@maaike.brinkhof Is there a specific conference or audience you had in mind for this presentation you’re preparing based on this input?
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It is a part of Testbash Home!
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For me, it’s got to be managers who use jargon or technical terms without understanding them to try and make it look like they have a clue what they’re expecting other people to do. I recall a particular manager who would wave the term “end-to-end testing” around when they clearly thought it meant “test the entire application from one end to the other” rather than “test a user journey starting at this point and getting them to that point”. I suspect the same manager was the one being referred to by a developer colleague (the same one who did the caricature of me that’s my avatar) after he came back from a lengthy meeting, ranting about two hours spent listening to people trying to justify their continued employment by the company…
@ davecub - I’ve heard a similar thing to that picture you posted, which is the “monkey tree” model of corporate structure; the monkeys at the top look down and see a lot of anxious faces looking up at them , which makes them think the monkeys below are looking for guidance and direction from them. What they don’t realise is that the monkeys below are looking up at a load of arseholes and worrying that they could shit all over them at any time.
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Cool! Do you also plan on doing this talk somewhere else? I know you’re making your way into the IOS/app development world. Since the stories so far have a large focus on testing (not surprising given the place and audience here) I think others can also greatly benefit from these stories. Perhaps even get a bit more understanding for testing outside of our MoT bubble.
It’s my hope to give this presentation more than once, but I first want to finish creating it and present it once to get feedback before I decide where else to give it.
Not sure if this exactly what you’re looking for but a few of the things I’ve seen/experienced:
- Being told not to investigate bugs and to provide less information to developers to save time. Just identify a bug and raise with minimum info.
- Being told to spend less time doing exploratory testing and only focus on making sure requirements are met.
- Spending more time on writing test scripts/cases than actually testing.
- I was put on a performance action plan in my last role during which I was given a presentation about the roles and responsibilities of upper and middle management. Half of the tasks/goals on my plan were tasks my manager should have been doing according to that presentation.
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Valid experiences!
Most of what you wrote sounds like “testing as box ticking”, so you can say as an organisation you’ve done testing, but you’ve only really done a bunch of basic checks and rituals.
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It happens once, I have 3 pojects to test in parallel and I’m the only tester.
- No time to automate things from the testing side, most efforts is manual only
- I’ve been told to focus only on most important bugs, ignore minor bugs
- I’ve also been “blamed” how you find this bug
and told “Can you reduce the number of bugs you discover?” - The funniest the developer send the ticket to Done without doing anything so reopen and fun again !
I spent there only 6 months 
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Another one
- How you don’t know this? It’s supposed to be known!
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Half of the tasks/goals on my plan were tasks my manager should have been doing according to that presentation.
Oh boy! At my first job they had us testers doing so many thing that were supposed to be responsibilities of project managers (and other management folks) that at the time I was thinking PM == incompetence! At my next company I was amazed when I saw people with PM titles that were actually really good at doing their job, I admitted as much to one of them and they guy burst out laughing at my confession - I guess PMs generally aren’t too popular. 
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I’ve had mixed experiences with PM’s similar to yourself. Some that were completely distant and generally did nothing but others that were really on it and got stuff done. I’ve also been one for a few years and was surprised to find out that devs thought it was an easy job. I think it must be the whole thing about being a duck; calm on the surface, wildly kicking underneath. I’ve experienced more bullshitization in that role than in testing, tbh!
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