In a forum on the Software Testing Club today someone asked a question whether I was a member of some testing organization. I put up a rather longish answer to that which I wanted to share on my blog as well.

I was once a swimmer. From the age of six on I swam. During my teenager years, I got side-tracked, and finally gave up on swimming at the age of 15 after having had some serious training outages due to injuries. However, as the swimming club had provided me with about ten years of guidance in my young life, I felt attached to it. So, I volunteered to provide the things that became dear to me back to the swimming community in my local club. I asked to become a swimming trainer, helping kids to learn swimming. I gave up this hobby at the age of 31 having served the club in various positions, as notestaker, vice manager, manager, trainer, referee, … for almost 15 years from that year on. Heck, I even started to swim again when some of my peers wanted to attend a swimming event where we didn’t have enough people.

Now, looking back at my testing career, I dived into a testing job after finishing my university studies. From the first day on I learned what software testing is on my own – there were just “theories” back in university about it – and found myself in a group leader position 18 months later. Up to that point I didn’t attend any testing course, testing certification course, or whatever. It took me three more years to realize there is something like the ASQF or ISTQB at all.

Do you see the difference?

Having said that, this is probably not the only reason I don’t feel attached to ASQF or ISTQB at all, but one of the key factors. In comparison, I am happy to be a member of the Association for Software Testing (AST) in the USA, although they didn’t actively do anything for me either. It’s more that I feel more attached to their philosophy, which I miss for ASQF and ISTQB.