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By Lynn McKee, May 4, 2010 12:01 am

My passion is in building high performing software quality and testing teams. I have found that successful and highly regarded teams are comprised of individuals passionate about their professional craft. Establishing a continuous learning environment is key to inspiring and motivating your teams. The following are some of the focuses I incorporate in the learning and development of my teams.

Advocate for Testing Within Your Organization
Advocating for software testing within your organization is fundamental as a test lead or manager. In fact, it is important for all testers to champion their profession. As it relates to training, it is important for management to understand the value of your team in order for you to secure appropriate budget and support for team development.

Establish a Continuous Learning Mindset
Our industry is constantly changing and it is imperative to maintain a commitment to the training and development of our teams. Continuous learning encourages an awareness of industry trends, provides a focus on continuous improvement, inspires personal growth, and through creative thinking it advances the craft of software testing. Ideally you will be able to establish the continuous learning mindset for your team, and more importantly instill a lifelong commitment to learning for each individual. Ultimately each individual needs to take ownership for their professional development.

Provide Frequent Learning Opportunities
Frequent training and development opportunities are important to remain current with the industry and to sustain the learning momentum. Being mindful of potential budget constraints, there are numerous low cost options to consider incorporating.

Incorporate Diverse Learning Opportunities
There is a tremendous number of learning opportunities for software testers. It is important to incorporate diverse opportunities in alignment with the organizational needs and the skill sets of your team. Consider including a variety of the following options:

• Courses
• Conferences & Workshops
• Organizations & Associations *
• Webinars & Interviews *
• Books, Magazines, Newsletters *
• Discussion Forums & Blogs *
• Internal Cross Training & Lunch and Learn Sessions *
• Networking, Networking, Networking *

In defining your team’s training and development plan, be sure to emphasize the options highlighted with an ‘*’. These options are typically low cost or free. From my experience, actively engaging in a few insightful organizations, magazines, books, discussion forums, blogs and by networking has the potential for greater learning than more traditional options. That said, there are some excellent courses and conferences available. Research the options and leverage your network for recommendations.

Often there are internal training options that can be considered. Leverage the strengths of your current team through cross training and hosting lunch and learn sessions. Encourage the sharing of new ideas by team members who attend courses and conferences through white papers or informal presentations.

Networking is a powerful tool for learning. Extend your network of software testers and interesting minds to discuss and constructively debate ideas. Challenge your team members to seek out perspectives that differ from their own. If there is the opportunity for team members to attend courses and conferences, place networking at the top of their “to do” list. Lessons learned from networking are just as valuable as the material covered during the conference sessions. Additionally, the industry relationships that can be developed at these kinds of events can be invaluable for future discussions or support.

Do not discount the online social networking options such as Twitter. If you are selective in the individuals, lists or tags you follow, there is a wealth of valuable information. In fact, if you follow many of the industry leaders you will quickly find that the volume of insightful information can be overwhelming. These folks are constantly tweeting about new articles, blogs, interviews, courses, conferences and challenges related to the craft of software testing.

Also consider sources not directly related to software testing and find synergy in the concepts. Michael Bolton is excellent at this. He finds synergy in everything from books such as Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, to theatre and music.

Consider referring to my Resources page for a listing of Associations, Conferences, Workshops, Courses, Books and People (many with blogs) you may be interested in learning from.

Place an Emphasis on Integrating the Learning
Knowledge and skills are truly gained when new concepts are applied and integrated into our existing frameworks. The statistics on learning retention rates are staggering. The following statistics are from http://www.tenouk.com/learningretentionrate.html:

Be mindful of your organization’s context and quality needs. Practices that work well in one organization are not guaranteed to fit in your organization. Consider identifying appropriate pilot projects to incorporate new concepts, techniques, tools, etc. on your teams. Continually assess the integration of a new concept and adapt or drop it as appropriate.

Provide Coaching and Mentoring Opportunities
Many times as leads and managers we adopt roles as teachers, coaches or mentors to share our knowledge, perspectives and passion for software testing. Ensure coaching and mentoring opportunities are provided for your team members. Often times the coaching may need to be from an external source such as a consultant to assist with implementing new concepts.

Set a Positive Example
My final thoughts are to be active in your own continuous learning and share your excitement. Enthusiasm is energy that easily spreads from one person to the next.

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By Lynn McKee, April 28, 2010 10:48 am

The April 2010 issue of the Test & QA Report by STP Collaborative is available. I am very excited to have my article “Unconscious Limitations to Your Testing” published in this issue. This is my first publication with the STP Collaborative.

The Software Testing & Performance Collaborative “…serves the global software testing and performance community, providing more than 50,000 software professionals with information, education, training, and professional networking opportunities.” On the STP Collaborative website, www.stpcollaborative.com, you can sign up for two different newsletters in addition to their magazine. There is also an extensive Knowledge Centre available online.

Additionally, the STP Collaborative hosts a yearly conference called STPCON. The STPCON 2010 Conference is October 18 – 21 and will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The call for proposals to present at the conference closes on May 5th, 2010. See the Call for Proposals web page for more details.

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By Lynn McKee, April 26, 2010 2:54 pm

The following is my article “Unconscious Limitations to Your Testing”. This article will be published in the upcoming STP Collaborative newsletter.

Unconscious Limitations to Your Testing

Testers actively seek out the limitations to their testing efforts. They evaluate the risks, constraints and dependencies across the scope, schedule and budget; then actively plan and strategize to mitigate those limitations to test meaningfully. When hands on with the system they incorporate diverse testing approaches and consider the complexities and risks of the system under test to gather as much quality related information as possible. Despite well intentioned efforts, many testers unconsciously limit their testing efforts. By being aware of the various traps testers can fall into we can start to understand how these traps can be avoided.

The Industry Norms Trap
Norm’s are the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit. The software testing industry has many norms that testers may simply accept, limiting the value of testing and the role of the tester. Testers need to challenge themselves to look beyond what they have learned and generally accepted to be their role and the role of testing. Be willing to step outside the box and focus on how the increase the value of testing and embrace the successes and failures that will come with doing so.

The Personal Bias Trap
Bias is a term used to describe a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result, when the tendency interferes with the ability to be impartial, unprejudiced, or objective[1]. Bias can be unconscious or conscious in awareness. Labelling someone as biased in some regard implies they need a greater or more flexible perspective in that area, or that they need to consider more deeply the context. Testers can be biased toward particular methodologies, strategies and tools. Their bias can limit the effectiveness of their testing efforts by preventing them from considering the project context and identifying the “best fit” approach. Broaden your perspective by actively following the industry trends and experimenting with new ideas and techniques.

The Best Practice Trap
Management pressure can often influence a tester’s desire to approach their testing efforts with the industry “best practices” to get the job done. The challenge here is that the best practice at Company A working on Project X may or may not have any relevance to what would work best for your current project. Keep abreast of industry trends, however, don’t limit and potentially destruct the testing effort by selecting and forcing the implementation of a perceived best practice that might cost your project significant amounts of money and time while reaping limited or worse non-existent benefits.

The Misguided Conclusions Trap
With the onslaught of information in any given day it is easy to conceive how testers may be inclined to take at least some of that information as first hand and infallible. Perhaps the information just seems sound and logical. Conversely perhaps the individual providing the information is in a position of perceived or real authority and/or expertise. The challenge in these situations it that the tester may fall into the trap of assuming the information does not require any further vetting. Testers need to be mindful to always consider the potential that the information is incomplete and would benefit from a line of professional questioning.

The Assumptions Trap
Assumptions are a dangerous thing. We limit our testing efforts every time we stop our thinking process based on our interpretation of the information. This danger sneaks up and catches us even when we believe we are on guard for it. Be wary the next time you think you have “got it” in discussions, meetings, document review, and definitely when testing. Consider if you fully understand the context and if the depth of your understanding is sufficient for the testing effort. Conversely be cautions that you could expend hours of time and energy vetting your interpretation of something with little return on your investment. Realizing that it is not practical to exhaust your understanding, the goal is to be more conscious of when you are choosing to stop thinking about something and move along. Consider the risks of going with your “assumed understanding”.

The Déjà Vu Trap
Many times on projects testers get a real sense of déjà vu. They are lulled into a false sense of security that they know exactly how they need to think, act and communicate based on past experiences for this type of situation. The problem is that rarely are products, business domains, customers, etc so similar that the test effort wouldn’t benefit from some fresh thinking and possibly a new approach. Testers need to challenge themselves to understand the context and uniqueness of this project and to tailor the testing effort accordingly.

Avoiding the Traps
As humans, there is no way for testers to fully prevent themselves from unconsciously limiting their testing efforts. However, by being aware of these potential traps testers may be able identify their own tendencies. Being mindful there are definitely appropriate situations to limit the thinking and a clear indication of when to just move on. The key is to consciously make the decision, then recognize and acknowledge any risks or limitations that could be placed on the testing effort.

These and other unconscious traps can be the greatest risks to your testing effort. In fact, it is not unreasonable to consider adding yourself to the Risks section of your next test strategy. Having a keen awareness of unconscious limitations is the first step in mitigating the risk of your own thinking process.

-[1] Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias

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By Lynn McKee, April 26, 2010 2:36 pm

The following is my article “The ‘Obvious’ Dangers on Your Project Teams”. This article will be published in the upcoming T.E.S.T Online newsletter.

The “Obvious” Dangers on Your Project Teams
In life some things seem very obvious. When you get in your car, you should put on your seat belt. If you are going to be in the sunshine, you should wear sunscreen. And if you have kids, you are going to have a fair number of sleepless nights. Right? Perhaps at first glance these examples may seem obvious, however, with some further thought it becomes apparent they may not be. There are a variety of reasons why these examples are less obvious for many individuals including cultural, geographical, environmental, personality, and perception differences.

How obvious are things in the workplace and on our project teams? Within our fast paced, ever changing industry of software development, believing anything is obvious is a real danger. Labelling something as obvious implies it is readily apparent, easily perceived and understood. Consider the following examples that are often dangerously deemed to be obvious:

• Terms and Terminology
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Best Practices
• Best Fit Tools or Technologies
• Complexity or Simplicity of a Technology, Tool, or Technical Design
• Complexity or Simplicity of Testing

Organizations, departments, projects, teams and individuals are unique. The context of each situation is unique. When you consider that each situation is unique then combine that with the complexities of communication, there are bound to be “obvious” disconnects.

Perhaps one of the most fundamental challenges is that all forms of communication leave a lot of room for interpretation. Let’s take the Get me a Rock game as an example. In this exercise an individual is asked to “…get me a rock”. Upon retrieving a rock, the participant is informed “…that isn’t a rock, go get me a rock!”. After several attempts the participant begins to look for clarification and specifications in order to successfully retrieve an appropriate rock. In communication, things are seldom as obvious as they appear. A rock is a rock, or is it?

Another significant challenge is in recognizing differences in individual perspective and situational context. I attended a conference session in 2009 titled “User Acceptance Testing: A Context Driven Perspective”, presented by Michael Bolton. In the session the attendees formed groups of four and captured their ideas on index cards in response to “What is User Acceptance Testing (UAT)?”. The groups also brainstormed definitions for “Users”, “Stakeholders”, “Acceptance Criteria” and other industry related terms. Like many attendees I assuredly shared my definitions within my group, confident in my understanding of these industry recognized terms.

By the end of our brainstorming the walls were covered in index cards. To my surprise there were an astounding number of diverse definitions for each of the terms. With this insight I had my “ah ha” moment grasping the intent of the exercise. Despite our initial response to the question, it became apparent that a term so commonly used in industry such as UAT could be meaningless without context. I now approach each of my projects and colleagues with the awareness that my perspective on UAT may a) differ from the other individuals of the project and b) differ from needs of this project. With this insight, I encourage the team members to collaborate to establish an understanding of UAT and other terminology that is specific to the project’s context.

There are many dangers in assuming our perspectives are understood and shared by others. Be wary of expecting others to have the same understanding, even for the things that seem incredibly obvious to you. What is obvious to one person may be an absolutely foreign concept to another. Sometimes disconnects are purely in the terminology and the individual has a solid understanding of the fundamental concept. The first step is to be mindful of the context of the situation and recognize things may not be as obvious as they seem. With a heightened awareness to this risk, you can actively seek confirmation of a common understanding in order to meaningfully communicate.

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By Lynn McKee, April 26, 2010 1:46 pm

The following is the article “Place Networking at the Top of Your 2010 Conference ‘To-Do’ List” co-authored by Nancy Kelln and myself. This article has been published in the QUEST 2010 Magazine and is soon to be published the upcoming June issue of the T.E.S.T Online Magazine.

Software testing conferences are intended to be highly valuable, offering numerous sessions, workshops, keynote presentations, etc on new trends, tools, and techniques. There is also great potential for networking with peers and rubbing elbows with some of the industry’s thought leaders. How many of us are taking advantage of this networking opportunity? For many, the short breaks between sessions, lunch hour meal and evening socialising events are our primary opportunities to check on emails, make important calls, or just take a mental break. The concept of “networking” sounds great but just doesn’t manage to happen.

For some, the thought of socializing can be intimidating especially for those who are not comfortable with meeting new folks and generating conversation. Although it may take you out of your comfort zone, the chance to network should be considered a top priority as the lessons that can be learned are just as valuable as the material covered during the conference sessions.

What are some of the great benefits of networking?

Aside from the chance to expand your ever growing list of connections on LinkedIn, there are some real tangible benefits that could shift or dramatically change your approach to software testing. We have found some of our great takeaways and “ah-ha” moments have come from thought provoking conversations with conference peers and presenters. Many times we have walked away thinking “…hmmm I never thought of it that way….” and find ourselves mulling it over then finding a great opportunity to apply the learning in our own professional day to day life. Conversations outside of actual presentations tend to allow for more extensive questions and comments around “Well how would that work when…?”, “We tried that and then this happened…”, “That worked so well and here is where we are at now…” segue ways.

Conference networking can happen in a variety of ways. We have found there are three main areas conference networking tends to focus around; Session Specific, Presenter Specific and Opportunistic.

Session Specific Networking
Session Specific Networking is conversation inspired by the content of a specific conference track or workshop. Here are some ideas to generate conversation around session specific content:

• Make mental notes of the attendees of your session in order to follow up with them afterwards.
• Make notes around the session content…What fit for you? What didn’t fit for you? Find someone to discuss these with after the session.
• Hang around after the session to see what pockets of conversation generate and take the opportunity to listen in and participate where possible.
• During full or half day workshop sessions get involved in the interactive parts of the session. Use this time, not only contribute your thoughts, but start building relationships with others in the session.

Presenter Specific Networking
Presenter Specific Networking is conversation inspired by the individual delivering the session or workshop, etc. Here are some ideas to generate conversation with presenters:

• Prepare for the conference by reviewing the list of presenters and the topics they are covering to determine who may be of special interest for you to speak with.
• Identify these individuals and seek them out during breaks, lunches, etc. Note some presenters may not be around for the entire conference so it is best to follow up with them as soon as possible especially while your questions are fresh in your mind. Share your interest in discussing the topic further and most presenters are quite willing to sit down at some point during the remainder of the conference to chat with you.
• Identify other attendees who are also interested in the presenter or attendees who may already know the presenter and seek them out for conversation.
• Get the presenter’s email address or contact information. Some presenters will have this on their first or last page of the presentation, some may hand out business cards, or conference materials may also include contact information. Many presenters enjoy discussing their ideas with conference attendees even long after the conference has ended. This is great support for when you have tried some of the ideas and have run into roadblocks or raised further questions that you would like to discuss.

Opportunistic Networking
Opportunistic Networking is as its name implies, simply opportunistic. However, to maximize on this type of networking you need to actively seek out opportunities. Here are some ideas to help you in finding these opportunities:

• At breaks or lunches, free up time from your laptop or blackberry to join in conversations. You may have to start some of these discussions yourself.
• Mill around where the topics or individuals seem to be generating interest for you and even eavesdrop! Don’t be shy. If you see a group of individuals gathering and appearing to discuss topics, join the group and listen. These groups form very informally after sessions and welcome additional listeners or contributors to the group.
• Some conferences offer methods to generate topic specific networking such as table cards with topics labelled such as “Agile Testing” setting the tone for the conversation over lunch. Seek out such opportunities to participate in conversations that interest you. Again, don’t be afraid to start these discussions with your group.
• Head out for some socializing at the end of the day. This is a great way to meet other people in the industry. Although there may not be a lot of conference specific talk at these, it is a great way to add to your LinkedIn Connections list and build a list of people to reach out to in the future.

At this year’s conferences we encourage you to incorporate at least one networking suggestion from above. If you try you may surprise yourself with the results. The industry relationships that can be built at these kinds of events can be invaluable for future discussions or support.

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By Lynn McKee, April 26, 2010 1:27 pm

Last week I received exciting news that two of my articles will be published through T.E.S.T Online in the UK. T.E.S.T Online publishes the T.E.S.T magazine 4 times a year in addition to a regular newsletter.

The article “Place Networking at the Top of Your Conference ‘To-Do’ List” co-authored with Nancy Kelln has been accepted for the June issue of the T.E.S.T magazine. The article “The ‘Obvious’ Dangers on Your Project Teams” has been accepted for an upcoming newsletter. Once the publications are released I will provide an update on my blog.

Check out T.E.S.T Online on their website, www.testmagazine.co.uk.

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By Lynn McKee, April 13, 2010 1:46 pm

Have you ever considered writing articles to share your ideas and perspectives on the craft of software testing? Perhaps you currently blog and are looking to share your ideas with a broader audience? Maybe you are a regular contributor of articles to various magazines and are interested in new publication options.

A few short months ago I developed my blog and began contemplating writing articles. This is still a very new experience for me and I have a great deal to learn. I have recently realized there is a much broader range of magazine and publication options than I had previously realized. Here is a listing of online organizations that offer publications:

Canada

• Toronto Association of Systems & Software Quality (TASSQ) – http://www.tassq.org

United States

• Sticky Minds – http://www.stickyminds.com
• STP Collaborative – http://www.stpcollaborative.com
• Software Testing Club – http://www.softwaretestingclub.com
• Cutter IT Journal – http://www.cutter.com/itjournal.html
• Methods & Tools – http://www.methodsandtools.com
• Automated Testing Institute – http://www.automatedtestinginstitute.com
• BetaSoft – http://www.betasoft.com
• Agile Journal – http://www.agilejournal.com
• American Society for Quality (ASQ) – http://www.asq.org
• Software Magazine – http://www.softwaremag.com

International

• Test Magazine – http://www.testmagazine.co.uk
• Professional Tester – http://www.professionaltester.com
• Test Experience – http://www.testingexperience.com
• Test Focus – http://www.testfocus.co.za
• Software Testing Help – http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/
• STeP-IN Forum – http://www.stepinforum.org/
• Quality Assurance Institute (QAI) – http://www.qaiglobalinstitute.com

Many of the organizations offer multiple publication options including magazines and newsletters both in print and online. The guidelines for contributions vary by organization so be sure to check out the requirements.

If you know of a great publication option that is not on this list, please let me know.