The end result of bobville, you'll never retire

[original PM]

Reaction on el reg from 'the other hobbes', worth reading;

Rather than moaning at schools and colleges for not turning out oiks that are docile enough and smart enough - but not too smart - management could begin by admitting that most of the 'top talent' is parasitic and useless.

Any moron can cut costs by spending less. Currently those morons often have the top jobs. What's needed is a clear-out of the top levels, which replaces those morons with people who know what strategy is and understand that actions have medium-and long-term consequences on profits, and short-term gains can create long-term disasters.

The problem is the only thing recognised as being a skill at the top level is the ability to cut costs in the short term - there does not seem to be a huge amount of long term planning.

In addition to that often your IT workstream can be a large part of the budget and so it is always seens as a target to reduce - again without really understanding why the budget is so large.

It also comes down to the fact the 'top level' people will be getting bonuses based on cost reductions - which in itself will drive projects to cut corners and deliver substandard results.

[doodab]

I have recently been tranisistioning a lot of the service/suppport items I have picked up along the way to a new team.

And the problem is (as highlighted by someone else) they do not know how to think - every time they come across a problem they call me and ask what we did last time this happened - I then have to explain it has not happened before it is a new problem

to which they reply well who do i give it to you to fix?

all these muppets want to do is take a query, pass it on to someone who can fix it and then actually chase that person who is fixing it every ten minutes until it is done

I wonder if we have similar problems across other industry sector - e.g. the young expecting everything on a plate and a phone number of someone who can fix it if things get a bit tough?

It is actually a cause of the way we educate and bring our kids up - when I was at uni there was some help available but in general you were expected to fend for yourself - nowadays all the kids are spoon fed.

The only way to train people to deal with novel situations is to let them practice dealing with novel situations. This develops a core skill that most non-technical people simply refuse to believe that technical people have or need, creativity. And that's what you need when you are actually solving problems instead of simply following procedures.

[Mich the Tester]

The only way to train people to deal with novel situations is to let them practice dealing with novel situations. This develops a core skill that most non-technical people simply refuse to believe that technical people have or need, creativity. And that's what you need when you are actually solving problems instead of simply following procedures.

Yep, similar for testers, except that even some technical people think testing can be 100% automated because it's a supposedly boring, repetitive task. Yes, the boring repetitive bits can and should be automated, but the clever stuff that gets to the heart of a system and finds out if it will do things you really do not want it to do; that requires creativity, technical understanding and even a slightly twisted mind.

[Mich the Tester]

I get this all the time with the esteemed customers.

They don't seem to understand that they have to do some work & that I'm not there to do it for them.

It's as bad as

I get the impression even I could learn this electronics business quicker than some of your esteemed customers.

[The Spartan]

Yep, similar for testers, except that even some technical people think testing can be 100% automated because it's a supposedly boring, repetitive task. Yes, the boring repetitive bits can and should be automated, but the clever stuff that gets to the heart of a system and finds out if it will do things you really do not want it to do; that requires creativity, technical understanding and even a slightly twisted mind.

Well said, it's right you can all the technical ability in the world but if you lack the creativity to use it then you're not going to go a long way.

I love the way people bang on about automated testing like it's infallible, it's so amusing.

[eek]

Yep, similar for testers, except that even some technical people think testing can be 100% automated because it's a supposedly boring, repetitive task. Yes, the boring repetitive bits can and should be automated, but the clever stuff that gets to the heart of a system and finds out if it will do things you really do not want it to do; that requires creativity, technical understanding and even a slightly twisted mind.

I actually wished testers would actually automate the stuff that can be automated. I get seriously fed up when being told regression testing will take 3 man days when they've already done it 10 times before. Surely at least some of it should be automated within the previous 9 runs

[The Spartan]

I actually wished testers would actually automate the stuff that can be automated. I get seriously fed up when being told regression testing will take 3 man days when they've already done it 10 times before. Surely at least some of it should be automated within the previous 9 runs

That must be annoying, what exactly are they doing then if they're not doing this for you?

[Mich the Tester]

I love the way people bang on about automated testing like it's infallible, it's so amusing.

Unfortunately this delusion is now increasingly popular in the Agile dev world; it's still a delusion, rehashed from the waterfall days, and it's a dangerous delusion. Of course I automate, to make time for meaningful manual tests, but to those who think automated testing is infallible, I always offer a challenge; show me an app that you've delivered without any manual testing and give me 5 minutes to explore it. I've done this twice and found big hairy scary bugs in both. Unfortunately it seems any new approach to development and testing starts with some ideals and some principles, then someone comes along with 'best practises' (a term I despise) and what was a good idea becomes an ideology, with the irrational nonsense and fervour that approaches religious fundamentalism. I'm afraid that the testing craft will have to fight it's corner all over again with the rise of Agile and Devops. I say that as a pretty committed Agile guy.

[Mich the Tester]

I actually wished testers would actually automate the stuff that can be automated. I get seriously fed up when being told regression testing will take 3 man days when they've already done it 10 times before. Surely at least some of it should be automated within the previous 9 runs

They should automate what CAN be automated; you are right. If they're doing lots of manual repetitive tasks then they don't have time to do good quality manual testing or analyze issues properly to help you solve them.

[The Spartan]

I say that as a pretty committed Agile guy.

I like Agile it works for me, what I dislike is calling something Agile just suit whatever approach is needed which I've seen done a few times. I do a lot of exploratory testing here and despite the massive of amount automation they have here done by software engineers in test (SET's) I've still found shed loads of bugs