TERMS

Test Automation Mnemonic by Albert Gareev
T – Tools & Technology
E – Execution
R – Requirements & Risks
M – Maintenance
S – Security

Read more on the TERMS mnemonic in the 2012 Issue 1 edition of the ST&QA magazine.

CRUMBS

Test Automation Mnemonic by Albert Gareev
C Confirmation, Coverage Criteria & Complexity
R Risk, Robustness, & Reliability
U Usefulness & Usability
M Maintainability & Manual Effort
B Basis & Bias
S Span, Separation, & Security

Read more on the CRUMBS mnemonic in the 2012 Issue 2 edition of the ST&QA magazine.

Both of these magazine references require a membership with Software Test Professionals, STP. I have asked Michael and Albert for additional links to free sites so you can get more details.

This year I will be delivering a workshop on “Thinking About Testing as a Service”. You can read more about my session on the CAST 2012 Sessions page. There are many exciting sessions and workshops being offered this year. Be sure to check them out!

From the AST website, here is a summary of this year’s exciting conference:

The theme of this year’s conference is “The Thinking Tester”: an exploration and celebration of on-the-job creativity and critical thinking in software testing.

Thinking testers question not only the product and its technical context, but the circumstances they find themselves in. What is the whole project context? What are the rules, the conventions, the unspoken assumptions? What are the constraints and risks?

Thinking testers challenge themselves and their team-mates to test effectively and efficiently with integrity and skill. Thinking testers neither blindly follow methodologies or standards, nor automatically reject them. They evaluate the merits of different approaches and adopt those best suited to a given problem set, according to their professional judgement. Thinking testers invent new solutions to old and new problems. They challenge apparent project or organizational constraints and devise clever workarounds for those they can’t change. They educate customers and teammates about the benefits of an open-minded approach to testing. Where necessary, thinking testers speak truth to power.

The CAST conference is always my most favourite conference to attend each year. CAST is also the first conference I recommend to software testers who are passionate about learning and are looking to engage in thought provoking discussions. The format of the CAST conference is unique and focuses on the “confer” in conference. Read more about the CAST format here.

See you at CAST 2012!

Course Overview
You are an experienced information technology professional. Regardless of your position, role or title, you may find yourself managing projects. You know the mechanics of project management—initiating, planning, scheduling, staffing, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing projects. Now you want to strengthen your leadership skills—skills that enable you to work effectively with customers, bosses, peers, staff, and vendors as well as help them work effectively with one another.

This workshop will help you balance your needs and expectations as a leader, the needs and expectations of other project individuals, and the realities of your project’s context. This workshop addresses directly human relationship situations that can put your project at risk—when stresses emerge, tempers flare, and uncertainties and self-doubts arise.

Adapted from the book Powerful Project Leadership by Wayne Strider, this workshop can benefit anyone whose work involves managing relationships among project team members, sponsors, committees, functional users, customers and vendors.

For more details on the Powerful Project Leadership Skills course, please see the PPLS Course Details page.

Registration
Early bird registration of $1625.00 per person will be offered to Satir Global Network members and $1699 to non members until January 31, 2012. Starting February 1st registrations will be $1925.00 per person to Satir members and $1999.00 to non members. Fees include training materials, lunch, and refreshments. Participants will also receive a copy of the Powerful Project Leadership book. Please note there is a maximum of 28 spots available.

Register Now »

Interested in knowning more about the Satir Global Network? Visit http://satirglobal.org/about/ for more information and to join.

Do not miss this great opportunity! We look forward to seeing you at the course. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact Lynn or Nancy.

My gut response to all the advice I was reading was interesting to me, particularly the advice on using pectin. After reading much advice on simply using pectin to make canning quicker and easier, I was convinced NOT to use it. Subconsciously the advice made me want to try the more challenging technique even more. For those who have not canned before I will elaborate on the pectin debate. Pectin is naturally occurring in fruit although some fruits contain very low amounts and this can affect how well the jam “jells”. To increase the chances of ensuring your jam “jells” every time, many recipes simply use a pectin additive which is extracted from apples. Many folks debate whether the pectin affects the flavour of the jam and whether the old fashion approach to making jams is more natural.

Despite all of the advice that pectin would make my canning experience more enjoyable, I ended up determined to try making my jam without the pectin additive. I was delighted to find my jam “jelled” just perfectly and the end result was fantastic! Mmmmm homemade jam.

Next I moved onto raspberry-blueberry, raspberry-rhubarb, and strawberry recipes. Along the way I found I stumbled into several traps and challenges that I had read about in my early preparation. The strawberry jam was the most challenging. From early on it foamed up like crazy, something I read about and heard you should use butter to prevent. Did I do that though? Nope, I wanted to see what would happen for myself. Next, I had to boil it for a very long time to achieve the “jelling”. Yep, there were lots of warnings about this too and recommendations to just use pectin with this particular fruit. Of course I skipped that “sage old advice” and stuck to my goal of using no additives.

Stubborn you might say? Perhaps, I was being stubborn but I think it is a more a matter of needing to learn things first hand. Seeing something for yourself is very different than trying to glean the insight from someone else. As children we are the same way. How many times do you tell your child not to do something and they just can’t stop themselves from doing it anyways! There is so much to be gained from the experience of trying something even if the end result is not what you were hoping for.

The same message is true in software testing. However, I often find that courses, conferences, coaching sessions, and even collegial conversations to be filled with advice on how to avoid pitfalls, traps and difficult situations. While this advice is valuable insight, at the end of the day many people are likely to employ the very approaches, techniques and tools they may have been cautioned to avoid.

A recent experience rings very true to this for me. Over 10 years of my experience in IT has been on traditional software projects with several of those being large, enterprise wide initiatives. When a good friend of mine accepted a role on a very large project, my head filled with warnings and mine fields to share. As the project got underway my friend and I shared numerous conversations, discussing insight based on my experience on similar projects. However, as the months passed my friend found herself in many of the mine fields as I had warned her of, and as can be expected, had stumbled across a fair number of new ones too.

We have talked about how the project unfolded many times and it has been interesting discussing the insights that can only be gained by experiencing something for yourself. Sometimes in the moment of success or failure you hear a distant voice reminding you that things might happen this way. I had this exact moment when my strawberry jam began foaming like crazy! My memory was triggered and I tried to recall all the tips and tricks I had read about. In the end I tried a few different ideas, a combination of sage advice and my own ideas, and the jam turned out wonderfully. Along the way I gained insight into the advice I had read about but more importantly gained first hand experience into why “this works” and “this doesn’t work”.

“If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.” – Mark Twain