About a month ago I took a slide from James Bach’s Orcas Island Training and posted it to twitter. The internet became very upset, I suspect more from the writing style than the content. As the person who posted a single slide without context, I felt obligated to explain and wrote up a 1,600 word […]
Read MoreMake Software Testing Great … Again?
Yesterday, as I was attending James Bach’s course reinventing testers, I took a picture of a slide that I knew would be contentious in the Software Testing world … and still tweeted it. The responses were as acrimonious as the original text, and my response, which boiled down to “hey man, it’s not my slide” […]
Read More“Must have Agile/Scrum Experience”
Recently, someone asked me what “Must have Agile/Scrum Experience” in job descriptions and advertisements actually means. It got me thinking, so I wrote it up for Medium.com What’s medium, you ask? It’s a relatively new website designed for shorter, more personal writing. There are no ads on it, writers are not compensated; I’m using it […]
Read MoreTest Estimation Hacks — Plus An Interview!
If you can’t make QualityJam, the QASymphony user conference next week, you can still listen to Matt and Justin in the webinar “Test Estimation Hacks“, the week after, April 21st, from 2-3PM Eastern. We’re especially pleased to say that the webinar is about actually estimating the test process – it is not a sales presentation. […]
Read MoreTestRetreat at CAST2016
It’s been four years since the Association for Software Testing ran Test Coach Camp as a two-day pre-conference event. Limited to thirty people and by-application, we ran the event using Open-Space Technology, with the attendees proposing and running the sessions they were interested. AST supported the event with a grant to cover food and facilities, […]
Read MoreValid Measures for Mere Humans
“Metrics that are not valid are dangerous” – One of the principles of Context-Driven Testing In Action Over the weekend, I got in another silly argument over the internet. Martin Burns referenced a Rally whitepaper, claiming that teams that used task hours and story points had 250% more quality than teams doing #NoEstimates. At first […]
Read MoreMaking QA Strategic – Let’s Get Real
This February, for the third time in a row, I made the trek from West Michigan to Columbus, OH, for the QA Or The Highway Conference. The show maxed out the facility, and featured keynotes from Karen Johnson, now at Salesforce.com, and Bramha Ghosh of Google. The pleasant surprise for me was the debate on […]
Read MoreWhen to lie on your resume
If you have reason to, please leave it in the comments. I’m afraid I can’t think of one at the moment.
Read MoreNYC Trip – And Periscope
I’m headed to New York this week, for a client visit and also to attend NYC Testers, which seems to be suddenly taking advantage of the lots-of-tech-in-a-small-area that is New York City. Over the next year or so, I’m going to make an effort to get out to more meetups; we’re trying to put some […]
Read MoreWe’re going to Orcas Island
“The shoemakers children have no shoes” may be a common expression, but it is common because it is true enough, enough of the time. The mechanic’s car is a beater that goes without repair, the doctor refuses to get help about his back, the trainers and consultants don’t pay for training. That might be true […]
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