We need cooperation between testers and developers

Sometimes there can be competition between testers and developers. Cooperation between testers and developers is better for the company and the customer. 

“A system must have an aim”[1]. A company is a system and so has an aim.  Testers and developers are components of the company’s system and so share the company’s aim. “The obligations of a component are to contribute its best to the system”[2].

“Competition leads to loss”[3]. If testers and developers are competitive towards each other, they will damage the system they are part of. Examples of damaging competition are: testers offending developers by celebrating each bug they find and developers damaging their relationship with testers by talking to testers as if testers have no technical skills.

“Every example of cooperation is one of benefits and gains to them that cooperate”[2]. There are many great examples of cooperation:

• In an orchestra “the conductor, as manager, begets cooperation between the players, as a system”[4]. 
• CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) is an example of international cooperation. It has made many positive breakthroughs, including the first web server (shown above), which was “invented to allow an ever-increasing number of scientists to share information”[5]. Sharing information is a form of cooperation.

Testers and developers can cooperate in many ways including defining work, testing early in the development process, pair programming to develop automated tests, sharing knowledge of testing techniques, learning from failure, and many other ways. 

”What we need is cooperation”[3]. The company and the customer benefit when testers and developers cooperate because cooperation makes it easier to create quality software. 

Further Reading

• The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod
• CERN:
  • Bring nations together
  • Advancing the frontiers of technology

References

[1] The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming (1994, p50)

[2] The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming (1994, p97)

[3] The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming (1994, p88)

[4] The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming (1994, p96)

[5] Advancing the frontiers of technology CERN