I Was Wrong About India
I just returned from teaching in Bangalore, India. I taught at Mindtree and Wipro, two well-known outsourcing companies. Before I taught there, I had believed that exploratory testing techniques would not go over well in Asia, because the Indian technical culture is too “process oriented.”
I was wrong. To the country and testers of India, I apologize.
My rapid testing methodology is a process of relentlessly questioning what needs to be done and how. My teaching style involves a lot of exercises, magic tricks, socratic debriefings, and encouraging students to doubt everything from the claims I make to my very competence as a tester. My favorite kind of student is sharp and irreverent, because a fine tester mind is one that sees past the illusions that tend to cloud the imaginations of others.
I have met quite a few such sharp testers in the U.S. and UK. But, in India I expected to find polite, silent students. I expected that they would be intelligent, but timid about engaging mind-to-mind with me in class, especially when what I’m teaching flies in the face of most traditional advice about testing that they have read and heard.
What I found instead were testers who quickly warmed to the challenges I made. They did speak up. They didn’t challenge me with the same intellectual swagger typical of testers in, say, England, but they responded to my questions and found novel answers to problems I posed them. In several of the exercises, solutions were proposed that I had not heard from anyone else since I started teach in 1995.
Like most testers, they have not yet developed their potential. But I no longer believe there are important cultural obstacles to hold them back. So, don’t be surprised if in a few years the Indians start getting the reputation as insightful, penetrating testers.
November 24th, 2003 at 5:07 pm
Hello James Bach
What India really lacks at this point in time is a Testing Icon.There are organaizations in India employing hundreds of Engineers in testing. What we lack is enough material and forums to take the Testing Community to its next level of maturity.
The wisdom and novel thoughts from guys like you sharing them would help a lot.
Testers are testers anywhere in the world. Cultures might be different but problems are the same.
Regards
Passionate test engineer
November 25th, 2003 at 10:17 am
How did you learn about MindTree and chose to go there?
Subroto
April 24th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I think, to start with, your assumption was wrong - that Indians in the Software industry will have inhibitions because of cultural differences, etc. Many Indians in the software industry are at par with the rest of the world - not just technically, but also in the way they think, react and work - because they are afterall most of the times working for customers that are living on the other side of the world.
[James' Reply: Good point. It's true I didn't consider that.]
July 11th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Hi James,
I follow your articles and they provide great learning to me.
My view point on this blog is,
1. You should consider the average experience level of people that attended your sessions.
In true sense, when you say a tester in India, you would find someone with 0.1- 3 years of experience. This could be due to volumes or maturity of the industry. So at that level they wouldn’t have experienced many situations to argue on what you present or question. People with more than 5 years in the industry, generally manage projects and completely out of sync on what happens in the gross root level like test design, process implementation to present their view point on many things.
[James' Reply: Good point. I don't know the levels. But if they were exclusively inexperienced testers, that would tell me something interesting about the culture, right there. In the United States, it's typical of experienced people to come to my classes.]
2. What was the agenda set to the people who attended your sessions?
[James' Reply: You can see my class materials on my website.]
3. The two companies you visited might not represent the entire Testing IT industry
As the average experience level of people in the industry goes up, the maturity level also might go up and then you may find some improvement. On top of this, speaking up, assertiveness skills are some of the important training many young engineers should undergo.
[James' Reply: My experience with Indian testers since I taught in India seems to confirm my earlier impressions. I think there's a lot of potential there. Huge potential. But mostly it is not being realized. I have met some extremely ambitious Indian testers, however.]