Taking a (testing) break

This post is to inform that I am taking a break from being a professional software tester.

For those of you who follows me on Twitter it might not come as a surprise since I have been more into tweets about the domain of finance and pensions rather than specific testing related stuff during the last years.

I got some new energi after the Let's Test conference last year but it was not enough to fill up the amount of passion for testing that is necessary to maintain relevant in this occupation (in my opinion).

I get my kicks nowadays providing guidelines for consumers and I will start working on a small bureau providing independant consumer guidelines for pension- and insurance products.

I won't be closing any doors and I might return as a tester someday somewhere.

Until then I am thankful for all of the good stuff I have learned during my 20 years in the role and for all the amazing people I have met during this period of my life.

Au Revoir

/Stefan

Testability

This is the second post of a "blog version"-series from my Let's Test session: Testability features.

What is testability?

I like the supports testing-statement mentioned above. You could probably elaborate more about the definition of testability but for this series of posts I stick to supports testing.

My previous post was about Setup, Testing and Bug investigation and you could use testability features/tools to improve the actual testing but also to reduce setup and enhance bug investigation in order to liberate time for testing.

So using testability features can take you from a situation of

to...

which is a better state for testing in my opinion.

But what testability features/tools can help us having more time for testing?

I will include some examples in my next post about this subject, so stay tuned...

Setup, Testing and Bug investigation

At my session at Let's Test last week I had a slide where letters S, T and B were shown. I asked the audience if they could guess what the letters stood for. It seemed that no one had an instant clue (I waited just a few seconds, maybe if I have had more patience I am sure someone would have guessed) so I revealed the answer: Setup, Testing and Bug investigation.

When we had James Bach on site for corporate training about four years ago, I was introduced to Session-based Test Management (SBTM) and I really liked the concept of measuring a testers time spent divided into S, T and B.

If I remember correctly (or at least this is how I use the terms nowadays) it is like this a bit simplified:

• Testing - testing the product
• Bug investigation - problem investigation
• Setup - the rest of your time

Also Michel Bolton had a great post about S, T and B a few years ago where he interviewed a tester how his weekly hours at work was divided between the three letters mentioned.

I have a feeling that many of us testers not having that much "T-time" as we wish we had. One of the key points at my Let's Test session is that testability features or tools can help us having more time in the "T-area".

 

I created a PDF based on my session slides which I guess will be published at Let's Test site within a near future. But since the slides does not do the session justice for those who did not attended I will try to publish a series of blog posts that elaborates a bit about my topic, stay tuned...

Let's Test 2015 - reflections

Where do I start?

I presented and participated at the test conference Let's Test 2015 this week and in short - it was awesome!

I have only been to shorter test "conferences" prior this one, but regardless of that I had very high expectations for Let's Test.

I have been following tweets, blog posts, youtube clips etc during the previous occasions and I understood that this conference was something special - and it was.

So let's test Let's Test 2015:

• The presentations and workshops - World class 
• The venue - Beautiful and away from distraction
• The logistics - Flawless 
• The food and beverages - Excellent, but as a Swedish citizen I apologise to all foreign participants for the pricing of beer and wine 
• The atmosphere - Magical 
• The people - warm, welcoming and testers 

So, no conference bugs found and the "product" was fantastic.

With that being said - what about my own presentation?

I can now reveal that I am not that experienced in presentations in front of large groups of people. I have done it occasionally and my last in English was back in 1999 in Seattle when I worked for a MedTech company.

So how come I sent in a Call For Proposal for Let's Test - probably the best and most respectable conference about testing to date?

Here are some reasons:

• I thought I had something worth sharing
• I want to be better at presenting
• I wanted to challenge myself
• This clip from Martin Hynie on youtube
• They had some slots for first time speakers which increased the chances of being selected

But perhaps the most important reason - I was getting a bit fatigue on testing and I wanted to check my emotions about it and my hope was to have a restart at the conference.

So one late sunday evening not far from deadline I sent it in and later on it was on the program.

I remember that I did an early version just a week after the confirmation mail but due to ordinary work load and my other blogging and tweeting about pensions and the Swedish stock market - I did not touched it until just a few weeks ago. I found it not being that good so I started all over again from scratch.

A new version evolved and it was tested internally on friday prior the conference. I got valuable feedback so major modifications was done on sunday and I did a lot of rehearsal later that day and on the day before my presentation.

How did it go?

Hard to judge by myself but it felt like it went quite ok and the moderated discussion afterwards was full of questions so I am satisfied with my performance even if there is lot of room for improvement.

About the presentation I hope I can arrange some sort of material to publish later but I cannot promise anything at this point.

Anyway, Ruud Cox was kind to draw a fantastic sketch which hints about the content.

(c) Ruud Cox 2015

Will I do a conference presentation again?

If I have something valuable to share and the timing is right, I probably will.

Do I still feel a bit fatigue about testing?

No, my motivation and drive "battery" is now recharged and I hope I will continue enjoy testing (the must fun occupation ever) for another twenty years.

A special thanks to Johan, Henrik, the crew, facilitators, presenters, sponsors and all the other great people involved and participated in the conference - you rock!

So I guess the conference slogan "for those about to rock" fits perfect for us first time participants since the others already does.

photo from rock bar in Creete/Greece

See you next time.

Time to jump - a test jump

For almost a year now I have been a half-time member in two agile teams. We did a split when the original team became too big (>10).

Working on sprints in parallel has been a challenge, but suits me well since I usually like to have a lot of (test) threads ongoing. When needed, I do one hour test sessions for better focus and test depth.

The test focus in my teams has become very strong during this time, so I have felt for a while that my skills probably will make more use in other teams within the company.

James Bach has a great post about a testing role called Test jumper. When I read it now I realize it is very close to what I do nowadays.

It is time to jump...

Reminder: 

Don't miss early bird offer for Lets Test 2015

My session is about testability and I will present some of my SUT's  awesome built-in testability features - don't miss!

Let's Test 2015

Got e-mail yesterday:

 "It is with the greatest pleasure to inform you that we would love to have you on the program for Let´s Test 2015."

Deeply honored of being choosen and I am looking forward to the challenge for me and to attend a conference I've seen and heard a lot good about.

The topic for my session?

Please check the official program which probably will be published soon but the subtitle could have been "get your kicks on testability tips and tricks..."

QTP: Last chapter for me?

This post is to announce that I don't use QTP anymore and that my knowledge and skills of the tool is likely to decrease as time goes by.

The reason for me not using QTP is that I have other homegrown tools that I use instead and that my team is building a lot of automated checks in Java instead nowadays.

My approach to automation has also switched to more "semi-automation" mainly used to support/enhance testing.

I am not posting here very often nowadays but I have some posts coming up regarding comparsion tips and tricks among other things, stay tuned!

I have also started a new blog (in Swedish) which is about the Swedish financial- and pension domain primary.