Deciding Between the Red Pill and Blue Pill
There was a good post by John McConda on this subject at the end of Dec 2006, but after contacting him, I found out that he is his harshest critic (aren't we all), deleted the post, so I'll write my version of the Matrix's Red Pill vs. Blue Pill scenario. And, keep in mind this concept is not limited to the Testing/Development arena- it can be applied to most any choice in life.
Most of us have seen the Matrix, so I am not going to go in a long summary. If you haven't seen it, watch it. In the Matrix, Neo gets a taste of the truth, and is forced to come to decision point. He must decide to take the Blue Pill or Red Pill. The Blue Pill will take him back to his comfort zone, back to the life he has always had, and erase the glimpse of the future he has tasted. The Red Pill will allow him to see the truth, to quell the urge of inquisitivity that we all have.
How does this relate to testing? I suggest that most of us, including myself, came from the comfort zone. We were brought in with Waterfall-like methodologies, long detailed system engineering processes, and divided Dev and QA teams, where vast amounts of code were thrown over the wall and testers had to perform independent verification and validation within a very unrealistic time frame.
Then, we had a glimpse of the future, with the Agile-like methodologies introduced to us. We were curious, about it, liked what we saw, but were uncertain about where this will lead us in our career. We then came to a decision point, take the Blue Pill and forget about Agile and go back to Waterfall, or take the Red Pill and embrace Agile, small iterations, story cards, customer acceptance tests, and customer involvement, etc.
We realize that in order to truly be a great tester/developer, we have to break out from the corporate mold that has shaped us in our naivety. It takes courage? Yes. It takes pain? Sometimes. Will you regret it? Can't say for certain, I personally have not.
I know people who have had the choice, as well as people who have not even be offered the truth! I don't want to be a person just putting-in-my-time, waiting 'til the day is done. I want to accomplish things. I want to push the limits. I want to grow in my career.
So, for those who took the Red Pill, do you have any regrets? As I said, I don't. And John, don't delete anymore! :)
