ISTQB is a bad, bad thing. Reeeeeally bad thing. And here is why.
First of all, they certify something there are more than one opinion about. Something that has different approaches. Something that is poorly measurable since it depends on efficiency of decision making process. And decades of IQ testing and similar attempts to measure and control human brain and psyche proved it spectacularly inefficient.
Whatever you can read in ISTQB material is just an opinion and a book would suffice to share it. Unfortunately, royalties that only one or even several books can bring is nothing compared with certification system would bring. Basically, you bypass market competition by forcing people into buying books and paying for exams, and you do it by pressuring their employers into pressuring their employees.
The best part
is ISTQB is completely useless. If someone ever bothered to really
question the efficiency of this enterprise and checked its results
against a control group, the results would not be in favor of ISTQB
certification system. Practice proves that people who improve their
testing skills by learning the scientific method, systems thinking, work
with their cognitive biases, tend to perform better as testers compared
to those who try to base their expertise on ISTQB.
ISTQB was designed based on practices that certain businesses implemented and promoted, and were trying to sell them as something that can be applied universally. There is huge difference between ISTQB and other certifications, such as, for instance, Java. Java certification teaches you something that is clearly defined by the language specification. Something there is no second opinion about. Information about Java is clearly defined because it is a programming language and it was designened that way.
ISTQB attempts to sell something that unlike Java is a higly disputable subject. Methods and approaches if testing is not a product of design, but rather a product of an evolution. It has a lot of uncertainty and contradiction inherent to it which makes it dangerous to introduce any kind of a limiting frame.
Personally, I believe that ISTQB is an attempt to sell certain company values and principles as a part of companies fight for their market share. Doing something very much like what Google have been doing for years by selling technology or methodology fused with ethics. So people would buy them out of pure sympathy, not because of their efficiency.
I think I read about this effect in the book by Robert Chaldini, but I think Kanneman also mentions it at some point in "Thinking Fast and Slow": if you repeat something often enough, that something begins to feel like truth. In order to pass an exam you need to memorise a lot of stuff. Virtually, you force internalize it. And if you force internalize something you do not agree about or have not formed an opinion about yet, it will have crippling effects on your decision making ability. You will, of course, be able to perform efficiently enough to earn your living. But without testing against a control group you will never know, if your performance is because of ISTQB or despite it.
Personally, I believe that the industry would benefit by giving up ISTQB and replacing it with courses and books on logic, critical thinking and risk management (there is a lot of such books from Aristotle to Kanneman). Having a look at modern phylosophy may also be of some use. Listening to one of the university courses on neuroscience will be of huge use. Thanks to all the people at MIT and other places who made it possible, this kind of knowledge is at your fingertips. Just use these fingertips to search Youtube.
And even if all that sounds complicated and not feasible (well, testing IS a complicated subject despite its reputation) you can just use the approach I was taught when I first started as a QA engineer many years ago: USE YOUR COMMON SENSE AND YOU'LL BE FINE. And they were right. Because both testing and science are a side-effect of human ability to think. They are not a priviledge. Everyone who want to used them can use them.
It was the best advice I've ever was given in my entire professional life.
2022-10-31
ISTQB was designed based on practices that certain businesses implemented and promoted, and were trying to sell them as something that can be applied universally. There is huge difference between ISTQB and other certifications, such as, for instance, Java. Java certification teaches you something that is clearly defined by the language specification. Something there is no second opinion about. Information about Java is clearly defined because it is a programming language and it was designened that way.
ISTQB attempts to sell something that unlike Java is a higly disputable subject. Methods and approaches if testing is not a product of design, but rather a product of an evolution. It has a lot of uncertainty and contradiction inherent to it which makes it dangerous to introduce any kind of a limiting frame.
Personally, I believe that ISTQB is an attempt to sell certain company values and principles as a part of companies fight for their market share. Doing something very much like what Google have been doing for years by selling technology or methodology fused with ethics. So people would buy them out of pure sympathy, not because of their efficiency.
I think I read about this effect in the book by Robert Chaldini, but I think Kanneman also mentions it at some point in "Thinking Fast and Slow": if you repeat something often enough, that something begins to feel like truth. In order to pass an exam you need to memorise a lot of stuff. Virtually, you force internalize it. And if you force internalize something you do not agree about or have not formed an opinion about yet, it will have crippling effects on your decision making ability. You will, of course, be able to perform efficiently enough to earn your living. But without testing against a control group you will never know, if your performance is because of ISTQB or despite it.
Personally, I believe that the industry would benefit by giving up ISTQB and replacing it with courses and books on logic, critical thinking and risk management (there is a lot of such books from Aristotle to Kanneman). Having a look at modern phylosophy may also be of some use. Listening to one of the university courses on neuroscience will be of huge use. Thanks to all the people at MIT and other places who made it possible, this kind of knowledge is at your fingertips. Just use these fingertips to search Youtube.
And even if all that sounds complicated and not feasible (well, testing IS a complicated subject despite its reputation) you can just use the approach I was taught when I first started as a QA engineer many years ago: USE YOUR COMMON SENSE AND YOU'LL BE FINE. And they were right. Because both testing and science are a side-effect of human ability to think. They are not a priviledge. Everyone who want to used them can use them.
It was the best advice I've ever was given in my entire professional life.
2022-10-31
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