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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 24, 2011 2:25 pm

This week I realized it has been ten years since my passion for testing was ignited. My career started sixteen years ago as a programmer working on telecommunications software. I quickly moved into a leadership role and was overseeing our collective product life cycle from the RFP stage with potential buyers through implementation and support. I enjoyed six years with the same company and gained tremendous insight on the analysis, design, development, testing, implementation and support of enterprise scale, integrated applications. On a whim in 2001 I decided to check out an opportunity in another city.

During the interview it became apparent that they had a serious challenge with their testing team. They were projecting significant growth to support the multi-million dollar project and needed an experienced manager to take on the team. Although this was not what I had applied for I began to seriously consider it. At this point I envisioned the greatest benefits of this opportunity to be gaining experience in a new company, in accepting my first contract role, and in the overall complexity and scale of the initiative. Never at any point in time was I overly excited about the prospect of leading a whole team of testers.

It is important to clarify that up to this point in my career testing was something the programmers were responsible for. Having programmed a great deal early in my career I knew this was an important responsibility and I had always taken great pride in the quality of my work. However, I had never worked with anyone who viewed software testing as a profession. I decided to take Test Manager opportunity and my perspective on software testing was about to be transformed.

Projections for the size of the testing team began to grow and finally settled on 30+ members. To help establish the practices of the group a local consultant specializing in testing practices was hired to partner with me. In my early meetings with the consultant I was impressed with her passion and realized how extensive the field of software testing was. In the months that followed I was surprised by the extent of the challenges facing the testing effort; from tester’s skills to management perceptions. My immersion into software testing ignited a passion for advocacy that I could never have foreseen.

For the past 10 years I have focused on the leadership and management of software testing teams and improving organizations ability to deliver valuable software. I have experienced the gamut from small to large scale organizations, minimum to extensive support for software testing, 1 person to 40+ person test teams, and waterfall to agile practices. A great deal of my energy is expended on the advocacy of context relevant software testing and quality management practices. The majority of my advocacy has been within organizations and my local IT community until 2009 when I began presenting at conferences in North America and eventually internationally.

I remain as passionate as ever about the craft of software testing and have an over arching passion for software quality management as espoused by Jerry Weinberg. My journey has been filled with immense learning and the opportunity to meet some of the incredible voices in the software testing community. I am excited to see where the craft of software testing goes in the next 10 years.

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By Lynn McKee, January 19, 2011 9:27 pm

Yesterday I overheard a tester being told they need to “Think Outside the Box”. We often find this phrase being referred to when we talk about people who we believe excel in their roles. For example, “Jane is such an excellent tester, she really knows how to think outside the box!”. I find this to be very interesting as when you get right down to it no one seems to be able to define how someone should go about thinking outside the box.

For simplicity I pulled Wikipedia’s definition and found:

“Thinking Outside the Box is to think differently, unconventionally or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel, creative and smart thinking. This is sometimes called a process of lateral thought. To think outside the box is to look further and try not to think of the obvious things, but try and think beyond that.

Hmmm, I find myself still scratching my head as I wrote an article last year on how dangerous the word obvious can be. If to think outside the box is think of things that are NOT obvious it begs the question…obvious to whom? When a person shares their brilliant idea it may appear to have come from “out of the box” thinking; however it may in fact have come from “in the box”, obvious thinking for them. Thinking outside the box for me is not going to produce remotely the same results as someone else. So what box are we trying to think outside of?

I believe that to think outside the box is really to understand the confines of your current thinking. Each of us has our own consciously and unconsciously defined box that our thinking exists within. These boxes are framed by our cultural, intellectual, geographical, environmental and personality differences and further shaped by our life experiences. To think outside of our own box requires us to learn a more about how and why we think the way we do.

Have you ever examined your thinking process to understanding the point in time in which you stopped thinking? I find it interesting to consider the reasons why we settle on that decision. I like to challenge my thinking using Jerry Weinberg’s Rule of Three: Before responding to any one interpretation of the clues, think of at least two other possible meanings. This can be useful to see the many ways we may be limiting our thinking process.

Thinking about thinking is known as “Metacognition”. Metacognition refers to having knowledge concerning your own cognitive processes. I have found understanding how and why I think the way I do about something to bring valuable insights. It allows me to challenge myself when I better understand the ways I am likely to be led astray or hindered with my own thinking.

Improving your ability to think outside the box is about having the desire to understand what intrinsically and extrinsically motivated you to arrive at your current perspective, and to willingness to extend the possibilities. You may just have the next revolutionary idea … if you think outside your own box.

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By Lynn McKee, January 18, 2011 10:20 am

I just posted a blog entry sharing the news about Gil Broza’s upcoming interview with Johanna Rothman. As an advocate of the Gil’s Spot On interviews I often blog about them to help spread the news. I am especially excited about this month’s special guest.

Johanna is a much sought-after speaker and consultant, working with people to improve how they manage their product development. I started following Johanna’s work in 2006 after attending the Better Software Conference in Las Vegas. At the time I had tried registering for the “Behind Closed Doors – Secrets of Great Management” tutorial with Johanna and Esther Derby and was disheartened to learn it was sold out. Dang it!

Since 2006 I have really enjoyed Johanna’s blogs Managing Product Development and Hiring Technical People. I have also read Johanna’s book Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (co-authored with Esther Derby) and found it really useful. I wrote a blog several months back on the book that you can read here. Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Johanna in person at the AYE Conference and attending several of her excellent sessions. Johanna’s style for sharing her knowledge and experience really resonated with me and I had many fantastic takeaways.

I really encourage you to attend this upcoming interview for the chance to spend some valuable time with Johanna and Gil. Read more about the interview on my my blog post here. You can read more about Johanna including a listing of her books and articles on her website at www.jrothman.com or follow her on Twitter @johannarothman.

Gil is hosting an excellent series of “Spot On” interviews with guest experts every 2 months. I recommend you check out his “Spot On” series and his “Q & Agile” podcasts on his website at www.3pvantage.com. You can also find Gil on Twitter @gilbroza.

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By Lynn McKee, January 18, 2011 9:16 am

3P Vantage Agile Coaching, founded by Gil Broza, is bringing another industry expert to you! Every two months Gil is hosting “Spot On” interviews. This interview series is intended to open new horizons for IT professionals interested in effective software development. The selected guest experts, while not strictly promoting Agile methods, teach and consult in related areas. Their specialties overlap and align with Agile; like Gil, they promote effective, humane software development.

The interviews are 45 – 60 minutes long and are free to attend. You should attend if:

• you love learning new perspectives and ideas about your work
• your haven’t been lucky enough to meet the expert at work or at a conference
• you could use help with your professional development

Gil has been bringing pragmatic, effective Agile software development to companies for almost a decade. Relying on his vast experience in programming, management and organizational development, he helps professionals implement non-dogmatic Agility that truly works. Beyond teaching skills and methods, Gil helps people overcome limiting habits, fears of change, blind spots and unhelpful beliefs.

“Agile Management Beyond The Single Project”
Date: January 24, 2011
Time: 2:00pm EDT / 12:00pm MDT
Register: Registration Link

January’s guest expert is Johanna Rothman. Johanna is a much sought-after speaker and consultant, working with people to improve how they manage their product development — to maximize management and technical staff productivity and to improve product quality. Johanna is the author of several books:

• Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
• The 2008 Jolt-award winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management
• Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management (with Esther Derby)
• Hiring the Best Knowledge Workers, Techies & Nerds: The Secrets and Science of Hiring Technical People

Johanna writes columns on “extreme project management” for Gantthead, and writes two blogs on her website, www.jrothman.com. She is also a host of the Amplifying Your Effectiveness (AYE) conference.

The topic will be “Agile Management Beyond The Single Project” and the interview will cover:

• balancing keep-the-lights-on projects with growth projects
• who’s responsible for managing the portfolio, and the qualities they need
• politics in portfolio management
• making portfolio schedule promises when the underlying projects are Agile

The interview will take place on January 24 at 2:00pm EDT / 12:00 MDT. Register to secure your spot. As an added bonus you can submit questions for Johanna and Gil when you register. If you are unable to attend the call you can register and receive the recording afterwords.

Read more about the “Spot On” interview with Johanna Rothman here.