Software development is about cultivating differences in points of view. One of the reasons different roles exist, like product owners, designers, developers, testers, DevOps, and project managers, is to have different points of view during any life cycle. It could be a project life cycle, a product life cycle, a software development life cycle, a software testing life cycle, etc. A product owner will be business oriented. It’s all about what we release and its value to the customer. A developer is more implementation driven. It’s all about how to implement our features in code. A tester’s point of view usually includes technical aspects and business aspects. It’s all about constructively critiquing the product and giving valuable feedback to stakeholders.

One way to cultivate differences in points of view is to use pairing activities. Pair programming and pair testing are two of the most popular. This article focuses on pair testing, and I will share experiences on how teams have used pair testing to their advantage.