I’ve been wondering recently if Pinterest could be of use to the testing community. I’ve always felt that what we produce as testers is often not very visual, which is kind of the point behind Pinterest.

Then I realised that I had done a mindmap recently and actually there are a bunch of mindmaps related to testing dotted across the blogosphere.

Lighbulb moment – I created a Pinboard for Software Testing related Mindmaps, do check it out!

And if there are more that I could add, do let me know!

I went on the Coaching Testers course with Anne-Marie Charrett and used a MindMap to make notes. Here it is. Might not make much sense to everyone, but goes to show how much is involved in the process of coaching testers!

(Click for large/readable version)

I’ve long loved and followed the creativity and fun some websites put into their 404 pages. It adds a sense of pride and character the organisation behind it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if such thought and effort were put within other error prone areas of websites/apps?

Here’s a story on 404 pages from Reeny Gleeson on Ted.com

So, at the TestBash we had Ben Wirtz step up at short notice to talk about Lean Startups.  The video is below if you are interested.

The Tale of a Startup – Ben Wirtz – TestBash March 2012 from Software Testing Club on Vimeo.

Now I haven’t watched it back, but what really stuck in my mind was the fact that many testers seemed shocked that Ben hadn’t really considered doing any *proper* testing on his startup.

Perhaps I wasn’t surprised because I’ve seen and talked to many people who have never hired a tester in their life.

It’s not necessarily the industry norm, but in my ‘testing life’ I’ve frequently come across the following type of comments:

From a Tester’s perspective:

• what you have no testers?
• you need more testers?
• have you consider this type of testing, reels off a list (functional, exploratory, security, performance..etc)
• I’m not working for that kind of money
• What, you have not budgeted for testing?
• Ha ha, look at this bug…they should have tested properly

From a non testing perspective:

• Sorry, no time for testing
• Oh yeah, we fully intended to test, but it just didn’t happen
• We’ve implemented some automated and unit tests
• The Project Manager can give it a once over
• Hmm, testing, don’t know a lot about that
• Perhaps an office junior can do it
• Lets ask our users to do it, we can release a ‘beta’ first
• We should probably have more testers working on this

The shock that people felt of Ben’s lack of testing kind of saddened me, but at the same time great things happened.  As the questions and discussion went on testers became a bit more sympathetic to Ben’s business situation AND Ben also learned alot about how testing could help companies like his.

I was really pleased to see this happen.  Inspired and pleased.  And whilst Ben went away people apologised for being harsh on him, but he was enlightened and actually positive about the situation. He was a brave man!

Will we get off our high horses?

By this I mean…

• what right do we have as testers to make demands of how a project or business should be run?
• why do we think our roles as testers are so damn important?
• we would love to think that no team or project can survive without a tester, but they do
• why do we feel justified at commenting on bugs and saying that it wouldn’t have been there ‘if they had tested properly’.

I think it is about time testers got off their high horses and look to get a bit more diversity.  Usually there are justifications for not having testing.

I mean, perhaps as a startup:

• you have the choice of going under or employing a tester
• you have the choice of figuring out your business model or perfecting a model that users won’t buy or use
• you have a budget for a tester or a sales person? a tester or a community manager? a tester or a support person? a tester or a developer?

What would you do?

Diversity

As testers we need to diversify. We need to become more than just testers.  This is partly why the Test is Dead rant has been going around the past few months.  We need to pick and choose carefully what we would love to get involved with.  Think how much more valuable you would be to a team if you had more than one focus:

• tester / developer
• tester / support
• tester / community manager
• tester / user experience designer
• tester / writer
• tester / business analyst
• tester / startup
• tester / sales person

I’m convinced there is more than just a tester in each of us, but it may take time to figure it out.  The more we diversify the more right we have to sit up on that high horse.

It’s Sunday night (or Monday very early, jetlag!) and I’ve been back from my Workliday a couple of days now.

How did it go?

Mostly good as I didn’t do too much work at all.

Was travelling with the (3) kids exhausting?

Yes. I’m now trying to figure out how to get that relaxing holiday that my husband and I need!  The hardest part was my youngest, 11 months, who was and seems to have grown even more attached to me.  It felt like he was constantly glued to me, probably because he was!

Was I in a different mind set?

Yes. I didn’t think too much about the day to day stuff that needed doing.  I was managing a couple of small testing projects. Ensuring new subscriptions of The Testing Planet were going smoothly. And attending to some @testingclub marketing type activities that we do.  It was all mostly managed via email which was handy and we had constant access via my iPad, so that worked out ok.  The positive thing for me was the ability to think about things a bit more deeply.  It’s a bit of a time of reflection as it is just a short time after our first training event and conference/TestBash via Ministry of Testing.  It’s important to reflect on these things, take a step back and see where we can go next.

I didn’t really have much time to read.  But I did do some writing.  A few blog posts here and some more personal/internal stuff.  Good stuff.

The holiday itself was great, mostly about catching up and meeting family members – it’s all too easy to let the years roll by without seeing important family members.

Did I only work when nothing else was planned?

95% of the time.  There were a couple of occassions where I was responding to important emails whilst I was out and about on excursions, but mostly it was all done in the evenings, spending around 30 minutes catching up on emails or whilst my husband was driving

It was definitely more of a holiday than a work time.  We travelled over 4,500 miles just within the US in a period of just under 4 weeks.  It was a pretty busy time, always something to do or be attending to.  It’s really nice to be back, it still feels a bit weird, but I love being back ‘at work’.  The work I do for @testingclub really motivates me and lifts me up.  Looking after kids full time has always been a challenge for me…I’m constantly trying to find the right balance between work and family life.

Inbox Chaos

One thing became more obvious, my email inbox gets a load of cr*p.  Not checking emails as frequently and being in a different timezone made this even more apparent.  I really need to filter, sort and unsubscribe to lots of stuff!

It’s something I would like to do more of and should get easier as my youngest one grows up a bit!

There’s always plenty of debate relating to software testing certification.  For me it’s a bit like a tired vinyl replaying itself over and over again.  The pros. The cons. Why it exists. Etc. #yawn

If you focus on something, it becomes much more apparent. Focus on certification and you will end up being surrounded by topics, things and people related to it.

But if you don’t like it, don’t talk about it. Ignore it. Move on to another interesting testing topic and write/think/learn about that. Surround yourself with what you do want. Then spread the knowledge/word about it.

And who knows, perhaps overtime this whole certification will move on, or at least in your world it will move on, and your world is what matters. If your world doesn’t give a damn about certification, then what does it matter what they do?

Time is precious, move on.

So, I’m on my workliday.

I’ve got a 11 month old baby, he’s difficult to get to sleep in a different cot and environment every few days, so we have been opting for the walking and getting him to sleep in the buggy.

It has meant walking up and down a few hotel hallways.

The Sheraton in Florida was first. Not much to report there.  Everything in those types of hotels are pretty nice and very much adhere to nice standards.

But then we stopped in a Great Western hotel in Charleston.  A bit of a drop in classy-ness from the Sheraton, but the hallway walks got a bit interesting, for me at least

For your reference, here is the hallway I walked up and down several times:

I got a bit bored and started looking at things in more detail. That was when I noticed that many of the rooms had different door layouts.  And of course I had to take some pictures, smiling as I was going.  Here is what I saw.

They are all doors in the hallway of the hotel.  Yet all of them are different.

Which one is the correct one?

I have my own thoughts, but thought it would be interesting to get yours first

Those around me know how much I wanted the TestBash to go smoothly.

And it happened, and I’m so chuffed to bits.

Awesome is a good word to use.

A good size gathering, about 65 of us. Not too big, not too small.

I met people! Like Phil Kirkham who has been helping out with STC for over 4 years and he doesn’t live too far away! We met, we met and we have the photos to prove it! And David Evans. And Alan Richardson. And Steve Green. And Markus Gaertner. And Huib Schoots. And many others.

And the talks and discussions were great too.

See photos here!

All great stuff, and a proper and more formal blog post coming soon on STC, but thought it was important to get something informal up.

And the reason it took me so long?  I’m a bit busy taking some holidays with the family in the US.  Or a workiday as I call it.

It’s been a bit manic!

Thanks all!

I’ve taken up using Instagram alot.

Jamie Oliver kept cropping up as a recommended user. I like what he does, so I followed him. Then I noticed that each of his photos gets a stupid amount of ‘likes’ each time.  I wondered how many followers he had, but it appears Instagram is a bit confused.

I got an email marketing message the other day.  It was from a kids ‘educational’ games website that my boys are signed up to.  We’ve been signed up for a few months and I think this is probably the first marketing email we’ve had from them.

It started out saying:

“Dear xxxxxxx”

Where ‘xxxxxxx’ was my password for the website.

I couldn’t quite believe it.

What makes it worse, is that the email reminded me of my username and password.  Another big fail.

And all of this through an email marketing service provider (MailChimp) who also probably has access to the full list of usernames and passwords too.

Totally not cool.  That’s enough for me not to renew the annual fee.