What could possibly happen to Matt Heusser that he wouldn’t blog for a couple weeks?
Well, try the flu – which found it’s way into my lungs and became bronchitis.
After a week or so, the bronchitis was gone yet I still could not breathe (easily). It turns out my lungs were not recovering – they remained inflamed – which means they could not contain enough oxygen. My breathing was basically ragged, shallow, and constant, and I became winded walking up a set of stairs.
As you can guess, I let Creative Chaos languish a bit.
So, what’s happened since?
(1) I’ve given more thought to “what’s an SDET” – details to come
(2) My copy of the the March issue of Software Test & Performance Magazine came in the mail. Unfortunately, the newest issue isn’t yet available for download on the web. Expect a link in a few days. I’m particularly proud of our column on web performance management – I think we nailed it.
(3) The second person has passed my test challenge – Laura Vayansky. Congratulations Laura!
(4) I’ve been having an extended email conversation with Janet Gregory, one of the co-authors of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams. One of Janet’s concern is that testers are too-often viewed as, in her words “second class citizens.” I’ve been thinking about it, and I have at least one sure-fire way for testers to make themselves first-class citizens, without having “executive buy-in” or “being involved early in the process” or even any formal “process improvement.” Wait for it tomorrow!
Good to have you back Matt
Looking forward to tomorrows post !!
Quote “I’ve been thinking about it, and I have at least one sure-fire way for testers to make themselves first-class citizens, without having “executive buy-in” or “being involved early in the process” or even any formal “process improvement.” Wait for it tomorrow!”
Can I have your one sure-fire way for test to make themselves first-class citizen now, Matt? I couldn’t find your answer in your second blog 🙂
That blog post is three years old, Reno – You may just have problems navigating the blog! But I do remember the trick. Simply put, it is to get to that point where you can /predict/ a bug. In other words, when the dev is yelling at you that he unit tested it, the Project Manager is pushing you to be ‘done’, the VP of products walks over and asks “what’s the holdup?” — at that moment, you say “I think this is going to cause a crash” and prepare to click submit. The Developer laughs, the PM says quit worrying, the VP of products says it’s a critical feature … and you do get it to crash. All of sudden, people will see the value — that you can figure out things others can’t, and they’ll start to ask you to predict failure modes on software. All of a sudden, you’ll be invited into the room earlier.