The Credibility Playbook for Testers Review

Recently, Vernon Richards published The Credibility Playbook for Testers.

It is split into three modules:

• The eBook
• Lessons/videos
• Extras

The eBook focuses on the 5 mistakes he sees testers make that hurt their credibility.

The videos cover topics such as The GROW Framework for testers, Expertise Examples, and more.

The extras are lessons that would benefit the course attendee, but don’t really fit naturally in the main part of the course.

Target Audience

I couldn’t find any information on who exactly this course was targeted towards, so I’ll just share who I would recommend this course to.

I would recommend this course to:

• People who are early in their career
• People who feel stuck in their career
• People who feel they have been overlooked. (This could be overlooked for promotions, not invited to be in meetings and/or having their opinions be ignored in meetings.)

I’d even argue that even if you don’t think you fit into any of the above, you almost definitely would still benefit a lot from this course because of all the wisdom that Richards shares in it.

What I Thought About the Course

I think Vernon is a great person to tackle this topic at this angle given his experience as both an experienced tester but also as an experienced manager (he had the opportunity to see the role from other angles).

I enjoyed the course and thought he did a great job in achieving his claim of:

“This is a practical, field-tested guide with the exact words I have used to earn trust, lead better conversations, and influence decisions…..”

You’ll learn how to:

• Speak about testing without sounding defensive

• Get buy-in from developers, product owners, and technical leaders

• Reframe testing as business impact, not just bug-hunting

I appreciated that in the book and videos, Richards was concise.

In terms of the 5 biggest mistakes he’s seen many testers make that hurt their credibility, I don’t want to spoil the book, so I’ll just share some of the gems he has in them:

“Stop showing up as the person “who runs the tests” and start showing up as the professional who helps team make better decisions.”

“That is the real skill: knowing what important (and unimportant) to the person you are speaking to, and describing your goals in their terms.”

“When you learn to frame your input with care… and better timing you stop sounding like a distraction and start sounding like the expert whose words help the team focus.”

For each mistake, Richards clearly spells out what the mistake is, how to spot it, the cost of the mistake (how it impacts you and others), and how to address it.

To make this course even better, I think there should have been an overview of each lesson at the start of each video, written on a slide (the overview was stated verbally in the lessons).

While I appreciate that there was text for the lessons below each video, as a learner, I really like to know where I am going: what does the course instructor have in store for me?