Category Archives: insight

I am the Queen of Defocus

Posted by on April 25, 2012 14 comments

I remember the day I earned the self acclaimed title of Queen of Defocus. I had been testing for about 3 years and had been hired as the *only* tester in an R&D lab of about thirty engineers. I also happened to be the only female engineer at the time, so I was Queen of the Lab regardless.

But I become Queen of Defocus when one day I was working on creating a test strategy for a Nationwide Freephone service that was to be designed and built in our lab. I had earlier cottoned on to the idea of white boarding the service and grabbing poor unsuspecting engineers as they passed by to help me figure out how the service worked. This helped me understand the service better and also on occasion I saw engineers go quiet as they realised through my questions that they had overlooked something in their design. (I later discovered James Bach calls this Inside-Out Analysis)

One day, as I was applying this approach I had a gestalt moment. I realised that I was really really good at  asking pertinent questions. Questions not necessarily about the service itself (though I did ask those) but also about how the service was going to be used, deployed, tested, maintained and operated. But what made these questions so valuable? Why were *my* questions seemingly able to discover problems other engineers failed to think of?

What exactly was I doing?

I decided it was the ability to grasp an answer from one question and allow it to connect to some other seemingly significant piece of information to generate another question. To do that, I had to let the information go for a wander in my mind until it connected to another piece of information. I had this visual idea of information wandering through my brain, seeking a neuron to bond with. However it happened it was working.

So I became Queen of Defocus partly because of this gift I had to make connections, but also because everyone else was so focused. By focusing so well (and they were some of the brightest engineers in the country) my defocusing ability was allowed to really shine. I was the ying to their yang.

Years have flown by (literally, I traveled overseas to Dublin for 2 years) and testers still comment on my ability to hit any situation, ask pertinent questions and make connections. Richard Robinson watched me pull an admin guy’s strategy apart, leaving him with a notepad full of questions to find answers for.

But being Queen of Defocus has its downside, it can if your not careful make you sloppy and shallow in your work. I know this because I’ve fallen into this trap of not paying sufficient attention to detail. I watch out for it now. I’ve learned that not knowing facts can be really embarrassing and I try to avoid that.

But mostly, I’m pretty happy letting my mind wander and reflect and ponder on why sun streaming through the window on an Autumn day fills me with joy. I store these moments away open to the possibility that they may prove helpful one day. On days like this, a bit of defocus is bliss!

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Mary Quite Contrary…

Posted by on April 5, 2012 2 comments

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

Its an old english rhyme that goes eons back. In fact, its actual meaning is disputed over time. Meaning change over time, don’t they? A bit like quality I guess.

Closer to today, in the early 1990′s people so enamoured with the concept of a *mobile* phone ignored the fact that half the time calls dropped out. After all, compared to a fixed line, the freedom was incomparable  so why not put up with being cut off through a tunnel?

Roll forward twenty years later, and Vodafone lost a plethora of customers due to call drops outs. Why? We as customers have changed our concept of quality. What people viewed as acceptable soon became intolerant.

Testers need to be aware of this. In particular when they focus on regression testing. Do your old tests actually add value? Have stakeholder opinions changed over time?

Testers also face a problem that Mary didn’t have to deal with. For Mary, everything was laid out in row, nicely lined up, easy to count.

But bugs don’t do that, do they? They grumpy, recalcitrant and downright impossible to find. Thats why we as testers can’t rely on the expected, the norm, the process. We need to be clever. We need to be sleuths. We are the Sherlock Holmes of the IT world, finding clues where no-one thought to look.  We need to think harder, deeper and broader than everyone else on the team. We need to catch the peices others haven’t thought of.

Here’s my 21st century version of the poem.

Mary Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow
Until the testers have a look,
To be honest, I really don’t know.

 

The School of 1

Posted by on March 2, 2012 3 comments

Like many testers I’ve been watching the unfolding drama of school versus approach that is taking place in  Context Driven Testing community with part dismay, part fascination and part anger.

That’s a mixed bag of emotions and it bothers me.

Two people that I hold in such high regard are not speaking to each other. People that I have worked with and respect deeply. On a personal level that saddens me. From a professional testing perspective, not so much as good testing will continue to thrive as long as testers are devoted to their craft.

But something angers me about this whole debacle. Lanette Creamer describes this as estranged family but to me it more like when a couple decides to divorce and the friends end up divorcing too. To be fair to both James and Cem, neither have suggested that this is necessary. James has stated he still has a huge respect for Cem. I admire him for that. Similarly, Cem has never suggested that ‘sides’ have to be taken.

Why then, do I feel that I’m being put in a position that I have to chose between the two?

Emotions aside, this whole debacle has challenged me to try and logicaly reason about what I think. Where I see myself.

I am a Context Driven Tester. I don’t want to test in any other way. I won’t test in any other way. If its an  an approach then I’m not going to take any other. I guess according to this post, that makes me part of the Context Driven School.

Yet I do agree with Cem. The idea of schools is polarizing and sometimes I feel uncomfortable when other schools are denegrated publicly. Regardless of schools, I respect thoughtful testers who work in these paradigms.

My solution at times like this is too look to myself. Reaffirm what I believe and move on with my work. I will continue to test in a way that I believe is best for me. I will continue to treat testers who I admire regardless of school with respect. I hope that means being able to work with both Cem and James (albeit independently) in the future. Time will prove if thats possible or not.

So in the mean time I will continue to study testing, help others test and focus on growing a vibrant testing community in Sydney. If that means I end up in a school of one, then so be it.