Ethics 4 - KWST2 in pictures

In writing up KWST2, I enjoyed looking through my notes I made, which I've decided to put here.

I've a decidedly visual way of looking at things like many who like to use mindmaps, so thought this would be a great way to finish this series...

James Bach was talking a lot about "my community", and I was curious who a phrase like "my community" where MY = an individual and COMMUNITY = group fits together ... probably the pedantic tester in me ...

James then explained this to me, that a group of individuals have certain opinions.  In events like peer conferences they talk about their opinion, try and find group consensus, and so through these debates (which could be fiery at times) the community opinion takes shape.  Someone who finds their values outside this consensus needs to question if they belong to that community or needs to try and draw it more towards them through debate ...

Geoff Horne and James Bach give their summary of what they think the purpose of testing is, for Geoff this is "getting a product over the line", for James it is to "inform clients of the status of their product" (two good answers) ...

James talking how the role of testers is to inform, on status, not to try and make business or technical decisions for others ...

A huge discussion was held about "who does testing serve?" as to answer this defines our responsibility ethically to this group - was it to management, or was it higher up to eventual end users.  There was no easy answer to this - there are elements of both.  But this makes our ethics very much a personal choice in many ways, and thus the right or wrong can very much be defined by the observer ...

There was talk on how our ethics are shaped by our,

• Role
• Culture
• Age
• Experience

As we go through difficult ethical situations we had a feedback loop, and we evolve our ethics.

There are also two kinds of ethics,

• External and imposed - the ones which are written down on paper as laws or terms and conditions
• Internal and owned - these are the ones which come from us, our personal take and behaviour on ethical challenges, which in many ways define us.

Unfortunately these different takes as seen above can cause ethical splits within cultures and communities.  Which is painful, but often how we evolve.  To bridge the gulf it was important to maintain respect as much as possible.

Finally a word of warning.  Ethics are something which need to be applied as equally to ourselves as to others, otherwise we're using them to judge, and guilty of the worst kind of hypocrisy ...