Be kind to your testers

Jeremy Miller posted about Testers being pigs.  I have learned through my current position that he is completely correct.

We have the “corporate” agile going at our place of business.

Legend: Developer Systems Analyst (tester) Business Analyst (domain expert)

In our planning sessions all three groups are involved.  If questions arise during development, it is the developer’s responsibility to make sure all parties are informed of any new changes.  Today we had something come up.  The other developer I was pair programming with and I went to the domain expert and clarified the question which did result in changes.  We then headed to the tester and made sure he was aware of the changes and also asked him if this would change his initial estimate on testing time.  We also made sure to see if he had any new questions after the change was decided (he may have thought of something we didn’t).

There was a period at the beginning of this process that developers were going straight to the domain experts and then not informing the tester of the changes.  It created a problem for them and it is completely understandable.

Jeremy is completely correct that sometimes it is not a 1:1 ratio on time needed to develop and test the change.  Be fair to your testers. (if you have them).