Categories
Experience Reports Ramblings

2025 Reflections

From a professional viewpoint, it has been an interesting and largely enjoyable year – despite a huge setback. I’ve done quite a lot of cool things: I’ve also been able to start a few interesting things: With that in mind, I have to feel like it has been a good year. That said, ultimately I’m […]

Categories
Experience Reports Ramblings

Reflections on 1:1s across the business

This year I started doing my first 1:1s with colleagues, aside from those with my manager/leader. It was a really interesting experience and I wanted to reflect on it a little. Getting going It was actually something that was on my agenda for a while but struggled to get permission / buy in to do […]

Categories
Ramblings

Challenging our thinking with CBT

Quite a few years ago I was going through a tough time and was referred to “Cognitive Behaviour Therapy” (CBT). Whilst it wasn’t what I needed at the time, it was useful for helping me correct some of my negative behaviours or reactions. Recently when working my way through MoT Software Testing Essentials Certificate (STEC), […]

Categories
Experience Reports Ramblings

Reflection: Key highlights as a Quality Coach

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 […]

Categories
Experience Reports Ramblings

Reflection: Key mistakes as a Quality Coach

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 […]

Categories
Ramblings

2024: Glad That’s Over

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 […]

Categories
Ramblings

Success & Grief

I know this isn’t related to testing or quality but I wanted to air it as it does affect my interactions with people and the community. It has been a year since my wife passed away unexpectedly. Unsurprisingly it was a difficult year and I’ve really struggled. At the same time I’ve had what many […]

Categories
Experience Reports Ramblings

2023 – A Reflection

It has been some year. I started in a dark place with lots of change underway. However it is, professionally speaking, been a bit of an immense year. Speaking Building upon my first time speaking at a testing conference in 2022, I’ve been fairly active. From running a threat modelling workshop for a small set […]

Categories
Experience Reports Ramblings

2021 – A year in review

I believe this is a fairly common thing to do and hopefully useful for myself. Lets have a look back at the bizarre year that was 2021. Key events: Officially became an employee of Motorola Solutions, following a takeover last year. Moved to a new office, which I visited a handful of times. Started a […]