Dorothy Graham has been in testing for 40 years, starting as a software developer at Bell Labs in the USA, where she was put into the Test Group and wrote test execution and comparison tools. After immigrating to the UK, she worked at Ferranti Computer Systems for 7 years, as a developer and team leader, putting an emphasis on testing (which was somewhat unusual at the time). At the National Computing Centre she developed training material in software engineering and software testing.
Dorothy then became an independent consultant and decided to specialise in testing since, at the time, testing was not very highly regarded but Dorothy could see tremendous potential for quality improvements through more effective testing. She formed Grove Consultants in 1988, which still provides training and consultancy in all aspects of testing, having taken on several partners over the years, until she became "semi-retired" in 2008.
She has sought to promote better testing and better recognition for testers throughout her working life. She was a founding member of the British Computer Society's Specialist Interest Group in Software Testing in 1989 and was the "speaker finder" for many years. She also worked on the unit testing standard that became BS7925. She helped to promote the first testing conference to be held in Europe and was programme chair for EuroStar in 1993 (and enjoyed having this role again in 2009).
Dorothy has helped to start qualifications for testers, at a time when testing was regarded at best as a "necessary evil" and the role of tester was not a respected position. She was a founding member of the British Information Systems Examination Board which produced the first Foundation qualification in Software Testing, and also helped to establish the Practitioner qualification. The first Foundation course was run by Grove Consultants in 1998. In addition to the Foundation and Practitioner Certificates, she also holds the BBST Certificate from the Association for Software Testing.
She facilitated the meeting in Soluntuna which formed the precursor to ISTQB, and she was a member of the ISTQB Working Party that produced the first Foundation Syllabus, chaired by Thomas Mueller. At EuroStar in 1999, she was given the European Excellence Award in Software Testing.
Dot is co-author of four books: Software Inspection with Tom Gilb, 1993, Software Test Automation with Mark Fewster, 1999, Foundations of Software Testing with Rex Black, Isabel Evans (1st & 2nd eds) and Erik Van Veenendal, 2007, 2009 and 2011, and Experiences of Test Automation, with Mark Fewster, 2012.
She continues to present at conferences around the world and to interact with and support testers and software testing.