Perhaps the most influential, and most humbling work in my career has been on Clean Code, by Robert C. Martin, where I was “just” a reviewer. Separating software along clean lines of interface, adding the ability to swap parts out, combined with clean implementation and unit tests allow teams to make truly maintainable software. Despite […]
The Next Chapter
Nine and a half years ago I wrote a blog post, offering a black-belt test challenge. Markus Gaertner, who I knew of and was about to know well, got heavily involved and asked about the system – what does it mean to be a black-belt exactly? I got my belt from JCPenny, so Miagi-Do was […]
Vote For Matt – Please?
After a five-year absence from the board I have decided to run again for the board of directors of the Association for Software Testing (AST). As part of that process, I dashed off a reply to a six-question interview that included a biography. That questionnaire was pretty good, but I wanted to expand on my […]
Do you even (need to) automate the GUI?
Over the past eighteen months, the single greatest lesson I have learned about software was in the gym. That is, the human body works as a system. When you lift a heavy box, every muscle group in the chain lifts the box. The best way to strengthen those muscles is to work the body as […]
What We’ve Been Up To At Excelon
It’s been four months since our last blog post. Over breakfast this morning, David Hoppe suggested it might just be time for us to check in again. Matt Heusser’s consulting trips recently brought him to Erlangen, Germany (Where our picture comes from), to work with Seimens, along with a trip to Columbus, Ohio and another […]
GitHub is for everybody! Get Started with this software testing must-have.
Version Control is essential in the world of software testing. If you ever wanted to learn a free, modern version control system – at least enough to get started – really fast, well, today is your lucky day. I seriously today, right after I click save. I’m doing a free online presentation called GitHub Is […]
More Events and Conference Coverage
It’s been a whirlwind few weeks, with client work, the Agile Alliance Technical Conference in Boston, then, right on it’s heels, Agile and Beyond in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And, of course, there are articles. The Technical Conference Coverage piece is not out yet, but the folks at TechBeacon have published my Top Five Takeaways From […]
Three Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Two new things, and an idea I’d like to explore … 1) For a second year, TestRetreat will be a formal part of the program for the Conference for the Association for Software Testing, CAST2017. Held at the Gaylord Opryland Resort on August 19th, the one-day open space event is a hundred dollars, less if […]
Road Trips and Hitchhikers
The Agile Alliance Technical Conference, or AATC, will be April 19-21 at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, MA. Of course, Excelon will be there. And, for once, we’re going to drive. That means a road trip from West Michigan. We could go through Detroit, Kitchener, Rochester/Albany/Buffalo. Or we could take the southern route, […]
Excelon Acquires Justin Rohrman’s Company
Press releases about acquisitions tend to leave out the important bits. They make it sound like the acquisition was a magical, overnight event. They leave out the story, even the why of the acquisition. And they commit the worst sin of press releases — they are boring. Let’s not do that. Instead, I’d like to […]
New Bloggin’ on Visual Testing
For years we’ve pointed out that unless you think of the check up-front, tools that drive the user interface will never find certain kinds of problems. That is, the kind of problems where you instinctively know it is a problem, and respond “huh, that looks odd …” Then Moshe Millman gave us a call about […]
Some New DevOps Materials
I’m working on some new DevOps materials which I would like to link to; I figured a safe place to put them was a blog post. The first, and probably more valuable, is a simple boardgame that demonstrates DevOps concepts. At this point I would call it an advanced beta; the one thing I am […]
A Better Thing To Vote For!
Our managing director, Matt Heusser, has been nominated for the Agile Awards again this year – this time in three categories. Most Valuable Agile Professional, Person Who Has Done Most to Promote Agile, and, of course, the one we were expecting, Most Popular Online Contributor. Voting is free from any business email address. The event […]
What We’ve been up to At Excelon
There’s been quite a dustup in the twitterverse and the blogosphere over the last couple of weeks. The dustup includes attack, defense, counter-attack and counter-defense. At Excelon, we’ve mostly stayed out of those public debates. Instead, we’ve been quietly working on our own, doing things we didn’t want to announce until they were ready. We […]
More on the “Attack on the Testing Role”
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 […]
Make 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” […]
“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 […]
Test 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. […]
TestRetreat 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, […]
Valid 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 […]