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By Lynn McKee, August 2, 2011 10:39 pm

I am really excited to be heading to my fourth consecutive CAST conference next week! The Association for Software Testing is hosting the sixth annual Conference of the Association for Software Testing, CAST 2011, in Seattle, Washington on August 8th – 10th.

As noted on the AST website, “This year’s conference promises to be the most unique to date, it will be the first Context-Driven Testing conference to ever be held. This year’s program features some most outspoken context-driven testers in the world. This international gathering will span three days in August and offer attendees the opportunity to discuss, debate, question, and learn about Context-Driven Testing.” I am an advocate of the context-driven approach and am keen to see the direction some of the sessions take. I think the talk I am looking forward to the most is the tutorial Context-Driven Test Leadership by James Bach. This will be my first time seeing James present on the topic of leadership and I am looking forward to his perspective on many aspects.

As much as I am looking forward to the conference content, I am just as excited for the opportunity to reconnect with friends and meet new people passionate about software testing. The conference schedule includes a diverse group of international presenters, some of whom I have been looking forward to meeting for several years now.

I plan to tweet like crazy and hope to to crank out a couple of blog posts as I am going as an AST board member and attendee but I am not presenting. I am looking forward to focusing on attending some great sessions and participating in all of the facilitated and non-facilitated (hallway) “conferring” that makes CAST so unique.

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By Lynn McKee, April 11, 2011 12:56 pm

I have noticed something interesting about the way we learn over the last year. I have singled out the past 12 months as I have had the opportunity to observe hundreds of people actively learning through the numerous conferences, workshops and training sessions that I have attended or presented. What I observed was fascinating to me. People seem prone to identify what they are learning to be in alignment with their current knowledge and experience even when in reality there are wildly contrasting differences.

I am familiar with the learning pattern where people relate new information with their existing knowledge and experience. I realize that these linkages aid people in connecting with the new information and hopefully increasing both their retention and adoption rates. The focus of my intrigue is when new information that is distinctly different, and often times radically different, is somehow interpreted to be the same or very similar to the person’s existing knowledge and experience. Essentially the person is reaching the conclusion “Yes indeed, this is just like what I do on my project.”

It has been interesting to see this recurring theme even across a diverse group of presenters, facilitators and instructors with varied teaching approaches. The material covered has been a combination of everything from testing approaches, techniques, management skills, soft skills, agile practices, etc. The duration of the sessions has ranged from 20 minute presentations, experiential workshops, to 3 day courses. Time permitting most sessions have included group exercises and the opportunity for attendees to reflect, question, and compare.

Many of my observations have been with individuals whom I do not know very well and I am gleaning my conclusions based on conversations typically 15 minutes to an hour in length. I recognize that it is not easy to gather significant detail about a person’s existing knowledge, experience and testing practices is in such short time periods, however, there are still interesting observations that can be made in these time spans. Conversely, I have had the opportunity to observe the same behaviour with people that I know and whose current testing practices I am familiar with.

In one particular example, I had the opportunity to attend a 3 day training course with a person whom I have known for many years. The course was the Rapid Software Testing course and it was being instructed by Michael Bolton. As this was my 2nd opportunity to attend this course I was familiar with the numerous opportunities for aha moments and was keen for my colleague experience them. I was intrigued by the conclusions my colleague reached throughout the course. Although I knew that their practices were distinctly different somehow the new information was registering as something my colleague was already doing! Imagine concluding the use of mindmaps for creative, exploratory test idea generation equates to the use of pre-emptive, prescriptive test cases?

Why does this happen? My good friend Nancy Kelln has a degree in Psychology and is intrigued to research this further. I think it would be fantastic to better understand how these seemingly dubious connections are being made. In the meantime we need to challenge our own learning connections and strive to improve the learning connections of those who share our ideas with.

For your own learning connections, consider asking yourself about the parallels you are drawing from the new information to your existing knowledge and experience. Do those parallels really exist? How would you know? What questions could you ask? How might you challenge yourself to dig deeper into the material? Are you motivated enough to pursue understanding the material better or are you stopping at your current conclusions? What valuable insights may you be missing by not further questioning your conclusions?

I welcome any recommendations on books, articles or blogs about people and learning that you have found particularly insightful. Kudos to all the fantastic presenters, facilitators and instructors that I had the opportunity to glean tips from last year.

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By Lynn McKee, April 8, 2011 1:25 pm

This year I decided to tackle presenting the dangers inherit with metrics and measurements. The topic has been well covered in books, articles, and blogs and I was fortunate to have such great material to learn from. I am passionate about encouraging people to understand the many ways we can be deceived.

I cover many concepts in my presentation including:

• What is Measurement?
• Why do we Measure?
• Measurement & Context
• The Qualitative vs Quantitative Debate
• Deductive & Inductive Reasoning
• Entomological & Ontological Assumptions
• The Positivism Viewpoint & Empiricism
• The Post Positivism Viewpoint Including Reality, Observations & Perceptions
• Orders of Measurement
• Measurement Models and Validity
• Construct Validity
• Abstraction & Aggregation
• Measurement Side Effects
• Inquiry vs Control

The emphasis is on asking “What is the question we are really trying to answer?”. It is important to understand that measurement is difficult as many things we seek to measure are subjective: complex, qualitative, non-repeatable, and involve human judgment or human performance. This is further complicated when we develop complex, scientific models in our attempt to measure more accurately. We need to question the validity of our models and understand concepts such as construct validity, abstraction and aggregation.

We must also understand that measurements do not have validity, only our inferences or conclusions can have validity. Be mindful of the notion of truth and the need to be critical of our ability to know reality with certainty. This combines the affects of epistemological and ontological assumptions, causal inference, confirmation bias and many more factors that result in ill-informed conclusions. Combine qualitative and quantitative measures and triangulate to get a better handle on reality.

Managers need to think carefully about the potential side effects of measures. People tailor their behaviour to things that they are measured against and behaviours change in predictable ways to provide the answers management is looking for. Beware of these effects. Better yet…stop measuring testers in terms of test case production and bug counts!

It is imperative that metrics and measurement are used for inquiry vs control. Remember to use numbers to illustrate stories; watch out for numbers becoming placeholders for stories. Stop providing metrics and measurements solely in the written form, delivered by email, with the hope your stakeholders are drawing meaningful conclusions from them. Establish regular opportunities to have conversations with your stakeholders about your testing efforts and the value of your team within the organization. Educate your stakeholders on the importance of discussion to provide the rich descriptive detail that sets quantitative results into their human context.

I am hopeful you will check out my presentation Deception Dangers of the Numbers Game. I encourage you to research these dangers and strengthen your understanding of how we deceive ourselves. At the end of my presentation you will find three pages of great references to use as a starting point. I also welcome the chance to chat on Skype @lmmckee or Twitter @lynn_mckee.

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By Lynn McKee, March 14, 2011 11:26 am

The 2nd annual POST Workshop wrapped up this past weekend and it was another great success!

Last year Nancy Kelln and I hosted our first ever POST Workshop on the theme “Perspectives on Your Most Powerful Testing Skill”. The workshop was a great success with fantastic feedback from our attendees who came from across Canada. In the months leading up to and including the weekend we learned a great deal about hosting such a workshop. As this year’s event neared we were excited but thankfully much less apprehensive about how the event would unfold.

Nancy and I are very thankful to all of this year’s attendees who shared their time, energy, and valuable perspectives on our theme “Test Estimation: The Facts and Fictions”. Each presentation was insightful and there was excellent discussion throughout the workshop. We kept our amazing facilitator Sherry Heinze very busy tracking the flurry of colored facilitation cards! A special thank you to Malini Mohan Kumar who traveled all the way from India to attend the workshop.

I will be updating the POST Workshop website, www.postworkshop.ca, very shortly with a recap from the workshop including a collection of photos from this year’s event.

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By Lynn McKee, February 28, 2011 11:50 pm

Last November I had the fantastic opportunity to attend and present at my first EuroSTAR conference. I also received the chance to participate in the Testing Time Out videos.

As described on the EuroSTAR website, “A Testing Time Out is a short opinion piece from a software testing professional, in which they share their thoughts on what they believe to be the hot topics in the testing world. Lasting no longer than a coffee break, these presentations are designed to provide you with valuable insights and information from the comfort of your own desk.”

When I was first asked if I would be willing to create a short video my first thought was the fear of being on camera, following swiftly by the challenge of selecting a topic. When I arrived in Copenhagen for the conference I still had not decided what I would talk about. Thankfully by the last day of the conference when the videos were being filmed I knew I wanted to share — that each of us can advance the craft through our own learning and pursuit of excellence.

My presentation had been “Inspiring Passion in Testing Teams” and one of my focal points was sharing the diverse learning opportunities available for our craft. Throughout the year I had delivered the same presentation at three conferences plus wrote an article on the same theme. I was surprised by the number of people who contacted me to say they simply had never even considered some of the learning options I was mentioning. They also shared another prevailing issue which was a sense of complacency. This seemed to stem predominately from folks who had assumed they had it all figured out and stuck to their old bag of tricks, or folks who were tired of trying to advocate for better testing within their organizations and resigned themselves to conforming. They expressed a renewed sense of energy and passion from the possibilities I had shared with them.

When I sat down for the video my head seemed to drain of all coherent thoughts. I was lucky to have a second chance at the video as the recording equipment had a minor hiccup shortly into the first take. The break provided me with the chance to recollect my thoughts and articulate them more clearly…or at least I hope it did…I still haven’t watched the whole thing! I find it hard to watch myself although I know there is great learning in doing so.

Participating in the Testing Time Out videos has been a great experience. I am hopeful EuroSTAR will offer this great opportunity to folks again at EuroSTAR 2011 and I encourage anyone passionate about something to share their message.

Read more about the Testing Time Out videos on the EuroSTAR website here. In the coming weeks you will be able to view videos by Markus Gartner, Michael Bolton, Clive Bates, Tim Koomen and Paul Gerrard. You can view my Testing Time Out video here.

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By Lynn McKee, January 26, 2011 10:45 am

In June of last year I blogged here sharing that I had created a resource page on my website with a listing of mnemonics. I spent many hours and was excited to find a sizable list at the time. It seems the software testing community has been busy since then crafting new mnemonics and revising existing ones. After tweeting about Nancy’s new SPIES mnemonic last night I received a bunch of emails and tweets with updates to the listing.

WWWWWH/KE
Requirements Analysis and Feedback Mnemonic by Darren McMillan
Who, What, When, Where, Why, How, Knowledge, Experience
Read More on the WWWWWH/KE mnemonic

I SLICED UP FUN
Mobile Application Testing Mnemonic by Jonathon Kohl
Inputs, Store, Location, Interactions/Interruptions, Communications, Ergonomics, Data, Usability, Platform, Function, User Scenarioes, Network
Read More on the I SLICED UP FUN mnemonic

PAOLO
Device Orientation Testing Mnemonic by Maik Nogens
Portrait, Audio, Objects, Landscape, Overlay
Read More on the PAOLO mnemonic

SEED NATALI
GUI Step Automation Mnemonic by Albert Gareev
Synchronize, Exists, Enabled, Displayed, Number of Arguments, Type of Arguments, Log, Investigate
Read More on the SEED NATALI mnemonic

B GRADED SCRIPTTS
Test Strategy Mnemonic by Jared Quinert
Budget, Goals, Risks, Approach, Dependencies, Environments, Data, Stakeholders, Coverage Models, Resources, Information, Prioritization, Tradeoffs, Tooling, Schedule
Read More on the B GRADED SCRIPTTS mnemonic

SPIFFy
Microtest Mnemonic by Industrial Logic
Small, Precise, Isolated, Fast, Frequently Run
Read More on the SPIFFy mnemonic

I also found out that the PROOF mnemonic by Jon Bach had been revised by Henrik Andersson to PROOFLA.
PROOFLA
Session Based Test Reporting Mnemonic by Jon Bach and revised by Henrik Andersson
Past, Results, Obstacles, Outlook, Feelings
Read more on the original and revised PROOFLA mnemonic

Check out the Mnemonics resource page for the full listing of software testing related mnemonics. Let me know if have a mnemonic I do not have listed.

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By Lynn McKee, January 25, 2011 10:22 pm

I am excited to share the latest addition to the mnemonic listing on my Resources page. My colleague and friend Nancy Kelln recently posted “International SPIES in Testing” sharing her new mnemonic SPIES for testing internationalization.

SPIES stands for:

• Special Characters
• Pages & Content
• Integrations
• Error Messages
• Special Formats

Read Nancy’s post here for more details on the SPIES mnemonic and insights on the complexities of internationalization testing.

Check out the Mnemonics Listing for a listing of software testing related mnemonics.