Testing & QA Management blog
A chance to take a look back
Aug 30th
This weekend I realized my last post was almost 2 months ago, on July 4th.
This break from writing was not intentional and it was not really a break since I was really busy with tons of PractiTest work and some additional heavy-duty chores related to caring for 2 small children during their summer vacations. But there was also a positive side to this pause since it gave me a chance to reflect on what I’ve written on the blog so far, the subjects I’ve covered and those I haven’t gotten to yet.
I did something interesting, using “wordle” (a very cool More >
Why test only 20% of your day???
Jul 4th
[ NOTE: By "test" in the title I aim at the broader meaning of testing that includes all the activities around learning, planning, exploring, reporting, and obviously checking the application in order to understand if it works properly and/or find bugs on it. In this sense you could easily replace TEST with WORK and it would still mean the same.] Last week someone sent me a link to a video by Jason Fried, co-founder of 37Signals, called “Why You Can’t Work at Work“. I’ve followed Jason’s writings for a while and most of the time I agree with his comments More >
4 Practical Tips for Testing your Application “In a New Light”
Jun 6th
Look at the following South-Side-Up Map of The World (click on the image to expand it)
When I first saw it on the wall of a friend’s office I thought to myself “Australia is really big!”, then I looked at Europe, America & Russia and started seeing things I had not noticed before.
What happened to me here as I looked at the map and started seeing things differently is called “a change of perspective”, and it is a common way to look for new and interesting stuff in old places or to try to solve problems by looking at them “in More >
Testing the image in the mirror
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Why a good tester needs to be Self-Critical?
May 31st
It all started while talking about parenting…
I had a short chat with James Bach the other day. We didn’t talk about testing, certifications or software development; we talked about the challenges of being a good father, a more challenging task than any software project I’ve ever seen.
After that I tweeted with James and he sent me a very encouraging message saying (don’t remember the exact words but along the lines of) that he thought I would be a good father since I was self-critical.
The term SELF-CRITICAL got me thinking. I started by analyzing how my self-criticism has helped me More >
Why can’t developers be good testers?
May 5th
You can teach a dog many tricks but you can’t teach it how to fly, that is reserved for birds, planes or flying saucers…..
I’ve been trying to explain to a couple of Agile Teams why developers are usually not good testers; so after working hard to remember all the reasons I could think of (based on my experience so far) I decided to put together a short list and post it.
Don’t get me wrong I think developers should take part in the testing tasks, specially on Agile Teams, but I am also aware of their limitations and the cognitive blind-spots More >
My Top 6 Tester Qualities during a Job Interview
Apr 26th
I’ve been teaching a QA course lately. When working with want-to-be test engineers one of their questions is always “What are Managers looking for during a Job Interview?” I don’t know what All QA Managers are looking for, but after interviewing hundreds of candidates over the last 14 years this is what I look for when evaluating whether I want hire someone or not. 1. Self Confidence – I want my testers to be sure of what they are doing, and to show this to their peers both in their Testing Team as well as to their Development peers. A tester with More >
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