The future of testing

The future of software testing stands for the fact that human skills such as exploratory testing, contextual knowledge and collaboration will remain indispensable, even if AI and automation take over routine tasks. Quality is becoming more important, but remains hard to sell because it is invisible. Testers need a growth mindset, a strong network and a willingness to work closely with developers.

Key Takeaways

• Quality remains hard to sell because its value is invisible: even high investments do not guarantee error-free software, which makes decision-makers repeatedly doubt whether the effort is worth it.
• Exploratory testing cannot be replaced by AI because human context and judgment in discovering unknown problems have no purely algorithmic equivalent.
• If you want to remain future-proof as a tester, you should actively pair with developers in order to shift knowledge boundaries and build mutual understanding.
• Conflicts in interdisciplinary teams are inevitable, and those who cannot resolve them objectively risk a loss of knowledge and declining quality due to personal tensions.
• Networking is a core competence in testing: not having to know everything yourself, but knowing who to call when you have a question is a concrete advantage over pure specialist knowledge.

Quality is becoming more important, but remains invisible

Quality is gaining in importance, and at the same time it continues to struggle for acceptance. As software becomes more and more integrated into everyday life, from networked devices to rental cars that can no longer be unlocked without a signal in the middle of nowhere, the need for reliable quality is increasing. Nevertheless, it remains an open question for many: do we really need to spend money on it?

Other disciplines have this acceptance problem behind them. UX convinces with visible diagrams that customers are happy to pay for. Data privacy and information security are based on laws that make room for them everywhere. Requirements engineering is taken for granted. Quality, on the other hand, is still struggling for authorization.

The reason lies in its nature. Quality is invisible, and even high investments never lead to the state of “everything top, no problems”. This is precisely what makes it difficult to sell. Testing is a bet on the future: you invest today so that errors do not occur later. If the error does not occur, no one can see what it would have cost.

Why “it always went well” is not a sustainable strategy

A quality strategy based solely on familiarity does not last long. In some teams, the software works because everyone knows their way around, the customer is sympathetic, the technology and the domain are familiar and a bug can be fixed quickly. As a conscious decision, this is legitimate as long as you know the risks.

The problem is the fragility of this constellation. All it takes is for one person to leave the team and suddenly the balance tips. Knowledge is lost, something new comes along and the unspoken security dissolves.

Quality becomes more stable when less is built. Less development means less that needs to be tested. The reflex of many testers to want to test everything is not always necessary. Gain experience first, then invest the right amount in the important areas, together with the team instead of alone.

AI supports, but does not replace exploratory testing

AI does not replace exploratory testing. It is well suited for tasks that you could do yourself, but get faster: summarize a situation in two or three sentences, provide a template that you then look over again yourself and adjust parts. This collaboration is valuable. The tool should support, not displace.

What machines don’t provide is the human context. The brain, which classifies a situation, establishes the connection between software and real life and encounters the unexpected during reconnaissance, cannot be replaced.

Caution is required when it comes to the metrics used to measure the benefits of such systems. A headline about an AI system that is faster than doctors at detecting tumors is put into perspective three lines later: faster, but not better. Fast and wrong is not a desirable metric.

I’m a big fan of tool-supported work, but with the focus: the tool should support me and not kick me out.

• Alexandra Schladebeck

Back to the basics instead of chasing after every new framework

You can achieve a lot with tools that have long been on the market. Constantly new, shiny frameworks are rarely the lever. A solid automation basis reduces risks that lie dormant without it. Anyone who has worked on projects without any automation knows these risks from their own experience.

Unit testing is one of these basics, especially when it moves closer to testers and developers. This makes it possible to appraisal what is actually secured. Gaps always remain, there is no such thing as 100% coverage. This is why exploratory testing is also needed.

Test data and infrastructure are whole-team topics

Test data management and infrastructure are not just tester tasks, but joint activities. Continuous integration used to be seen as something that developers pushed onto testers and that testers could not handle. Over the years, it has become clear that both sides contribute and both benefit.

In test data management, the appeal has evolved: away from a situation where everyone had to figure things out for themselves, to multiple strategies that different teams use as needed. Developers include this in their Definition of Done, for example when data scripts need to be adapted.

Infrastructure is best approached with an Ops view. It’s not about being involved in every round, but about knowing and contributing your own part.

Specialist does not mean island, but hat for the difficult topics

A good specialist in a team is not an isolated knowledge carrier, but someone who wears the hat for the particularly difficult topics. Specialists in teams remain useful. The “jack of all trades” who covers frontend, backend, database, security, UX and testing at the same time is not the goal.

The difference lies in behavior. The specialist ensures that others in the team can take over small parts of their area, in the sense of a T-shape or Combs. At the same time, he expands his own skills: learning to program something, getting to grips with Git, taking over reviews of unit testers.

This requires combo shaping. You will never become an expert in every neighboring field, but you know enough to talk to the other person. This results in three things: Appreciation for the other person’s work, mutual understanding and, over time, the ability to think along a bit. At some point, you can take over a part when your colleague is on vacation.

The ability to deal with conflict determines the quality of the team

The more disciplines and backgrounds come together in a team, the more friction arises, and this is precisely why the ability to deal with conflict is needed. Different opinions and points of view create friction. Factual conflict is healthy and part of it.

It becomes dangerous when the team is unable to deal with it. Then the conflict becomes personal and this has a direct impact on quality. If you don’t feel like talking to someone because there was trouble yesterday, you won’t pass on your knowledge. Important topics fall by the wayside.

How to prepare for an unknown future

Don’t prepare for a specific scenario, but for adaptability. Nobody knows what’s coming. Instead of betting on a specific development, build the basic building blocks that will help in any direction: Collaboration, networking and the human element.

Two specific steps are particularly effective. Find a developer you’re willing to pair with. See what they do, what you do, what you can learn from them. It is precisely at this interface that the greatest leaps in your own knowledge, understanding and ability occur, often in pairing with someone who is willing to explain it to you.

The second step is networking. You don’t have to know everything if you know who to ask and how to ask the question. This requires a growth mindset: the “I can’t do this yet” instead of “I can’t do this at all”, and a certain resilience to change.

These building blocks have little to do with testing in the strict sense. It is personal development that prepares you for a future, no matter what it looks like.