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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Making 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 […]
When 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.
NYC 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 […]
We’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 […]
What have we been up to?
It’s been a busy few months at Excelon. The New York Trip, a brief European tour, Justin went to Boston for STPCon, thanksgiving, lots of writing – actually lots and […]
TestBash NYC
Testbash New York is November 5-6th . Sadly, it doesn’t look like Excelon will be sending anyone. We won’t have any speakers, no table or booth. And yet we are […]
Interviews Up!
I’ve had a fair number of interviews lately that I put up on twitter; I thought I’d share a few of them here with a little background. Last year, Carlos […]
Saving the Scrum – Serious This Time!
Almost exactly one year ago Markus and I met at Agile2014 and came up with a new idea, “Save Our Scrum.” We saw problems across not only our customers, but […]
On TestRetreat
We did it again. On August 1st, a small group of people assembled in The Factory in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to discover and learn about testing together. It was a […]
What is this TestRetreat you speak of?
My friend Carl Shaulis just registered for TestRetreat:Grand Rapids. His blog post on the topic boils down to “I don’t really know what TestRetreat is, but I trust Matt Heusser […]
Isn’t it time you had a TestRetreat?
“Let’s Twist Again, like we did last summer. Let’s twist again, like we did last year” – Chubby Checker It all started in 2012, on Friday and Saturday before CAST, […]
Saying Goodbye to a Giant
“If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will […]
What We’ve Been Up To At Excelon
For about three years I published two articles a week, every week, on the old Creative Chaos blog. In 2008 we moved Creative Chaos to be the blog for Software […]
The Workshop on Teaching Test Design
Have you ever seen an HR manual that told you everything about the interview process: How to post a job, how to book a training room, how to have the […]
The Lean Test Canvas
Here’s a simple exercise: Ask the team what “better testing” would like, then contrast that with how management and customers reply to the same question. The question points out a […]
Save Our Scrum
Ken Schwaber, a co-creator of scrum, says that roughly 25% of teams trying the method realize the gains they had hope. More teams call themselves “Scrumbut”, “Scrumerfall”, or “Scrumish” than […]