Programmer turned Manager

I will start this blog with a recent incident that I witnessed in a Project Management conference few days back. One of a Senior Project Manager, who had an experience of around 12 years, that too in programming and coding, said “I never care about what my testing team is doing. In my opinion, those guys should directly interact with the coders / programmers to keep going the work in a smoother way”.

I asked in between that what if the testing team is facing some issues with the other side of the table. I added that don’t you think you should be more aware about what is happening between these two rivalry parties and should actively involve in the testing activities also. The reply I got was really shocking. He said “I believe programmers / coders are more intelligent than testers at any time. If there is any conflict/issue/concern, testers should follow the instructions that are given by coders / programmers.” After these statements, a lot of discussions started and finally, that person had been convinced that his thought process was totally wrong.

I was eager to know more about this person, so I started chatting with him in lunch break to explore more about his “GREAT” thoughts. And more of that I was interested how come a person having 12 years of work experience in software industry, is so blind about the testing. He told me in that chat session that he started his carrier as a programmer trainee in a group. He started growing in the same domain and after 6 years of hard core programming, he became Project Lead, taking care and managing all the programming / coding activities within the group. He interacted very little with the testers (or Test manager) because of the hot discussions that ended the interactions most of the time. After becoming the Project Manager, he had got the power to manage the Test team and he exploited them like anything. He made the testing team agreed that they should work as per the programmer's convenience.

I continued the discussions saying that a project manager’s job include making sure that all of the individual work activities in a project, including testing happen at the right time and in the right order. If they don’t, delays in completing one activity can set off a domino effect that cascades through the remainder of the project. Quality is never an accident; it is always a result of intelligent effort. After a long one hour discussions with him, I achieved which I was looking for. I made him convinced that the approach, he was working on, was wrong and he should redefine his thought process. I convinced him that the mindset can significantly color the outcome.

So what’s wrong here? Is it the person who is responsible or the conditions that are responsible to divert the person towards the unawareness about testing and quality? I always feel that it is often hard for the senior managers to get serious about Quality Assurance. This is because problem solving is a high visibility process but preventing problems is low-visibility.

If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. It’s a dreadful reality that many applications / software are not tested properly before their final release. As a result the firms suffer great losses because of forced standstill. Thus, this becomes the prior concern of company’s top management. So, vendors do their best to optimize testing by means of both tried and tested and innovative techniques. In the light of the above, most organizations realize that software testing becomes an independent professional discipline. It is directed not only to yield maximum objectivity and transparency to bugs reporting process, but also enhances the business strategy itself.

In fact, I have also seen and worked with some of the Programmer turned Manager. For these guys, a very small activity done by any programmer/coder is a highlight to show to the senior Management. But on the other side, testing team, who could be working hardly on the automation front, is nowhere in the list. Those are the illiterate software professionals of the twenty-first century, who can read and write, but cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. These kinds of managers are really a walking encyclopedia for me.

-- Sanat Sharma