The best in testing is not the Tester: the domain problem

While reading some critics about a book about Lester Young, on the ever-best-blog-of-the-world , thebadplus , I got to the paradox that often the best work is done by people from other domains, and that work is often not recognized by the specialists due to lack of versatility, and interdisciplinarity.

There is this book about a musician, written by an historian specialized in Black Studies. Most people who will read the book are musicians (like me) and are not sensible, or informed , or even interested into historic details, or to litterary value. However that book is very well written, because it was written by a writer, (not a musician), and has insightful information, because it was written by an historian, (not a musician).

Nevertheless, most critics are negative, because they are done by the majority of musician-readers, and a minority of social studies people.

Sometimes in testing, and of course, in life, we are victims of our domain knowledge, and our lack of cross domain knowledge. I have seen psycologists or lawyers, do great work on the field of testing.

The cross domain exercize can be really refreshing, and is surely one of the brain storming unblocking techniques.