I’ve written an article for InfoQ on engineering team speed, inspired by my Why Is Everything So Slow? presentation that I’ve given at Agile On the Beach and Lean Agile Scotland this year. Find out what slows down engineering teams and how to avoid getting the question ‘Why Is Everything So Slow?’
The full article is only available on InfoQ at the moment but I hope to also post it here soon. So head over to InfoQ to read more.
This is the second part of my review of EuroSTAR 2014. Check here for day 1.
Day 2 started with Isabel Evans giving her experiences of a change project that went wrong. There was a lot of things to learn from here experiences but the main thing I took away was “it’s alway about the people”. People are the main factor in software development and the main factor in change. Understanding them if the key to effective change.
Here’s my notes from her session.
Next up I saw Michael Bolton give a very interesting and interactive session called ‘Every Tester Has a Price: Sources of Product and Project Information’. In it we went through different information sources and produced a large and detailed mindmap. I captured some of it below:
Note – it’s not complete and I need to get the rest of it from Michael.
Following Michael’s session I caught Kristoffer Nordström’s session on Gameification. This was a great personal account of how Kristoffer introduced gameification to a project he was working on, and what the results were. Certainly something that I’d like to see if I can use where I work.
My final session of the morning was another case study, this time from James Christie. James gave a very detailed and interesting study of a project he worked on for the UK government, whose primary goal seemed to be for the project not to appear in the UK news/ satire magazine Private Eye. While the project did not fail, (the programme it was part of did), it placed a great strain on the people involved and certainly was not the sort of project James would want to be involved with again. There were some clear lessons to learn, hopefully captured in my notes below.
After lunch it was my turn to talk about “Understanding Your Mobile User”. I was lucky, I had a good audience and they asked some great questions. 
I spoke about ways you could understand mobile users, and why understanding the user is so important when mobile testing.
The final keynote of the day was from Julian Harty, who spoke about ‘Software Talk: Are We Listening’. Julian gave us some hints and tips on how we can listen to software, through analytics for example.
What happened next was a little bizarre. A guy from Smartbear got up on the stage and sang a song about testing, to the tune (and inspired by the lyrics) of Frozen, the Disney kids film. Not my cup of tea but some people enjoyed it I guess.
Then it was time for the Gala party – a great night at Croke Park, home of the GAA.
So it’s day 2. I’ll be blogging as much as I can, scroll down for the earlier sessions.
Dr Cheahan So talking about Why We Are Wrong When We Think We Are Right.
Next up – Peter Varhol, who is talking about Mobile Apps and the Role of Load Testing. Here’s my mindmap.
Stefan Gwihs and Philipp Strelka talked about the use of emulators and simulators in mobile testing.
Some interesting stuff, particularly about how a test approach should not be purely UI driven. My mindmap is here.
First the keynote. Unfortunately Daniel Knott couldn’t make it – fortunately he put his slides up on slideshare.
Everything is not lost 🙂 – we have a new keynote – Mobile App Quality at Paypal.
I was recently interviewed for Computer Weekly, about the test strategy at Net-a-Porter, and my forthcoming talk at the Next Generation Testing Conference. It was an interesting experience and not one that I have done before.
I spoke about why I believe that Testing As An Activity is important, and why we should all test. The old axiom that “Testers Test and Programmers Code” is so outdated now and everyone needs to change. Testers are the testing experts in a team, and can help enable the whole team to own quality but they are certainly not the only one’s who should be testing.
You can read the interview itself over on the Computer Weekly site, and you can find the slides from the presentation at the Next Generation Testing conference over on Slideshare.
I’m going to be speaking at the first Mobile App Europe conference, which is on 28th September – 1st October in Potsdam, Germany. My presentation will be about mobile software testing and I’m part of what looks like a great conference, with keynotes from Jonathan Kohl, Dr. Chaehan So, Jesse Freeman, Stefan Bielau and Christian Kaar. There’s also lots of other excellent looking talks and learning opportunities on offer.
I’m really looking forward to it.
The early bird pricing ends in two weeks time and I also have a speaker discount which will get you another 10% off the ticket price. Let me know if you’d like it and I’ll share it with you.
I was interviewed recently for the uTest blog. I’ll be speaking about ‘Testing As An Activity’ at the forthcoming Next Generation Testing Conference, and so they asked me some questions about the topic, as well as some more general one’s about my thoughts on testing and how I started in the industry.
Worth a read I reckon, (I am biased of course). You can find the uTest blog post on their site.
More details on the Next Generation Testing Conference are on their site.
I’ve just got back from the Romanian Testing Conference which was held in Cluj-Napoca. It was a great couple of days, talking testing with a lot of new people, and some friends from the UK and further afield.
If you get the chance then I would definitely recommend the conference. There was a good mix of presenters and presentations, and the event was very professionally run. They even had their own RTC2014 branded cars!
I spoke about mobile software testing, and you can find my slides on this site. I also took mindmaps of as many sessions as I could, and I’ve added all of these to a ‘Live From….’ post which you can find here.
Next up, Nordic Testing Days in Tallinn in a couple of weeks. I’m talking about ‘Testing Your Emotions’, which will be a change from the mobile software testing area that I normally present on. I’ll also try and live blog as much as possible from the event.
Good news – I’ll be presenting “Mobile Testing, That’s Just a Smaller Screen, Right?” at this years Romanian Testing Conference.
The rest of the conference agenda will be up on their site soon.
The London Tester Gathering Workshops are back this year, Oct 16th-17th in London. Last year was great (see my blog post with more details).
This year I’ll be running a workshop on mobile testing. More details to come, but Super Early Bird tickets are already available for a bargainous £95 instead of the usual £395 so well worth getting some early.
Other speakers include John Stevenson, Richard Bradshaw, Nigel Stock, Rob Fahey and Peter Houghton.
More details from Skillsmatter: https://skillsmatter.com/conferences/1912-london-tester-gathering-workshops-2014
In my first post about ‘A Testers Hierarchy of Needs’ I explained a little about humanistic psychology and the work of Abraham Maslow. Let’s now look at how this can be applied to software testing.
As with the first post, the headings match with the slides I presented at TestBash.
A typical testers career path can look like this – it’s rather rigid and set. There are similar paths to this for management roles, and often testers are pushed towards management because it pays better, even if they don’t like management.
But what if we forgot about roles and job descriptions? After all, why do we have to consider our roles as part of a career ladder? How do we fit within our roles? What makes us satisfied as testers? What satisfies those who work for us in testing?
It’s all about considering building blocks. How do we fit the pieces together? How do we build a different kind of model to help us understand ourselves and our testers? Well I think Maslow’s work can help us out here. It can give us a framework.
Our first level – Maslow would call this the Physiological level. I call it acceptance. Acceptance of testing. So testing is just a job. Management view is ‘anyone can do it’. You are probably complying with work rules and basic processes to continue staying in job. There’s a lack of respect or support BUT there is testing happening. It’s probably manual checking only but it’s a start. So a positive step.
The next level is Maslow’s Safety level. Testing is mandated. There is a test team. Testers have peers. There is some safety – the job is seen as worthwhile and so unlikely to suddenly be moved to somewhere where people can press the buttons and check more cheaply. But testers are still universally seen as an annoyance. It’s about meeting expectations of peers and bosses, sometimes unspoken, to meet a moral and social code. It’s a learning level. As a tester you can learn testing, the company you work for is learning about testing. You play a key part in ensuring that learning happens.
One level up and it’s all about belonging. Testing, testers and the test team is seen as a key part of the company. It is taken seriously by all. It’s about meeting and exceeding more demanding expectations of peers and bosses, sometimes unspoken, to meet moral and social code. Consultation. Respect. Inclusion.
The Interaction level is next. The impact of testing reaches further than just the IT team. Consultation from the business. Reliance. Interaction. And overall a real sense of Esteem for the tester. A sense of worth. You are really adding value.
Then the top. Maslow’s self-actualisation level. Test Mastery.
Maslow never drew the theory of needs as a pyramid. In fact he never drew it as a diagram at all as far as I know. That was done in a later psychology text book. He felt that there could be overlap between states. You can move between states. Down as well as up. Changing roles, changing teams, life changes, can all affect movement between levels. Where you are on the hierarchy is just a snapshot in time.
I feel that, for a testers theory of needs, a pyramid is right. It shows the hierarchy best. But it could be a set of overlapping balloons, if you like that sort of thing.
Are you on a path to self-actualization. To Test Mastery? Do you think you are there already? What are you doing to stay there? What about the testers who are in your team? What about the company you work for?
I’d be very interested to know what you think.