It seems like the notion of ‘schools’ of thought is about to infect the development community with Martin Fowler’s recent post on the subject. The test community has been grappling with it in various forms for a number of years largely because of Bret Petticord’s presentation on the subject.

I used to be quite enamored with the notion of schools but I’m now starting to think they are almost more dangerous than useful:

  • Schools are often exclusionary
  • School membership is exclusive; much as you cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim you cannot be both a Context and Factory member (in testing parlance)
  • Schools characterize a certain set of beliefs at a specific point in time, by labeling them a school they become a fixed reference point and can cause splintering and sub-schooling.
  • Schools can be used in a derogatory manner

In a recent post on on software-testing (okay, from February) Chris McMahon mentioned he was trying to start a new school (which to my knowledge would be the 6th officially titled school of testing). I think in a way, everyone should be creating their own school having exactly one member; themselves.

Heck, I created the Adam School of Testing two years ago which has evolved significantly from what is listed there in the time since. This evolution is both natural and healthy but also absolutely necessary for the growth of a school — or in my model personal growth of the tester.

This post has been bouncing around my head for awhile a couple things conspired to make it fall into place.

The first was a post by David Byrne (ex-lead singer of Talking Heads wherein he mentioned of Paul Simon that He had made something that didn’t sound like any of his sources or inspirations, yet couldn’t have been made without them. To some degree this is missing from a lot of testing discussions where the Cult of Personality of some can overpower. I believe that those in the upper ranks of the testing elite (whatever that means) all have this mashup of ideas and beliefs at their core.

The next item also ties into that quote. Last weekend at the AST board meeting James was talking on a break about the important of community and colleagues to bounce ideas off of for mutual learning (or something to that effect) but was having trouble articulating in a concise fashion when I showed him the quote which worked quite well. During the course of the conversation he said that I was a good example of this as I’m not going to blindly accept something because person X said it was so. Instead I’ll keep what I agree with, reject what I don’t and challenge people when I’m undecided. I also reserve the right to change my mind.

At the same meeting, it appeared there are differences in opinion about what AST is and where it should go. (Thankfully the similarities are greater.) This surprised me since the founders and leaders of AST are closely associated with the Context-Driven School. If they can’t get all their ducks in a row then how can anyone else in a large (or even greater-than-small) collective of people?

All this circles back nicely to the notion of individual schools. Only you can have lived your life and have experienced your experiences and been influenced by your influencers. Being true to your own beliefs and ethics is going to cause you greater success in your career than proclaiming yourself a member of the Agile school or Context one (for example) just because someone you respect is also a member.

(And yes, I am aware that tailoring a schooled to yourself is the most extreme form of contextual adaptation out there thus in lines with the Context-driven approach, but that seems just a bit too weaselly to me)