Heart of a tester

In 1954, when software testing was just about taking birth, there were two groups that started to form. I was as curious as you are right now, to know what those two groups stood for. One of the groups christened as, "Kuzusu", had a thought that good testing would reduce the number of billable hours to deliver a good enough product and hence had to be avoided. The other group christened, "Shidachi", stood for good testing that can save a lot of stakeholders time and money to deliver a good enough product.

Things started getting hostile. People from the two groups tried killing each other. That's how much they believed in the group they claimed to represent. One or two people being killed once in a while didn't make a difference.  Just a few days before the Christmas that year, there was a huge battle and at least five dozen people from both groups were killed. That's when a lot of people started to propose a treaty and cease fire between the two groups. On 3rd March, 1955, the famous treaty in history was written. "Treaty of brain fight instead of blood", was signed by all members of those two groups in front of the President of United States, South Africa, India, China, Japan, Sweden and Britain. 

Signing the treaty meant; anyone who violates the treaty shall be killed by their respective country administration. The country where many such killings are observed might lose its eligibility to get outsourced testing projects. There was a twist to the treaty. It not just included the names of those who signed the treaty but all future software testers were presumed to have signed on it.

The first meeting of the Kuzusu group after the treaty was held in 8th October, 1956 in an undisclosed location. The outcome of that meeting was; more the number of people on Kuzusu side, the easier it is to dominate the Shidachis.

While Kuzusus were still at the meeting, Shidachis had a plan for the future. The plan was pretty simple; to discover, invent, learn, practice and demonstrate thinking skills that would lead to better testing and better product. So, Kuzusus were focused on Head Count in their group and Shidachis were focused on Brain count in their group.

The common thing they realized through a series of meetings is that they needed to lose their identity and mingle among future software testers. All websites, boards, banners, ads, real estate, documents, registration, news paper citing, notes, floppy disks, photographs and tapes were destroyed. The only thing existing to prove about the existence of these two groups is the treaty document. The next time you visit National Meuseum of American History - Kenneth E Berhing Center, Washington DC, make sure you see beyond certain wall posters there. One with a sword marked on the right bottom corner has the treaty document in its back. 

Ever since 1957, these two groups started to influence the upcoming generation of software testers with their principles but not in the name of Kuzusu or Shidachi. We never know if these groups are continuing to meet and make new strategies to fight each other. We may never know that. 

After so many years, we don't even know if Kuzusus and Shidachis are the ones with whom we interact everyday at our work. They are dressed up as our colleagues and friends in our industry. We don't even know if we are the channel or follower of one of these groups. Obviously, it is nearly impossible to identify or differentiate between a modern day Kuzusu and Shidachi, because they all appear like one, doing testing and wanting to do it better.  

We all want Shidachi group to win. Even Kuzusus would publicly speak about wanting the Shidachis to win and that is how they can remain camouflaged. Another twist to the story happened in July 2006 when a new group was formed by someone somewhere. This group didn't want to give themselves a name and remained anonymous from first. Their objective is; we don't care if good or bad testing is happening as long as we are getting paid, hikes and promotions as regularly as possible.

That's it. It has become all the more tough for the Shidachis to strike large success. You just can't say that you belong to the fourth group who doesn't believe in all this. You are already one among the three. The only problem is, it is hard to know which group you actually belong to. You might have thought while reading this that you belong to Shidachi and the people with whom you work with are Kuzusus. That's exactly how the Kuzusus want you to think because that's the way they do too. Finally, to an outsider, you and the people with whom you work might appear as the third group who doesn't care about good or bad testing as long as you are being paid.

So, the quest for the current and future generation software testers is not about identifying which group they belong to but to work with each other to win hearts. The fight of the brain is as important as the love of the heart. The first organ developed in a mother's womb is the heart and we shouldn't be ignoring it in our fight of the brains.

So, dear reader, whoever you are, if I have said things to you in the past either in this blog or in forum discussions that offended you or made you feel hurt, please forgive me. Help me to be of help to you in future. Its time we consider winning each others heart and brain. 

Also welcome to the Hridaya group!