| 3 January |
Mentoring in Software Testing |
I was reading a blog post on uTest.com by James Whittaker called Thoughts on the Future of Software Testing and one thing that really jumped out at me from it is the issue of mentoring in Software Testing.
I’ve had the benefit of several very good mentors and, in turn, have mentored other testers over the course of my thirteen years in software testing. I know James has put out a call to testers to take mentoring seriously and I’d like to second that but also offer a short list of does and don’ts from my own experience:
- DON’T wait for someone else to break the ice. If you have another tester your respect and would like to learn from, go ahead and ask if they can spend a little time teaching and mentoring you. If you see a promising tester you think you can help, ask them if they’d like you to mentor them. The worst thing that can happen is that they turn you down.
- DON’T treat a mentor/mentee relationship as if it were a marriage for life. Even informal or short term mentoring relationships can have considerable value without having to sign up for a long-term or potentially unsustainable relationship.
- DO set expectations on both sides. Part of a good mentor/mentee relationship is having a clear and upfront agreement on expectations from both mentor and mentee. Lack of this typically leads to disappointment, resentment and a failure of the relationship.
- DO keep an open mind. If you go into a mentoring relationship, you won’t get much out of it if you aren’t open to other ways of doing things or the learning opportunities you may encounter.
- DON’T limit yourself to only other testers as mentors or mentees. Learning from other disciplines and teaching test theory and techniques to other disciples can be valuable as well.
Mentoring can be a great help to any professional, and testers in particular.