July 31, 2022
Today Jonathon Wright will shift us…right? After decades of listening to the mantra shift left, you probably think you are entering the twilight zone. Maybe, but not on our account! Jonathan and I talked about putting customers first, testing AI, quality, and leadership.
(more…)February 13, 2022
This week we revisit the age-old statements, “I don’t want to be measured” and its alter ego, “management will use metrics against me.” While often stated as if they are questions, both are positions. We weave in two recent techniques from our Re-read of Agile Conversations to consider the interests behind the statements
Also, Jeremy Berriault weighs in on the need for testing strategies in agile on this edition of this QA Corner.
(more…)December 12, 2021
This week we touch on a topic that is near and dear to my heart, work entry, with an essay titled Prioritization Without Control of Work Entry. I am tempted to suggest that without control over what you can say yes to, the whole idea of prioritization is a farce. The answer is more complicated, but only a little.
We also have a visit from Jeremy Berriault who brings his QA Corner to the cast. This week we discuss measuring testing — it is more than just pass/fail.
(more…)July 4, 2021
The Software Process and Measurement Cast features an essay on prioritization. We prioritize in order to establish what to work on and when to do it. There is often a difference between assigned priority and the real priority based on when teams start and complete a piece of work. This essay is part of the overall conversation on controlling work entry and answering the question: Are we working on the most important thing?
We also have a visit to the QA Corner with Jeremy Berriault. Mr. Berriault and I discussed how testing is integrated into the Agile Performance Holarchy.
(more…)March 28, 2021
In the SPaMCAST 644, we talk teams. At the core of agile is the belief that the team is the fundamental building block of work. Because they are so important, organizations put tons of effort into helping and guiding teams. The problem is not that teams aren’t important or that we aren’t working hard to make them better, teams are still chronically messed up. We discuss a framework for guiding support for teams.
(more…)October 11, 2020
The Software Process and Measurement Cast 620 is something out of the ordinary. Ola Omiyale joined me as a co-host and we interviewed Nalin Parbhu, the Founder and CTO of Infuse, and useMango™. We talked about testing and test automation which is a passion for all three of us. We also explored the future of the role of the manual tester.
(more…)June 18, 2020
Last week I appeared as part of the QA Touch Virtual Series. I spoke on the topic of goals and setting goals. I used the presentation to bring together a number of ideas about goals and goal setting, and this essay, in turn, is based on the presentation. This is Part 3, please read parts 1 and 2 before reading this section.
Part 3:
Setting goals is important for deciding and communicating what you want to achieve in a specific period. Goal setting provides value by forcing a degree of introspection, acting as a filter to separate the important from the irrelevant, and as a guide to channel behavior. Like many things in life the journey is often as important as the destination; however, setting goals is complex because there several systematic problems that affect setting goals. (more…)
June 16, 2020
Last week I appeared as part of the QA Touch Virtual Series. I spoke on the topic of goals and setting goals. I used the presentation to bring together a number of ideas of goals and goal setting, and this essay, in turn, is based on the presentation. This is Part 2 of a rough transcription of the webinar (note — I have moved several slides around as I have created this essay).
Whether we are considering goals for groups of testers or teams that include testers, there is a natural tendency to set goals that are specific to a process. Examples of areas covered by specific process level goals include code coverage, test case automation, or (god forbid) the number of defects found or defect removal efficiency. While two of the four might be valuable focus areas, none of the examples are based on systems thinking view of the output delivered from a value chain therefore rarely impact the bottom line significantly. Other than a few specific scenarios, testing, is not the output of a value chain. In a software development organization, software products that people spent money on are an output. In an automobile manufacturer, cars are the output. Every team needs to have goals based on their contribution to the value stream. Four basic metric categories that need to be considered are: (more…)
June 11, 2020
Earlier this week I appeared as part of the QA Touch Virtual Series. I spoke on the topic of goals and setting goals. I used the presentation to bring together a number of ideas of goals and goal setting, and this essay, in turn, is based on the presentation.
We set goals to establish a vision of tomorrow and to provide motivation and feedback for following a path towards those visions. We use goals to decide what knowledge and capabilities we need to acquire and how to line up our resources to reach toward the future. Goals can be a powerful tool. As with all powerful tools they can be misused or overused. (more…)
April 12, 2020
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The SPaMCAST 595 features our interview with Vladimir Khorikov. Vladimir and I geeked out on unit testing and his new book, Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns. Our conversations covered the gamut with a discussion of writing from first principles, understanding and tuning the signal-to-noise ratio in unit testing, and tests that are better at proving the negative than the positive. (more…)
Software Process and Measurement 