Testing Other Pools

When the gap between requirement and availability is too wide to be bridged,

some innovation can help to cushion the shortfall. Who realises this best than

the testing companies? In Bangalore alone, there is a manpower shortage of about

8,000. And the demand will only rise. So companies, besides ramping up fresher

hiring, are also looking at creating a resource pipeline-starting up education

wings and tapping non-technical people.

For instance, MphasiS, which has a very large BPO business with several

thousand employees, has opened its testing door to call center executives,

providing a hope of greater career growth. However, it would be presumptuous to

assume that each and every one of them has the aptitude to be a testing

practitioner. "We pick those BPO executives who are interested, and groom

them with in-house training, followed by certification from an internationally

accredited organization,"says Vidur Kohli, head of testing business at

MphasiS. In this case, it is the Certified Software Testing Professional (CSTP)

certification from the International Institute of Software Testing.

At a high level, testing can be viewed as functional and non-functional

testing. In the first kind, business analysts with domain knowledge of the

business are needed. "Those of us who understand business logic are best

suited for this," he says. "Non-functional testing is akin to

programming and requires people with programming background." There seems

to some kind of a consensus in the industry regarding the level at which

non-technical people can be accommodated. Ashok T of Stag Software would rather

call the non-technical personnel as "functional specialists."

Employing them is already a practice in the US and Europe. For example, if

someone is a banker, one can join a company that specialises in developing

banking software.

T Srinivasan, managing director of Mercury India, explains a new part of the

testing suite called Business Process Testing. It's not technical testing

where one essentially looks at what the application does or what part of the

business does it cater to or does it work the way the business wants it to work.

For example, "you would be checking for whether the order processing or the

purchase process is being done correctly, essentially, an application that looks

at testing from a non-technical perspective," he says. "User

acceptance testing has always been there-it was either underplayed or was

manual. Automating Business Process Testing is a new area." The scope for

non-technical people in testing will further expand, he says, because it is one

way to bridge the gap between requirement and availability.

Learning the ropes



To get into this growing field, functional specialists require training and

their technical counterparts looking to migrate from other engineering

backgrounds need 're-skilling.' Training institutes have therefore

mushroomed all over, offering all kinds of testing courses, at all kinds of

costs. Tools are apparently the easiest to train, says Ashok T. So, training

centres, to a large degree, have become tool-based. There are about 15

institutes in Bangalore alone. And in Chennai, there is a poster on testing

training in virtually every street you walk into. Unfortunately, testing tools

are not cheap. They cost upwards of $8,000-10,000 apiece. "Since it means

an investment of Rs five lakh per licence, most of these institutes use pirated

versions," he informs.

Kohli of MphasiS says that there is chaos in testing training. "Most of

the institutes are fly-by-night operators, who fleece ignorant people. They don't

offer training worth much," he says.

As industry scrambles for real talent, many institutes, and even software

firms, have got into this area to offer good training. Of course, it comes at a

price. Quality Solutions for Information Technology (QSIT) says good training is

available at all levels, but it does come at a price. The institute offers a PG

diploma in Software Testing at Rs 30,000-35,000 for 110 hours. The four-day

automation tool training on Mercury products may cost up to Rs 18,000, plus

service taxes. And the CSTP certification course will cost Rs 9,750 at the

lowest level and Rs 13,500, plus $250 at the highest. Stag Software has a

division focussed on education and concentrates on different training concepts-how

to design test cases; how to plan effectively; how to automate efficiently; how

to analyse results. Training for this organization means a steady flow of

resource to meet its manpower requirements. When it can't absorb, it helps in

placements elsewhere.

"Even a few engineering colleges are also opening up to testing modules

now. It was not there till about last year. Now, we have requests from various

colleges to include our products as part of their curriculum," says

Srinivasan.

Changing thoughts



To attract good talent, according to Ashok T of Stag Software, popular

perceptions about testing-it is not challenging; it is monotonous; and it is

low on value chain-have to change. However, testing as a field, he says, was

never properly understood: "what is boring in testing is execution and

people have generally understood only that. They need to understand that there

is more to testing-the whole lifecycle: strategy, design, automated

scripting," he says. For that matter, "every discipline has a boring

part. For example, programming has one terribly boring part-documentation."

However, today, there is no dichotomy between an engineer who is in

development and one who is in testing, with little difference in pay. So

perceptions have started changing, opines Srinivasan of Mercury India. "If

you look at any of the appointment ads, there is a lot of demand for Quality

Assurance (QA), testing professions. And that's what fuelling the

demand," he says. "Worldwide, only 20-30% of enterprise applications

are tested before they go live. That demand will therefore only increase."

In the last few years, most of the development work was under the hammer of

cost reduction. Now, end customers are looking at quality. One of the ways to

ensure quality in application is to test adequately using proper automated

tools. "Most people have realised that to do QA and testing functions,

insights into the development process, the whole lifecycle of software

development is required," he explains. "A broader domain knowledge is

needed because testing is done after the development is over. Changes in the way

applications are being delivered to customers is what is leading the change in

perception." Till such changes take place, companies have to keep

innovating to draw talent into their testing labs.

Goutam Das