Let's get to it then!
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Agile Testing Days 2013 highlights
Heyhey!
Agile Testing Days 2013 ended a week ago. I have some time between BBST Bug Advocacy assignments so let's get to recap before I forget what I experienced in this wonderful conference. So much awesomeness happened that I'll have to sample a bit.
Let's get to it then!
Let's get to it then!
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
The Tao of Testing
Heyhey!
For some time now I have had a constantly growing interest in Taoism. Don't get me wrong; I'm not in it for religious reasons. It's not about higher powers or entities that should be followed or even worshipped. It's just something that resonates with the values that I have and the way I see the world. In work, freetime, jujutsu, etc. I constantly see connections and analogies to Taoism.
How Taoism turns into testing is a fascinating mind game. Let's play some of that, shall we... ;)
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| Yin and Yang, the symbol of Taoism |
How Taoism turns into testing is a fascinating mind game. Let's play some of that, shall we... ;)
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Can do!
Heyhey!
I watched Apollo 13 for the Nth time yesterday. There's a lot to like in that movie. Good script, great acting, memorable characters, etc. Also the original story is highly appealing. I think the movie manages to capture it quite nicely, but it's still quite impossible for us common people to really understand what happened during that mission. The amazing feats the astronauts and the mission control managed to conjure under the crisis go beyond imagination.
One of the most remarkable things was the spacecraft. The product that was designed to successfully transport three people to the moon and back, and that could do so much more. It inspired me to think, write this post and tweet too... :)
I watched Apollo 13 for the Nth time yesterday. There's a lot to like in that movie. Good script, great acting, memorable characters, etc. Also the original story is highly appealing. I think the movie manages to capture it quite nicely, but it's still quite impossible for us common people to really understand what happened during that mission. The amazing feats the astronauts and the mission control managed to conjure under the crisis go beyond imagination.
One of the most remarkable things was the spacecraft. The product that was designed to successfully transport three people to the moon and back, and that could do so much more. It inspired me to think, write this post and tweet too... :)
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Harder or smarter?
Heyhey!
We Finns are a nation of hard workers. Since childhood we've been taught that it's the hard work that pays off. Our Lutheran heritage, wartime hardships and long periods of darkness are just a number of reasons why we think through is the only way "past the grey rock" (Finnish saying).
The problem is that we're no longer grinding ship axles, cutting wood or even building mobile phones. It's not about muscle and punch clocks anymore. It's about brain and around the clock now.
If we fail to understand this, we'll work ourselves to death.
We Finns are a nation of hard workers. Since childhood we've been taught that it's the hard work that pays off. Our Lutheran heritage, wartime hardships and long periods of darkness are just a number of reasons why we think through is the only way "past the grey rock" (Finnish saying).
The problem is that we're no longer grinding ship axles, cutting wood or even building mobile phones. It's not about muscle and punch clocks anymore. It's about brain and around the clock now.
If we fail to understand this, we'll work ourselves to death.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Refining history
Heyhey!
I love Hannibal TV series. It's something you don't want to watch while in delicate mental state or eating, but other than that I think it's finally something that meets the level of quality that the legacy of Hannibal Lecter deserves and raises the bar (almost) to the height where it was after Silence of the Lambs.
Speaking of quality, in one the latest episodes of Hannibal Dr. Lecter stated: "It's the distinction that adds an expectation of quality." This is something that attracted my attention to the extent of writing this blog post.
I love Hannibal TV series. It's something you don't want to watch while in delicate mental state or eating, but other than that I think it's finally something that meets the level of quality that the legacy of Hannibal Lecter deserves and raises the bar (almost) to the height where it was after Silence of the Lambs.
Speaking of quality, in one the latest episodes of Hannibal Dr. Lecter stated: "It's the distinction that adds an expectation of quality." This is something that attracted my attention to the extent of writing this blog post.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Test management for Lean extremists
Heyhey!
I get grey hairs with Lean enthusiasts, or better yet extremists. I'm concerned about their obsession to see "waste" everywhere and remove it, "waste" being any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer. Quite often these people target testing activities too. By over-simplifying these activities Lean extremists justify the elimination of them.
Usually they do a half-ass job. So I, or actually Michael Bolton has created a test management process for these poor people.
I get grey hairs with Lean enthusiasts, or better yet extremists. I'm concerned about their obsession to see "waste" everywhere and remove it, "waste" being any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer. Quite often these people target testing activities too. By over-simplifying these activities Lean extremists justify the elimination of them.
Usually they do a half-ass job. So I, or actually Michael Bolton has created a test management process for these poor people.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
BBST Foundations 2.0 recap
Heyhey!
So, I hopped to the BBST bandwagon and attended Foundations 2.0 certification program. The four week course was an eye-opening trip I will never forget. And now, few days after finalizing the course, I'd like to reflect on what happened. With the intent of not revealing too much to those who are about to take the course, of course. ;)
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Breaking the boundaries of familiar
Heyhey!
It's about time I wrote a blog post. :) Once again there has been a turmoil of everything and this blog has gotten unfortunately low priority among this everything.
But enough about that. I'm boiling with ideas. One of them being the idea behind a tweet I wrote just a moment ago:
This pretty much culminates my values in testing at this moment. But I agree, it requires some explaining. So let's get to that explanation part then.
It's about time I wrote a blog post. :) Once again there has been a turmoil of everything and this blog has gotten unfortunately low priority among this everything.
But enough about that. I'm boiling with ideas. One of them being the idea behind a tweet I wrote just a moment ago:
This pretty much culminates my values in testing at this moment. But I agree, it requires some explaining. So let's get to that explanation part then.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Fortune cookie about test cases
Heyhey!
In my desperate quest for releasing blog content I came up with this idea; Fortune cookies that tell words of wisdom, vague prophecies, mystic "truths" and even best practices to those who don't know better.
The reason why I'm not putting these solely on Twitter is because I want to ponder the meaning of these fortunes, with only just few phrases to keep the mystic vibe on. And of course I want to provoke discussion. Twitter is wonderful medium for releasing fortunes themselves, but for ponderment, discussion and other lenghty activities it's just too limited.
So get your zen and milk ready! It's fortune cookie time!
In my desperate quest for releasing blog content I came up with this idea; Fortune cookies that tell words of wisdom, vague prophecies, mystic "truths" and even best practices to those who don't know better.
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| An omen |
So get your zen and milk ready! It's fortune cookie time!
Monday, November 12, 2012
Mging ET w/ QC, LOL!!1
Heyhey!
Ok, tons of thoughts and ideas swimming in my head again. I've written lengthy texts about building trust, product risk analysis, cool heuristics like FPS Nausea, test cases, how to gain by losing, gaming testers, etc. All at alpha level still. All complete s**t still. The highest priority is however the recap about my experiences at recent Rapid Testing Intensive / Critical Thinking courses, held none other than the almighty James Bach himself.
Well, the highest priority was that. Namely somehow my approach on managing exploratory testing with QC has gotten some attention lately. Perhaps it's because I'm actually training it now, finally. Perhaps it's because I've ranted about it more in Twitter and other mediums. Or perhaps it's because factory schoolers have grown tired of me ranting about borderline philosophical things about testing and thinking like a tester, and are finally demanding something tangible to mimic.
I don't know.
The actual reason I'm writing this is firstly the interest of some of the testers I greatly respect namely Maaret Pyhäjärvi, Aleksis Tulonen, Huib Schoots and Paul Carvalho. I've managed ET and teams doing ET with QC for some time now, but I've never actually gotten any peer reviews of my actions. I've roamed relatively blindly and I hope this blog post cures that.
But secondly and no less importantly I'm hoping others will get ideas how to manage ET either with QC or with other tools as well. The idea is basically the same with every tool.
So let's get crackin'!
Note: I made a summary paragraph and it can be found at the very end of this post. So if you're a member of the sales division or otherwise suffer from attention deficiencies, you can skip right into it... ;)
Ok, tons of thoughts and ideas swimming in my head again. I've written lengthy texts about building trust, product risk analysis, cool heuristics like FPS Nausea, test cases, how to gain by losing, gaming testers, etc. All at alpha level still. All complete s**t still. The highest priority is however the recap about my experiences at recent Rapid Testing Intensive / Critical Thinking courses, held none other than the almighty James Bach himself.
Well, the highest priority was that. Namely somehow my approach on managing exploratory testing with QC has gotten some attention lately. Perhaps it's because I'm actually training it now, finally. Perhaps it's because I've ranted about it more in Twitter and other mediums. Or perhaps it's because factory schoolers have grown tired of me ranting about borderline philosophical things about testing and thinking like a tester, and are finally demanding something tangible to mimic.
I don't know.
The actual reason I'm writing this is firstly the interest of some of the testers I greatly respect namely Maaret Pyhäjärvi, Aleksis Tulonen, Huib Schoots and Paul Carvalho. I've managed ET and teams doing ET with QC for some time now, but I've never actually gotten any peer reviews of my actions. I've roamed relatively blindly and I hope this blog post cures that.
But secondly and no less importantly I'm hoping others will get ideas how to manage ET either with QC or with other tools as well. The idea is basically the same with every tool.
So let's get crackin'!
Note: I made a summary paragraph and it can be found at the very end of this post. So if you're a member of the sales division or otherwise suffer from attention deficiencies, you can skip right into it... ;)
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