DEVOPSdigest

"Respect" (and the lack of it) has been a hot-button issue in the software testing industry for a long time. And, while there are countless articles out there for how testers can earn more respect, "Is software testing dead?" is still being debated and returns 50 million Google search results.

Most people (finally) agree testing will never be "dead," but, it's a real problem that so many testers continue to feel a lack of respect, understanding, or appreciation and recognition for the work they do.

Like plenty of others, Tricentis has written blogs, hosted webinars, and spoken at conferences about how testers can make a bigger, more easily recognizable impact in their roles, but maybe that's not enough. This is why Tricentis is proud to announce our new, annual awards campaign called Testing Heroes.

Testing Heroes is the only campaign that recognizes the individual contributions of software testers, and is driven by the support of a tester's colleagues and surrounding organization and networks.

So many people have advice for what testers can do to gain more recognition for their efforts in the future; Testing Heroes was designed to honor those who are already doing so many great things, and who are worthy of that recognition today.

Here's how it works.

The Nomination Round

Testing Heroes is split into 6 different categories:

■ Tester of the Year*

■ Test Manager of the Year*

■ The Explorer

■ The Automator

■ The Performer

■ The Risk-o-Meter

*Along with a physical award to commemorate their achievement, the Tester of the Year and Test Manager of the Year will each also be offered airfare, hotel stay, and a conference pass to Tricentis Accelerate 2018 in Vienna, Austria on October 9-10 !

The voting round

Once Tricentis has tallied up the nominations for each category, a select few will be added to a final ballot that will be used to determine the winners. Those who nominated someone who makes it to this round will be notified, and also given ideas for how they can help their nominee(s) get the maximum number of votes. This is where nominators will need to get creative with how they'll get the rest of their organization to contribute their votes!

There are an unlimited number of ways to spread the word about the outstanding work being done by your favorite testers:

■ Encouraging others in your company to vote through Slack, email, or an internal newsletter

■ Recording a short, campaign-style video to share through social media

■ An iPad loaded to the candidates voting page placed in a break room, kitchen, or other communal area

■ Desk-to-desk canvassing (to those who don't mind you popping in unannounced!)

One of the initial goals for Testing Heroes was to learn more about the amazing contributions by software testers, but there is a much bigger reward in this campaign. When a nominee's peers go all-in and campaign for one of their own, software testers' efforts will be more understood and appreciated by a far larger audience than they are today. This is the real goal of Testing Heroes, and has been a long time coming in the testing community.

Tricentis encourages you to nominate and then rally behind your own Testing Heroes today!