe that 4% is a "good" value. At Borland in the 90's, where I played with metrics, 4% escapes would have been an absolute disaster. For us, the percentage was so low as to be irrelevant. We didn't measure the percentage, but instead reviewed each of the dozen or so bugs that were found in the field, out of 5000 total reported prior to release.

In any case, as a test manager who specialized in metrics at Borland, I NEVER used metrics to drive decisions, and I would strongly recommend that you read Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations, or Introduction to General Systems Thinking, or Tom DeMarco's essay Mad About Metrics. These texts will cure you of your love of numbers.]

The education of humans is generally not amenable to simple measures.]

I did brainbench certification over the web in 2002 when I had a quiet hour. I certified 1st in Australia and 14th world-wide. Big Deal.
I refused to pay for a number of my testers to do ISTQB certification courses, and instead gave them the ISTQB Glossary of terms and an hour of my time and they passed the certification without doing a course. They remarked that the only issue was terminology.

I am often BULLIED into taking ISTQB certified testers who are 3 months out from Univeristy and cannot tie their shoelaces without a map and I have to re-train them in the application of common-sense. They can spout terminology, but have little concept of what testing is.

These certifications are there to relieve you from your cash and support a consulting and human resources industry that is so moribund and lazy that they are bringing our profession competency levels down to a new low.

I would rather hire a high school graduate and train them. Every time a tester certifies and puts it on their resume they drag the rest of us down. Macdonald’s staff, Target checkout operators and traffic wardens get more (and better) training. It is harder to get your Learners permit to drive a car than to get test certification. Next time you speak to a professional person, ask them if they completed a 2 day course to qualify! I am proud to be uncertified (the brainbench has lapsed).

bq. About 15 years ago, there was an article in Science about a study of expert witnesses in parole hearings. It found that psychiatrists did no better than chance at predicting whether a prisoner would be back, which did not surprise the author. What did surprise the author was that judges were perfectly aware of it, but followed the psychiatrists’s recommendations anyway.

bq. The explanation was that the judges were also aware that they would do no better than chance. But by relying on the experts’s coin flip rather than their own, they shifted the blame to the experts.

bq. There are uses for experts that do not require them to be expert.

The analogy to the SWEBOK and premature so-called-standards imposition is obvious. Blame “insulation” can be a pretty big attractor / motivator.

[James' Reply: Good point!]

I believe this certification nonsense could not exist were it not for training companies that give it a patina of legitimacy.]

I’d like to engage with you and explain my position on this stuff and why we offer the courses at all.
Firstly – we exist to meet the needs of our Clients and they tell us that they want this stuff.

[James' Reply: That's not good enough. They are ignorant people. Testing experts should know better.]

I can find no suitable alternative to help them on the scale that they need and desire so I work with what I’ve got

[James' Reply: Yes there is an alternative. Teach real classes that transfer genuine testing skills.]

Secondly – I recognise certain flaws in the current courses – namely the practical skills – and encourage people to realise that certification is only a start to their education, not the be all and end all. We offer a great deal of stuff at zero cost that can help people develop further – including our community portal and our peer sharing events which are open to everyone who wants to learn and share. (http://pest.tcl.eu.com)

[James' Reply: Even the non-practical stuff is messed up, in my opinion. The certification-based classes foster the mythology that the testing world has come to a consensus about what testing is and how to talk about it and do it. That's simply not true.]

Thirdly – I want to encourage people into our industry. I’d rather get involved with people and get them exposed to some inspirational trainers and some different ideas during their certification than leave them out there in the cold. In the example of our scholarship student there was great resonance – he came on the course and then wanted to know more. Before the course he had very little appreciation for testing. His experiences at our latest testoff – with more than 40 testers who are passionate about testing and putting their skills into action, gave him great insights into what its all about.

[James' Reply: That's a false dichotomy. The alternative to teaching bullshit is not "leaving them out in the cold." The alternative to teaching bullshit is teaching something useful and honest about the state of the testing industry and how to test.]

I recognise the need for change, I’m totally up for finding new solutions and I’d like to work with people who can develop an accreditation programme for testers – one that starts with some uniform and consistent education, then develops practical skills and works with people in their use of those skills in real life situations to then develop practical, skilled and competent testers. I’d like to see this kind of stuff included in University level education programmes and I’d like to see a common approach around the globe to make a sea change in our industry.

It’s such a task though and its going to take a lot of us pouring positive energy into the situation to make it work.
The last few months have seen some encouraging writing from the AST and around CAST – do you think that this could be a potential source of solution?

I’m very interested to hear your thoughts on where you feel we could start creating change and moving things forward.

[James' Reply: Unfortunately, what I see is that the drug of certification has gone a long way to temporarily diminish the demand for real improvement. Certification is a placebo at best, at worst it poisons the well of progress by making us all cynical about the possibilities for better ways of thinking about testing.

What you could do instead is teach something like my Rapid Testing course, which focuses on how to solve testing problems, rather than memorizing questionable testing vocabulary or promoting silly ideas like the V-model.]

In the eighteenth century, there were kind, sincere folks who would say:

“Sure, it might not help, but really, what harm could bleeding the patient one more time do? Look how sick he is! We have to do something.”

A worse thing was that every Best Practices practitioner of the day would also say something like:

“What’s that? Wash my… …hands? …Are you insane? I’m not going to be attending Royalty right now, I’m busy saving lives! Get out of my way!”

I do not accuse the proprietors and promoters of ISTQB, etc. of that kind of attitude.

Yet.