Lee Jack, a software testing consultant/IT services Sales Manager is tensed about his proposed meeting with Mark Johnson, a Senior IT manager for a large IT group. Lee, after some positive signals in a cold call, is looking forward to sell testing services to Mark's group and hence to his entire IT group. Here is how the conversation goes.
Lee Jack: What is your problem statement?
Mark Johnson: Not sure. In our recent conversation – you mentioned that your company provides Testing services - what you can offer me?
LJ: You need to focus on Independent testing
MJ: We have been managing with developers doing testing for last 6 years – have no problems whatsoever. Why do I need to bother now?
LJ: May be your developer testing is not proper or inadequate or it is costly?
MJ: How can you say that?
LJ: Tell us about production defects and quality of your applications in general…
MJ: I told you already. We have no production problems that we worry about. Our site is every now and then goes down. We wait for 30-40 mins and start over again everything works fine. Why bother?
LJ: Do you say your applications are of high quality?
MJ: I would say our applications are of “good enough quality”. I get what I pay for and I have the quality for the application that my users care for. So far so good.
LJ: What are your “business plans” going forward? New growth etc? What you seem to be saying “good enough may not be good in the future?
MJ: May be. I don’t think that far ….
MJ; Have you thought about cost of testing? Do you have any mandate from your boss about reducing IT budget and hence reduced budget for testing?
MJ: Oh!! Yes. We have taken care of the larger part of cost problems. We have nearly replaced all our commercial software stack by open source equivalents. Same is true even for tools. So we can say we run our entire shop on open source tools. That is our achievement.
LJ: Tell us about your development /testing model ?
MJ: We are pretty advanced from that angle. We follow scrum based agile development model – outsourced. Developers do all required testing and development and everything is fine. I am hearing you talking about QA again and again without me asking about it. We do agile model and as such there is no distinction between development and QA. As such we do not think cost is our concern.
LJ: I did not say “QA”, I said “testing” – I suppose you know the difference.
MJ: Fine … here we use these terms interchangeably. Well, does that matter in agile?
LJ: How can we help you?
MJ: You have been saying that you give QA , sorry testing services – Do you provide white box testing services?
LJ: Our Testers are trained well in both black box and white box techniques – that should not be a problem.
MJ: Let me make it very clear – in the name of QA or Testing, I don’t want some so called tester coming and doing “negative” testing and showing 100’s bogus UI level bugs. That is not what I want.
LJ: Our testers are trained in exploratory testing and can flush out hidden bugs
MJ: I said I do not want negative testing – UI level keyboard banging. I want white box testers.
LJ: What according to you is white box testing?
MJ: I am surprised that you are asking this silly question. It is the testing done with the knowledge of product internals. Something that developers do. Don’t you have such testers .. I mean developers?
LJ: Well, the reason I asked this question is – there are no universally accepted meanings of the term white box testing and I wanted to make sure I understand your version. OK Why can’t your current developers do that?
MJ: Our developers are already stressed out. We have very well defined agile processes. Our developers do very smart and JUnit based automated tests are our key to success.
LJ: OK … What can we do for you? It seems that you have everything that you need.
MJ: How about your folks doing an assessment and tell us what our maturity is? How well we are placed with respect to industry standards?
LJ: That appears like a different problem …. Anyway, are you sure You want an assessment?
MJ: Yes. I would like our processes to be best as per industry standards.
LJ: What are your expectations out of this assessment?
MJ: We need to add few white box testers to our existing team as we are weak in that area. We are sure we do not need QA resources that do negative or exploratory testers. We are also sure we do not need testers. We need developers who can do white box testing.
LJ: Oh!!!! That is what you want? I can give you developers who can do white box testing? Why you need assessment?
MJ: You see, we are looking for a consultant to make case for us to get budget for these resources. We really do not worry about testing, QA, White/black box testing etc. Can you get a consultant?
LJ: Great … I will have a top notch consultant at your office tomorrow.
MJ: Thank you. Make sure, you get someone who understands our problem very well. I don’t want to go through all these questions again.
LJ: So, let me recap. What is your problem?
MJ: Damn it …. I need a business case for increasing my team’s headcount and I need white box testers. Are you clear?
LJ: Yes … Sure …
MJ: Thank you very much.
What do you think … what is the problem here?
Update: I did a mistake of swapping the names of MJ and LJ. This is corrected. See how it reads now.
Shrini
Lee Jack: What is your problem statement?
Mark Johnson: Not sure. In our recent conversation – you mentioned that your company provides Testing services - what you can offer me?
LJ: You need to focus on Independent testing
MJ: We have been managing with developers doing testing for last 6 years – have no problems whatsoever. Why do I need to bother now?
LJ: May be your developer testing is not proper or inadequate or it is costly?
MJ: How can you say that?
LJ: Tell us about production defects and quality of your applications in general…
MJ: I told you already. We have no production problems that we worry about. Our site is every now and then goes down. We wait for 30-40 mins and start over again everything works fine. Why bother?
LJ: Do you say your applications are of high quality?
MJ: I would say our applications are of “good enough quality”. I get what I pay for and I have the quality for the application that my users care for. So far so good.
LJ: What are your “business plans” going forward? New growth etc? What you seem to be saying “good enough may not be good in the future?
MJ: May be. I don’t think that far ….
MJ; Have you thought about cost of testing? Do you have any mandate from your boss about reducing IT budget and hence reduced budget for testing?
MJ: Oh!! Yes. We have taken care of the larger part of cost problems. We have nearly replaced all our commercial software stack by open source equivalents. Same is true even for tools. So we can say we run our entire shop on open source tools. That is our achievement.
LJ: Tell us about your development /testing model ?
MJ: We are pretty advanced from that angle. We follow scrum based agile development model – outsourced. Developers do all required testing and development and everything is fine. I am hearing you talking about QA again and again without me asking about it. We do agile model and as such there is no distinction between development and QA. As such we do not think cost is our concern.
LJ: I did not say “QA”, I said “testing” – I suppose you know the difference.
MJ: Fine … here we use these terms interchangeably. Well, does that matter in agile?
LJ: How can we help you?
MJ: You have been saying that you give QA , sorry testing services – Do you provide white box testing services?
LJ: Our Testers are trained well in both black box and white box techniques – that should not be a problem.
MJ: Let me make it very clear – in the name of QA or Testing, I don’t want some so called tester coming and doing “negative” testing and showing 100’s bogus UI level bugs. That is not what I want.
LJ: Our testers are trained in exploratory testing and can flush out hidden bugs
MJ: I said I do not want negative testing – UI level keyboard banging. I want white box testers.
LJ: What according to you is white box testing?
MJ: I am surprised that you are asking this silly question. It is the testing done with the knowledge of product internals. Something that developers do. Don’t you have such testers .. I mean developers?
LJ: Well, the reason I asked this question is – there are no universally accepted meanings of the term white box testing and I wanted to make sure I understand your version. OK Why can’t your current developers do that?
MJ: Our developers are already stressed out. We have very well defined agile processes. Our developers do very smart and JUnit based automated tests are our key to success.
LJ: OK … What can we do for you? It seems that you have everything that you need.
MJ: How about your folks doing an assessment and tell us what our maturity is? How well we are placed with respect to industry standards?
LJ: That appears like a different problem …. Anyway, are you sure You want an assessment?
MJ: Yes. I would like our processes to be best as per industry standards.
LJ: What are your expectations out of this assessment?
MJ: We need to add few white box testers to our existing team as we are weak in that area. We are sure we do not need QA resources that do negative or exploratory testers. We are also sure we do not need testers. We need developers who can do white box testing.
LJ: Oh!!!! That is what you want? I can give you developers who can do white box testing? Why you need assessment?
MJ: You see, we are looking for a consultant to make case for us to get budget for these resources. We really do not worry about testing, QA, White/black box testing etc. Can you get a consultant?
LJ: Great … I will have a top notch consultant at your office tomorrow.
MJ: Thank you. Make sure, you get someone who understands our problem very well. I don’t want to go through all these questions again.
LJ: So, let me recap. What is your problem?
MJ: Damn it …. I need a business case for increasing my team’s headcount and I need white box testers. Are you clear?
LJ: Yes … Sure …
MJ: Thank you very much.
What do you think … what is the problem here?
Update: I did a mistake of swapping the names of MJ and LJ. This is corrected. See how it reads now.
Shrini
