Unlearning for testers

Today I want to present a non-technical advice: unlearning.

The traditional definition* of unlearning stands for giving up present habits and/or knowledge:

–verb (used with object)
1. to forget or lose knowledge of.
2. to discard or put aside certain knowledge as being false or binding: to unlearn preconceptions.
–verb (used without object)
3. to lose or discard knowledge.

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* -Taken from Dictionary.com

As we can see from this definition, there are negative and positive sides of unlearning.

How to benefit from unlearning?

• Use it as a brainstorming tool


• Use it as a problem-solving tool


• Use it for retrospective analysis and learning

As an example, below I put a few core assumptions about software development and testing that have already been unlearnt or currently being unlearnt in the industry.

• One needs requirements and test cases to do testing


• Testing can only be conducted after a build is deployed on test environment


• Verification tests passed -> no bugs


• A role of written documentation is critically important in software quality assurance


• Software quality can be unambiguously defined by requirements


• No bugs found -> no bugs in software


• No bugs in software -> customer satisfaction


• Programmers do programming, testers do testing


• Years of experience with tools, or techniques, or technologies is the most important hiring criteria