On conferences and insomnia

Posted by on September 3, 2011 2 comments

For me, the sign of a good conference is insomnia the night after the conference.

Its as if my brain is unable to let go the new ideas and discussions I’ve had with other testers. Ideas that haven’t had an opportunity to be digested and reflected upon and usually around 2am after the close of a good conference my eyes snap open, my brain alive and alert ready for action.

Ideas and discussions from the day merge and meld into a boiling cauldron of fizzling synapse and bubbling endorphins and, as much as I try to breath deeply relax and let it all go, I know deep down its all pointless.

I’m going to have to get up and write down my thoughts and ideas.

STANZ Melbourne is one such conference and its given be a double dose of insomnia resulting in frenetic writing at 12, 2 and 4 am until finally my brain exhausted became compliant and allowed my poor weary body to sleep.

STANZ is sponsored and hosted by SOFTED. These folks at SOFTED really understand and ‘get’ software testing and it shows.

As well as  hosting this conference and getting some pretty impressive speakers in(I urge anyone who has the opportunity to hear Goranka Bjedov speak to do so) they also sponsor the Sydney Testers Meetup by supplying thirsty and hungry testers with drinks and nibbles at networking events.

Whats more they host peer workshops. The last one they hosted in New Zealand which was a huge success so much so that next year they hope to host one in Sydney.

Watch this space.

For me, STANZ gave me two core learnings.

The first was Goranka’s talk about the future of quality. I think this was really insightful and gave me much food for thought. The concept that quality is dead and that as testers we need to reflect how this will impact us. I’m not sure yet what this means for me(I need some more 4 am thinking on that one!) but  somewhere deep down, this struck a real chord.

The second re-enforced to me the power of sharing problems and getting ideas from your network of testers. In 30 minutes, Trish Khoo had a plethora of new ideas and suggestions for me to take away. Many thanks Trish.

Now off to order a double shot espresso….

 

An affidavit of sorts

Posted by on August 14, 2011 No comments

The last three months I’ve worked specifically with the goal of my testers taking responsibility for their work.

I’m a strong believer that each person is responsible for their own lives. I try to  live by it and I expect others to do the same. Its one of the reasons why I endorse and believe Exploratory Testing is so powerful. The tester becomes centre to the testing. The tester is the decision maker responsible for their decisions(good or bad) and must be willing to stand by their choices and defend them where necessary.

Its a powerful concept, and I think somewhat alien to the way we are brought up and perhaps bring up our own children. Instead we are protected or we try to protect, wanting to prevent harm to those we are close to. Actually, I think its impossible to totally protect people, much better to teach survival skills.

I often hear people saying: “A great test manager removes obstacles so that their team can test” and its true. A good test manager will do that. However, I think a good test manager will also allow their testers to fail. Allow them to make their own decisions and learn to stand by those decisions and then defend them.

If we don’t do that, are we really helping testers to learn and grow?  I wonder.

I’ve had the luxury of procrastination over the past two days. Yesterday, I spent a glorious few hours at the Seattle Art Gallery. It was the perfect antidote to CAST 2011, which was exceptional yet mentally exhausting.

I also missed my flight back to Sydney, which meant I had a second day of whiling away hours at Seattle airport.

Our brains are so fascinating, aren’t they? Just as I’m about to board the flight, a burst of insight and determination hit me. I guess all that procrastination culminated in my powerful thought.

Its this.

As we learn and grow as testers and human beings, we constantly need to revisit our beliefs, values and motivations. I realised mine needed a revisit. (Incidentally, my tutorial at CAST was on this topic, another example of “if you want to learn something, teach it!”)

I needed to rework my ideas, goals and what was important to me. I needed to put myself in the centre of my testing career. I’m responsible for what I do and what I learn. Me. No-one else. Not mentors, not other testers, not thought leaders. Little ole me.

A few testers at CAST really inspired me to be like this. Unfortunately, I don’t know their names or else I would cite them here. But they’re not thought leaders or mentors, they’re context driven testers with a mind of their own. I like that.

I’ve always been able to think for myself but sometimes, you just have to up the anti, you know?

I don’t know what this will mean for me. I’m not sure where it will lead. What I do know that from this point on, I will continue to own my decisions and I will stand by them, just as I encourage my own testers to do.

I guess thats it. Its just something I wanted to share with you all.

QED

Coaching Space

Posted by on August 10, 2011 1 comment

When James Bach gave his keynote on “Cool new things” at CAST 2011, I suspected that our work on coaching might come up. What I wasn’t expecting was a break down of my work and the recognition of the work I had done. So thank you James.

I’ve been asked for a copy of the handout that I shared in my talk and James showed in the keynote

 

I’ll post a more in depth analysis when I get back from CAST.