Those of you old enough to remember the 80’s may recall a song by Depeche Mode called ‘Get The Balance Right’ – nothing to do with testing or tech, but just a great song, and as I was thinking about this post, that’s the title that came to mind, and thus my musical memory.
I’ve been reflecting this morning on Diversity. It’s a word thrown around a lot to basically mean ‘not only white men’. It’s not saying that my views, opinions and participation in things are no longer wanted, but that everyone’s views and opinions are wanted, not just people like me.
In a few weeks, I will be taking part in something (online of course) and only saw the list of other participants over the weekend. We are all male, from different countries, so we are diversified in that we are not all British and white, but not in terms of gender balance. And this is what we forget – diversification isnt just one thing – its not just about skin colour or just about gender, or just about nationality, or just about background – its all of those things. Lisa Crispin posted a Tweet which started off with the line ‘There’s no excuse at all for not having plenty of women speakers at DevOps / CD / SRE conferences…’ and its a good one to call out. I had assumed there would be a better mix as this is 2020 after all, and all organisers should be aware by now – but this isnt always the case. And hence this post.
Equality doesnt have to mean that every workplace, every conference etc has to have an exact 50% male/female ratio – it can flex either way, but should never be 100/0 either as that doesnt represent the testing profession (which actually has a higher ratio of women – certainly in the teams I have managed!). There are professions with a higher female ratio – e.g. nursery and primary school teachers – is it a problem or just a reality? Does it matter? Is anyone disadvantaged? Does it mean that boys grow up thinking teaching jobs for men are only in secondary schools? Answers on a postcard (as they used to say on TV).
Thinking about conferences etc, there are arguments around whether we are making them ‘women friendly’ enough and whether thats the issue – and I struggle with that a bit. If we say that women are finding it difficult to put themselves forward, are we recognising that there are barriers or just generalising all women in the same way? Generalising is lazy, and makes it seem as though women have the problem – and I dont agree with that. There are many amazing women speakers out there, but a lot still haven’t been heard. Why is that? Has the work been done to properly understand the reasons?
And its not just that we are only missing women’s voices – we are missing so many testers who are not involved in speaking, for any number of reasons. I wonder how many conference organisers in their feedback sheets have questions asking ‘Is there anything that prevents you from putting yourself forward as a speaker?’ and ‘If so, how could we help you?’. Even anonymous answers would give some key pointers as to what is holding people back for any reason – could be shyness, language barrier, timing etc.
Of course the thing to remember is that we should not force people to do jobs or tasks they dont want to do – whether male or female. I think we miss the point that as humans, we have the right to choose what we want to do ourselves.
Diversity is about giving everyone the opportunity to do something if they want to, and not just to fill a quota, whether that’s in terms of a job role or speaking at a conference.
As testers what can we do to help each other?
If invited to speak at a conference, or accepted to speak at one, ask who else is involved. Is there a good balance? Call it out if not.
Work with an awesome tester you know who could be good at speaking, and help them plan out a topic, guide them with preparation, and encourage them to tell their story. Coach them!
Offer to pair talk – I have done this a couple of times with first time speakers and it worked really well. It can be a good stepping stone for a new speaker to build confidence and go on to do a solo talk afterwards.
If they are not ready to speak, encourage them to write a blog. Help them to get their voice out there and get noticed in some way that build their confidence.
Share their posts and when they are ready to speak, recommend them.
And as conference organisers, what can you do?
Stop being lazy and just asking me who I know! Get out there on social media, look on Twitter and start following testers there, see what they post, get a sense of who they are and approach good people to involve them.
Plan who you want to involve – and if that means declining me because you have already got more testers like me and want to have a better mix of people, please be open and tell me. I’m ok to hear that as a message.
Just because you invite 10 testers from different backgrounds to speak, it doesnt mean they will all say yes – they may just not want to, and thats ok. But leaving it there is not ok. Persevere. Create a wide pool of testers who you can pick from and dont just rely on the same group each time. Keep going until you have a good mix of people who really represent the make up of our industry.
Thanks for reading – please let me know your thoughts, especially if you face barriers to getting more involved – message me privately if that would help.
Steve Watson - Musings of a Test Manager 
We are now working on products that might be used anywhere in the world, by anyone, at any time. It follows from this that there has to be as wide a range of individuals as possible brought to bear on that product during design, development and testing. Diversity isn’t just a matter of ticking the boxes; it’s an essential element in product evolution.
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Thanks Robert
Very true, as you say it’s so important when creating a product for a worldwide market place.
Steve
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I take issue with phrases like “better mix of people” in the context of conference speakers. When I go to a conference, the absolute last thing I care about is the gender or racial balance of the speakers. I want to see the best speakers and the most interesting talks that are available within the conference budget.
Within product design, it may well make sense to include diverse personas in the UX research and user testing, but is there really any reason to aim for diversity in the development and testing teams as opposed to recruiting the best people you can?
I am all in favour of equality of opportunity, but I think it’s a mistake to try to achieve equality of outcomes, which is where the whole diversity movement has moved to now.
FWIW, at various times our team has been 100% male, more than 50% female and is almost always majority non-English. That is the outcome of recruiting the best people we could get at the time and I would not change that approach just to meet some arbitrary gender or racial balance.
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Hi Steve
Thanks for you comments.
I agree with you about wanting to see the best people at conferences, and the point I am making is that if we dont cast the net wide enough, we may be missing some other really good people who are not just men. Imagine if Isabel Evans, Dorothy Graham or Lisa Crispin (to name just 3 amazing women speakers) had not had the chance to speak. How much poorer would we be within tech, especially testing.
As humans, it’s well documented that unless we see people who look like us taking part on something, we are reluctant to get involved. An all male line up may put women off from putting themselves forward to speak. Whether you agree or not, its human behaviour and cant be ignored.
I think as potential speakers and attendees, we should be doing what we can to push for as wide a variety of speakers as we can.
You make a second point about an arbitrary balance or quota and I agree with you that it is not the right thing to do. Asking someone to speak, or employing them based just on race or gender is an insult and shows that whoever’s making the decision doesn’t really care about diversity. Everything should be done on merit – we just have to ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to apply and be considered for a talk or job. It should never be about quotas, but about getting the best experience you can from the available pool of experts in our industry.
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It’s not just the obvious diversities we need to consider. After I was made redundant from my last role, my very first interview was for another company in a very similar line of business (connecting customers needing heating engineers with available engineers), and I did what I thought was a pretty good interview. I didn’t get the role because, they said, I was “not a good cultural fit for the office”.
It was probably the most mono-cultural office I’d set foot in for possibly twenty years; and my mis-match appeared to be that I would have been by far the oldest person in the team. Now, in the UK, age discrimination isn’t legal, but like most cases of this sort, the difficulty is proving it.
On the other hand, my current employers took me on precisely because my business experience filled a gap in their team that they could see. When presented with someone who wasn’t a good cultural fit, hey saw an opportunity. It’s worked well for both of us: I’ve taught the other testers – all of them much younger than me – a lot of life and business experience stuff, and they’ve taught me more about testing than I ever learnt in twenty years!
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