As Philippa Jennings articulated in her talk at MoTaCon, quality is the goal. Automation is a means. Unfortunately some people do get that muddled. Even worse is mistaking using a tool with quality. Eek! I love automation for three reasons. First is unit testing. That super fast feedback when I’m writing code is handy and […]
Thinking about user journeys in testing isn’t a particularly new topic (although probably truly conducted a lot less than we would like to admit). I suspect even rather than that is the user journey in design and planning. At least once engineering teams are involved. This is something that I’ve had little chance to explore […]
I recently reflected upon my failings as a Quality Coach but that wasn’t to say that I failed. Far from it. I am very proud of my work as a Quality Coach and it is a role that I hope to pick up again. Initiatives Analytics As a group we had never really looked at […]
I enjoyed my time as a Quality Coach, working with between one and three teams at a time. I think it was a relatively successful stint. However I want to acknowledge some of the areas where I struggled. Role Definition As a role, quality coaching is definitely very different to anything that I’ve done before […]
Experimentation is important, if not essential, if we want to have successful high performing teams. It allows us to try things without needing months to review and phase in a new way of working. Instead encourage trying something different, reflect and start again. In theory, I really like it. In practice, it was difficult within […]
This is my favourite question when meeting people for the first time. For some people it is about the software doing what it is meant to do. It might be robustness & reliability or adherence to specifications. Other people spoke about the value and solving customer problems. Is it useful? Some people referred to the […]
One of the first things I did when joining my previous organisation was pitch testing throughout the SDLC. I wanted to share the importance of testing everything that we do. However not everyone shares that idea of continuous testing throughout the SDLC. For some continuous testing is continuously running the same tests over and over. […]
I repeatedly hear the notion that developers can’t test. I’m not sure if this is because we’re protective of our role (testing has been a dying role for decades) or to excuse developers who can’t be bothered to test. So let me be clear… Devs can test. In fact if I had a high risk […]
I’ve recently been made redundant after 14 years of service, the last 2 as a Quality Coach for Avigilon software (although the first 6 months was without a job title). However I am not disappointed or upset. Quite the opposite. It has given me a new lease if anything. I am excited for what the […]
It has been a trying year, both personally and professionally. However before I flesh that out, I thought I’d try and articulate everything that has happened for me within the world of testing & quality: Big Fat Failure In my annual review I was quite scathing of myself. I failed the teams We started a […]