Interview with our second guest speaker Jason Chute

1.            Describe your current role.

I am head of the Centre of Excellence in software testing at Bank of Ireland.  The bank is a very large organisation with many roles, people working in large global teams.   Before that I worked in Dell in  Limerick, in various roles.  I think it is important to work in different roles in an organisation; you get to see it from different perspectives.  If people did this more, it would really benefit teamwork in the organisation.  I also think it is good for your career to work in an enterprise; to be aware of the organisation; to be seen as effective in organisations. 

2.            Why did you decide to focus on testing?

I moved into test management after working in software release management. I see testing as strategically important. 
The Bank has 645 different applications, all interdependent.  Some of them are legacy applications.  Some of them are new applications, for example online banking.  We call these channels.
At any particular time, changes are being implemented in several of these systems, and as a result of interdependencies, both downstream applications and upstream applications can be affected.  That's why testing is critically important.  

3.            How has the software industry, and testing in particular, changed since you started?

Teamwork has changed.  It used to be a case of 'Dump it over the wall, tell us what's wrong and we will fix it.'  
Now, business analysts, developers and testers still have different focus, agendas, etc. but still need to work together and that is much more appreciated now.  Different team structures allow trust to develop, to create a pipeline for working together; but these structures must be flexible as well.   

Softare release cycles are quicker now.  It is important to come up with the appropriate size - some changes are quick and small, others are bigger and take more time to implement.

4.            Should testers be paid as much as developers and why/why not?

Pay according to the contribution to the team.  A test analyst is as valuable as a business analyst. In both cases, it is expensive work when it goes wrong.  The ISEB qualification is valuable.  People learn more when they move around, when they learn to use different skills. 

5.            Where are the most common defects found/introduced, in requirements documents, designs, or implementation/code?

Poor requirements cause the biggest pain, especially the lack of awareness of the impact of a change in one application on the related downstream systems.   End-to-end test cases are very important for catching these problems. 

6.            Tell us about the tools that you use/have used in testing software.

Traceability from test cases to code to requirements is extremely important.  We use a tool called ALM Application Lifecycle Management for traceability.  Configuration management is also important.  However, the industry has moved away from the tendency to 'automate everything'.   

7.            What are your views on automation of testing?

It is useful but there is a big effort involved in maintaining test scripts - whenever the code changes, the script doesn't work any more.  

8.            Which is more important, in your view, specification testing or software testing?

Testing is frustrating when you don't know what you are testing against.  Changes to requirements are a problem.  These emerge, as business analysts might not have known initially how a downstream application might work; what the interrelationships are. 

9.            What do you think is the best way to develop and test software, in your experience? Agile? Traditional - if so - which life-cycle model? 

It depends on the application.  For the new channel applications, agile is best.  For the legacy banking back-office applications, waterfall is best.  Changing an existing application in an agile prject is difficult.  

The big challenge is how to integrate them.  I like agile testing, until we get to integration.  The challenge is integration.