UK Tester Forums

I have rejected the idea of schools, as defined by Bret here,

I have rejected the notion of me being A MEMBER OF MY OWN SCHOOL HERE.

B.J. Rollison sets out at a succinct rejection of schools here.

Michael Bolton has revived the cold dead hand of schools in his talk at Eurostar 2008. Here is the presentation

Why would I reject the idea of schools?

TWO REASONS

ONE: NO ONE WANTS TO BE PART OF A SCHOOL.
As far as I know, no one (OK, one or two out of countless thousands) has volunteered to be a member of a schools as defined by Bret.

TWO: THE SCHOOLS ARE STEREOTYPES THAT DON'T ALIGN WITH REALITY.

SO. This is it. NO ONE ACTUALLY behaves the way that the hackneyed stereotypes would have you believe.

Last week, I joined a group of good 'testing friends' and pretty much, when we considered each of the key attributes of each of the schools, unanimously, we agreed that each 'activity' would be appropriate some of the time.

Call us the 'some of the time school', or maybe the 'appropriate' school or maybe, the 'it depends on the context' school. Whatever. We choose to adopt appropriate practices depending on our context.

The schools don't work because the proposed stereotypes do not align with the behaviours of people in real projects.

So, lets hear no more of schools - please!