karlosmid's testing readshttps://karlosmid.newsblur.com/2020-09-13T06:32:30.595000ZkarlosmidIn support of the hard-working teacher2020-09-13T06:32:30.595000ZSeth Godinhttps://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/635463526/0/sethsblog~In-support-of-the-hardworking-teacher/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/in-support-of-the-ha/3660642:3d6deb">shared this story</a>
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Hard and effective work are two different things.
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<p>Sometimes I talk about the education-industrial complex on this blog, rarely with kindness. I captured much of that in <a href="http://feeds.feedblitz.com/~/t/0/0/sethsblog/~www.stopstealingdreams.com">Stop Stealing Dreams</a>.</p>
<p>Readers will see that not once have I criticized a hard-working teacher who meant well. That’s because it’s the bureaucratic industrial system that’s at fault here, not the teachers.</p>
<p>Now more than ever, with teachers scrambling with remote learning, personal health and the shifts in our culture, they matter.</p>
<p>Teachers matter because they have the guts to buck the dominant test and measure system. Because they show up with care and energy, and because they lead.</p>
<p>By time spent, what percentage of the typical school experience is spent on: tests, test prep, comportment, homework, memorization, the curriculum and the social pressure of fitting in?</p>
<p>And what percentage is spent on daydreaming, inventing, creating from scratch, doing it without a manual and finding new solutions to difficult problems?</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s an accident that we spend a fortune on high school football and almost nothing on creative writing hackathons.</p>
<p>Change is going to come from parents and from teachers who care. The system defends the system, and the system requires adherence and stability.</p>
<p>The massive shift to remote learning opens the door to slip in the kind of challenging problem solving and connection that we need right now. We have to hurry, though, because surveillance and more testing is probably right around the corner.</p>
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karlosmid
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<p> <em>Note: This was originally published as a guest blog post for <a href="https://testingindevops.org/listen-beyond-the-pass-and-fail-a-story-of-looking-at-the-bigger-picture/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">DevTestOps Community</a></em>.</p>
<p> I started a new job a few years back, with one of my responsibilities stated as “Move the existing automation to the next level”. The company already had a lot of automated tests in place and had worked really hard on making automation a part of the normal team delivery. Great! I´ve worked with a lot of problematic automation and I know a thing or two about what not to do. So, it sounded like a dream! </p>
<p>In my vision, I saw a pipeline where all tests run green and if it fails, we fix it ASAP and it is green the next morning. In reality however, most days at least something had failed. To me, it felt like no one was very worried about it. I worried. And I had a hunch there was a pattern, but I couldn’t pinpoint it when looking at each individual test run. So, I pulled all the historic data, put it into a spreadsheet and started twisting and turning it to look at it from different perspectives. At the same time, I started asking a lot of questions to people from the teams furthest along the automation route who were involved and/or affected by the automation in different ways. Those included testers, scrum masters, developers, architects, product owners, operations and management.</p>
<p>The questions depended on the roles but revolved around finding out how much confidence people had in the automation, how much time they spent on maintaining them vs. improving them and how I could help move things forward. </p>
<p>I had a few questions and hypotheses I wanted to answer, such as:<br /> • Were we addressing the <em>actual</em> problem or did we just re-run them locally and blame the environment?<br /> • Were they run as often as we needed them, or could they be sped up to a point where they could provide more value to the teams? <br /> • Were there problems that could be solved, with the right people and/or resources available? <br /> • What problems were we actually trying to solve with these suites?</p>
<p>A few things quickly stood out, clear as day. <br />
• People were so caught up in the daily deliveries that they didn´t feel they had time to work pro-actively on continuous improvements. <br />
• People felt a lot of the issues were “impossible to fix”, because they lacked the right competence in the team<br />
• We were trying to solve a multitude of problems with the same set of tests.<br />
• A number of tests had never succeeded. And a number had never failed.</p>
<p>Ok, with the problems defined we can finally try to figure out a solution! Let us dive into each one and see what can be done.<br /></p>
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<h2><br />Breaking out of the hamster wheel</h2>
<p><em>Problem: People were so caught up in the daily deliveries that they didn´t feel they had time to work pro-actively on continuous improvements. </em></p>
<p>One issue with most software development out there is that unless specifically making room for it, refactoring is always a struggle. To me, it has always been a part of continuous improvement and I usually have no problem creating a business case for it. I do, however, see that a lot of people out there, testers as well as developers, aren´t trained to sell that story. And as a result, they often (feel like they) get too little time to do more than deliver the stories that are in the current pile of “to do now”. </p>
<p>But never looking at the bigger picture means building tech debt, which in turn means increased maintenance cost and less and less value delivered. What I saw here was a never-ending cycle of </p>
<figure><img alt="Picture of a hamster in a wheel with the text setup, run, analyze, fix with arrows between them" src="https://usercontent.one/wp/testing.pejgan.se/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Hamsterwheel.png" /></figure>
<p>• Analyse the last run (never trends, always the last run)<br />
• Debug found issues <br />
• Fix said issued<br />
• Setup for nightly run<br />
• Repeat</p>
<p>This meant that we never took time to work on improving (proactive) only fixing (reactive). And adding more of course. And as a result, completing the cycle took longer and longer, which reduced the available time for improvement. And while you are in this loop – it is really hard to see it!<br />
In this case I had a role and background where I could help but if you don´t – find a sponsor! A sponsor could be someone who can help you prepare the business case, someone with access to a budget who can finance it or why not someone with the organizational power to prioritize your ideas. Depending on where you work this could be different people, but a product owner, a manager or a team lead could be starting points. </p>
<p>The power of relationships is a topic for a separate blog post (I talk about it in “<a href="https://www.dropbox.com/s/1kb9yamjcqkyq89/My%20journey%20from%20developer%20to%20tester.pptx?dl=0" rel="noopener" target="_blank">My journey from developer to tester</a>” and Alex Schladebeck & Huib Schoots talk about it in their “<a href="https://www.improveqs.nl/media/1611/jedimindtricks-testbash-manchester-october-2018-alex-schladebeck-huib-schoots.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jedi mind tricks for testers</a>”) but trust me on this: <br /><em><strong>People want to help people they like and we like people who like us</strong>. </em><br />So save yourself a lot of trouble and work on those relationships!<br /></p>
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<h2><br />Making the impossible possible</h2>
<p><em>Problem: People felt a lot of the issues were “impossible to fix”, because they lacked the right competence in the team</em></p>
<p>So ok, talking to people about the failing tests, people kept saying the issues where “impossible to fix”. Therefore, the tests were just re-run locally and if they passed nothing more was done to them. Which could of course be ok, there are tests that just randomly fail at times for no apparent reason, but when looking a bit deeper I could find a number of actual problems related to certain areas.</p>
<h4>Operations and hardware</h4>
<p>In this group goes all the problems that I could trace back to things that the teams felt were out of their control and that are also related to the operations department. Things like: <br /><em> “Oh, our firewall does not allow us to do X, so we needed to do Y to get around it”<br /> “The tests fail if they start late or take longer than usual because at 3am they backup system A”<br /> “Yes, they crash every 3rd Monday of the month but that´s only because we do patches then”</em></p>
<p>Issues in this category could be time related such as backups, patches, batch jobs or applications closed certain hours and network related such as firewalls, DNSs, blocked/trusted sites or queues filling up. </p>
<p>Or course, if you don´t have any experience with operations these things might look unavoidable but most of the time they can be sorted by explaining your problem to someone with experience and ask for help. </p>
<p>Potential solutions can range from rescheduling tests, separation of domains, re-configuration of hardware or even by throwing money at it! Explain to someone with the power to change things why this would save money/time and/or increase team/customer satisfaction.</p>
<h4>Test environments and test data</h4>
<p>Here go problems related to the bane of many a tester: environments, integrations and data. Comments I sort into this group were:<br /> <em>“The test failed because the data was used up by another test”<br /> “The test run last night failed because someone was locking the environment”<br /> “That´s not a bug, it only failed because Service X was down/had the wrong data”</em></p>
<p>Potential problems here could be concurrency, corrupted data, race conditions, data limitations, limited capacity of the environments, limited number of environments, (unnecessary) dependencies to services that were down and/or had the wrong data/version/state/configuration. </p>
<p>These are, of course, not easily fixed. However, a lot can be improved by some pretty standard practices today such as using synthesized data when possible, removing dependencies with mocks/stubs when possible, using virtual environments that can be spun up when needed, cleaning up data after a run, tests creating their own data instead of looking for existing, asking for more/better environment, getting help from management and/or operations to get the resources and prerequisites needed for a good, modern setup of environments and data. (Throwing money at it can go a long way to ease the pain!)</p>
<h4>Processes and communication</h4>
<p>Oh, my this is a big one…. In this big pile of opportunities for improvement you could find gold nuggets such as:<br /> <em>“We didn’t know the code has changed so we didn´t know the tests needed to be updated!”<br /> “We didn’t have time to fix the tests because we were busy implementing new tests!”<br /> “Oh, yes that happened because the application in that environment was version X, we can only test version X.Y”</em></p>
<p>Potential problems related to this group are of course either communication and/or process related. It could be that code changes are not communicated within the team or between teams with dependencies. It could be that those changes were communicated but that no one prioritized fixing it.</p>
<p>It could be that no one had seen the benefits of being able to run multiple versions of a test suite, say to be able to quickly test both planned releases and urgent patches.<br /> Or it could be that we were trying to solve multiple problems with the same set of tests, which I will get back to under “One size fit no one” below.<br /> Or of course a lot of other things that could be their own series of posts so let’s stick to the ones mentioned above.</p>
<p>These are both really hard and really easy to fix, depending on the individuals, teams and/or organization. A lot should be obvious (but is apparently not always implemented in reality), such as making sure testers (whichever formal role they might have) are included from start to end. Good things to try to improve this are <a href="https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/three-amigos/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">3 Amigos sessions</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/@maaret.pyhajarvi/styles-of-pair-testing-18970bbad833" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Pair-programming, mobbing</a>or just making sure test is always included in discussions about both problem and solution.</p>
<p>Communication breaking down between roles and/or teams is a strong anti-pattern and when you see this it should be on everyone´s priority to work on that problem. Ask for help if it seems too big to handle yourselves. Asking the other teams what information they would be helped by and how they would prefer to get it will improve both relationships and understanding of each other´s problems, needs and domain. And relationships matter, a lot! <br /></p>
<p>Running tests that we know will fail (say we didn´t have time to update them all) is a waste of time and resources and will create noise. A simple solution for that is to disable them until you know they should pass again and put some more effort into testing those areas in other ways. (Or take an informed decision to accept the risk for now) <br /></p>
<p>Not version-handling tests is a problem I was extremely flabbergasted by. Version handling other types of code has been a standard for years, but I keep hearing about tests not following the same pattern. We should of course be able to run the exact version or a test and/or test suite that we need at that point, in that particular environment. This should be standard procedure and since most companies use some kind of version control system today, it should be very, very low effort to implement it. I see no reason not to do this already, it should not be a limitation anywhere today. And if you don´t already – put your test automation code with your production code whenever possible! They should not be separated; they are part of a whole.<br /></p>
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<h2><br />One size fit no one: Use the right tool for the job</h2>
<p><em>Problem: We were trying to solve a multitude of problems with the same set of tests.</em></p>
<p>Another of the anti-patterns I saw was that the test automation suite was used as a band-aid to fulfil a number of different needs for information, on different levels. Sometimes these were even in direct conflict with each other. </p>
<p>We had the developers, who wanted ultrafast feedback on changes. Having that would allow them to make changes without worrying that their changes broke something else. For them, a red test might be expected or even wanted, applying a test-first perspective on the development. As long as they were fixed fast of course, otherwise the red tests are just noise. </p>
<p>Then we had testers, who wanted quick feedback on the stability of a certain release candidate as well as the security of knowing that the existing regression tests were still ok. Having that would allow them to focus their testing on changes and/or exploring certain aspects of the software instead of having to waste time on something unstable, finding obvious bugs or testing all of the old functionality again. They also needed to be able to test different release candidates at the same time and possibly with different sets of data. To them, a failing test should mean a problem had been found, meaning something needs to be fixed ASAP. It should not mean wasting time on analysing the result or missing actual problems because the report was full of noise. </p>
<p>The product owner and the scrum master wanted the tests to answer questions related to planning and stability, such as “Is this release candidate ready for release?”. To them, a failing test should mean either not releasing or taking a quick decision that the problem was not bad enough to stop the release. </p>
<p>And then we had people like me, managers, who wanted information about strategic planning and investments, such as “Are we spending our money in the right places?”. And to do that, I wanted to look at trends, improvements, root cause analyses and things like that. </p>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://usercontent.one/wp/testing.pejgan.se/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/layers.png" /></figure>
<p>Of course, all of these questions and needs can´t be met by running a single suite of automated tests in a single environment, with a single set of test data. </p>
<p>The solution to this might require a separate blog post but using layers of tests for different purposes and using different versions, data sets and environments is the short answer. <br /></p>
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<h2><br />Dare to delete. It´s ok, I promise. </h2>
<p><em>Problem: A number of tests had never succeeded. And a number had never failed.</em></p>
<p>One thing I found that I thought would be simple to fix turned out to be very hard to convince people about. Deleting tests.</p>
<p>To me, a test should only be run if it has a value greater than the cost, but I realized that the emotional barrier to removing something that you had invested in was a lot greater than I anticipated. Of course, there is no easy answer to when they start costing to much, since that depends on your context, but measuring total run time and total time for maintenance over time is a good idea. Monitor if any of those metrics start rising without a good reason and try to set at least yearly goals for improvements. </p>
<p>I suggested a few things that I wanted to do:</p>
<ol><li><strong>Remove the tests that had never, once, failed. </strong><br /> To me, they were noise that simply made us feel good about having a higher % or passes and at the same time increasing the complexity of the test suite and the cost for running them (time and resources). People did really not want to do this because they felt it would lower the test coverage, but I argue that unless they test something relevant; they are not providing value. And to me, a test that never failed is by nature a bit suspicious. <br /> They might, of course, be important! But I would at least make sure they are not always successful because they are asserting the wrong things. <br /> It might also be that we never, in several years, changed anything in that area. In that case, do we need to run them every night? Removing does not mean you can never ever get them back but maybe there are other things more important to use those resources for right now?<br /></li><li><strong>Remove the test that had never, once, passed. </strong><br /> Honestly, if you haven´t fixed the test in a year, why bother running it? Here, the argument was that we would lose coverage and that they were needed but this is frankly a hill I am prepared to die on. Fix or delete, there is no “what if”-here. Do it. <br /></li></ol>
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<h2><br />So, to sum this all up…</h2>
<p>In the words of Ian Fleming: “<em><strong>Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”</strong></em>. Looking at trends rather than only at the current state will help you see patterns that can help you find areas where changes will have big impacts. </p>
<p>Asking for help and/or input is a great way of improving. Involving people with other areas of expertise might solve problems you though were unsurpassable. I know for a fact that my perspective fixed a few, and I have had other people solve my unsolvable problems more than once. Impossible might be possible with another set of tools.</p>
<p>As a professional working with tests, it is your job to make room for continuous improvements. No one can create time, but everyone can raise the issue. And honestly, <strong>making time</strong> for this type of work will <strong>save time</strong> in the end. And if you are a manager, it is your job to help people see when they are getting caught up in the daily business and help make room.</p>
<p>And in the words of Marie Kondo: “<em><strong>Do these tests spark joy</strong></em>?” <br /><strong>Kon Mari your tests on a regular basis!</strong></p>
<p>The post <a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/05/08/listen-beyond-the-pass-and-fail-a-story-of-looking-at-the-bigger-picture/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Listen beyond the pass and fail – a story of looking at the bigger picture</a> appeared first on <a href="https://testing.pejgan.se" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Question Able by Pejgan</a>.</p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/8m6h9Z6eV14" width="1" />Finland abandons school subjects in favour of phenomenon based learning2020-05-09T18:43:31.489000Zhttps://curiousmindmagazine.com/goodbye-subjects-finland-taking-revolution-education-step/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23112866">Comments</a>Dissecting an SSL Certificate2020-05-09T14:28:01.942000Zhttps://jvns.ca/blog/2017/01/31/whats-tls/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23096166">Comments</a>Physics And Testing2020-05-06T19:01:03.754000ZStephanhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/w3HGVlWt49Y/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p>At a number of conferences I attended in the past, people connected several fields to software development in general and testing in particular, which (at first) seem unrelated.</p>
<ul><li><a href="https://twitter.com/erniemiller" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Ernie Miller</a> presented “<a href="https://ernie.io/2015/10/07/talk-how-to-build-a-skyscraper/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">How to Build a Skyscraper</a>” at <a href="http://fullstackfest.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Full Stack Fest 2015</a> in Barcelona, a talk that was not actually about building skyscrapers. He rather described lessons that can be learned from building skyscrapers. One of the ‘pro tips’ he presents is this: “A solution that seems unremarkable to you might just change everything for others. (so share what you build)”</li><li><a href="http://twitter.com/devdame" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Lauren Scott</a>‘s presentation “<a href="https://www.devdame.com/speaking" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Shall I Compare Thee to a Line of Code?</a>“, draws parallels between Poetry and programming. For example in both cases a dense language is used to transport meaning.</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/alex_schl" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Alexandra Schladebeck</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/huibschoots" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Huib Schoots</a> gave a keynote “<a href="https://vimeo.com/168336627" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Where words fail, music speaks</a>” in which they pointed out similarities between music and testing.</li></ul>
<p>Since then, I pondered this for a while (read: more than 4 years). With my background in physics, I see a number of parallels to software testing. This is also a great opportunity to answer a question I get asked frequently: How did you enter software testing, given your background in physics?</p>
<h3>Physics</h3>
<p>Let’s start with a definition for <em>physics</em>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Physics is an experimental science. Physicists observe the phenomena of nature and try to find patterns that relate these phenomena.</p><cite>— Young, Freedman. “Sears and Zemansky’s University Physics: With Modern Physics”. Pearson Education.<br />Also see the <a href="https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics" rel="noopener" target="_blank">wikipedia article on physics</a>.</cite></blockquote>
<p>The patterns that relate those phenomena are the theories (or laws) of physics. They are models that describe an aspect of reality. <em>None</em> of these models is complete, in the sense that it describes <em>everything</em>. There is no <em>one physical theory</em> that explains everything. A nice view of the landscape of physical models is shown in the image by Dominic Walliman (see <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/this-genius-video-explains-everything-you-need-to-know-about-physics" rel="noopener" target="_blank">sciencealert.com</a> for details):</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZihywtixUYo" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><img alt="alt" src="https://i0.wp.com/seasidetesting.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/30976775430_fcf840bd08_k.jpg?w=2048&ssl=1" /></a><figcaption>The landscape of physical theories, see<br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZihywtixUYo" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Dominic Walliman’s ‘Domain of Science’ video on YouTube</a></figcaption></figure>
<p>In physics (as in science in general), experimental results and predictions created by models are compared, in order to find out how a model <em>does not match</em> observed behaviour. This is important: Experiments can only ever <em>invalidate</em> a model, but not generally confirm its correctness.</p>
<h3>Software</h3>
<p>To me software systems are models, too: Even though they may represent reality closely, a software system is not the thing it represents.<br /><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Naur" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Peter Naur</a> described the relationship between theory building and programming in his paper ‘Programming as Theory Building’ (Microprocessing and Microprogramming 15, 1985, pp. 253-261). </p>
<h3>Testing</h3>
<p>My mental model of software testing is very similar to the one of physics: I see software systems as partial implementations of aspects of a real expected behaviour. In my view <em>testing</em> a system means it and comparing observed results with expectations.<br />The expectations may come from requirements (written or otherwise), previous experiences with similar systems (i.e. another web application from the same company) or other sources.</p>
<p>There are many approaches to testing, in a similar way to the many approaches to physics. Some of them work good in one area but not so well in another. What kind of testing is done, heavily depends on the kind of the software system: Testing embedded software used in medical devices is drastically different from testing, say, a text editor. </p>
<h3>Science</h3>
<p>It is interesting to go one step further, from physics to science. The <a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Cambridge Dictionary</a> defines science as</p>
<blockquote><p>the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment</p><cite><a href="https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/science" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/science</a></cite></blockquote>
<p>With a different wording, this seems to fit software testing as well:</p>
<blockquote><p>Software testing the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of software systems through observation and experiment.</p><cite>The definition with a different wording</cite></blockquote>
<p>To me, many very basic principles of scions in general and physic in particular apply to software testing, too. And that’s why I think that my physics background is very helpful in software testing.</p>
<p>Now, I interested in this: What is your background and how does it help you in software testing (especially if your background is not in computer science or software engineering)? </p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/w3HGVlWt49Y" width="1" />How Can You Create Boundaries?2020-05-06T18:53:52.025000ZJohannahttps://createadaptablelife.com/2020/04/how-can-you-create-boundaries.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/how-can-you-create-b/7375292:2c8e7a">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/7375292.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Create An Adaptable Life.</b>
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<p><a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Boundary.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-19181" height="170" src="https://createadaptablelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Boundary-300x300.jpg" style="border-width: 1px; border-style: solid;" width="170" /></a>As I connect with various colleagues and friends who now work from home, they all say the same thing. “I’m always working. I work all day and all night. The work never ends.” They pause. “You’ve worked from home for years now. How do you manage it?”</p>
<p>I create boundaries for my professional and home-based work.</p>
<p>Some of these colleagues have the added pressure of children around the house. Or checking in with their parents or neighbors. Or, extending those helping hands to people outside their homes.</p>
<p>These are not normal times.</p>
<p>That means, that especially in these abnormal times, we need to create boundaries. There’s always more work—another email, another presentation, another report.</p>
<p>When I think about boundaries for work, I think about where I can use constraints. Consider these possibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>Time boundaries</li>
<li>Space boundaries</li>
</ul>
<h2>Create Time Boundaries</h2>
<p>I have a normal start and end times for my workday. And, if I need “more” time, I can flex when I start and end my day inside a 13-hour window.</p>
<p>I have a 13-hour window of <em>possible</em> work time. I do not work those entire 13 hours.</p>
<p>Why do I protect some of my time? Because I need slack time—time when I’m not working at all.</p>
<p>When I create the “right” balance of work and slack time, my throughput increases. I create more of everything I want to create.</p>
<p>When I work too much, I complain that I get stuck on writing. My slack time refills my creative well so I can create more.</p>
<p>Can I work 13-hour days? Sure, for limited time periods. Not for weeks or months on end.</p>
<p>Time is my go-to boundary. I also use space.</p>
<h2>Create Space Boundaries</h2>
<p>If you’re working from home with several other people, you might find it difficult to create space boundaries.</p>
<p>Back when my children were young, we had a rule about Mom’s Office Door: When the door was closed, no one was invited in. If the door was open, they could come in.</p>
<p>And, when the children were older, I wanted them to check in with me when they came home from school. We had working agreements.</p>
<p>As they got older, they didn’t want to talk to me, never mind to spend time in my office. (We’re past that again.)</p>
<p>You might not have a door to your office. If not, and if you have young children, consider explaining the problem and asking them for help. If your kids are like mine, they will develop creative possibilities. Those possibilities might mean they spend hours decorating “walls” or “sidewalks” or whatever they decide you need.</p>
<p>Once you create boundaries, you need to respect them.</p>
<h2>Respect Your Boundaries</h2>
<p>I assume you can create some sort of boundary on your work time. You might need to alternate work and home time throughout the day, but you can.</p>
<p>You need to respect your boundaries. If you don’t respect your boundaries, no one else will.</p>
<p>You might need to create working agreements with your work colleagues. Maybe even house agreements with the people in your life.</p>
<p>You can’t work, work, work all the time. Everyone needs slack time. Create and respect your boundaries.</p>
<p>That’s the question this week: How can you create boundaries?</p>Would Heu-risk it? Part 28: Three is the magic number2020-05-06T18:50:50.357000ZLena Wiberghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/oDDEAbCkFUc/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/would-heu-risk-it-pa/5454096:4926b8">shared this story</a>
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<div><figure><img alt="picture of a tentacle-armed alien" height="434" src="https://usercontent.one/wp/testing.pejgan.se/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Three-is-the-magic-number-1.png" width="251" /></figure></div>
<p>One of the easiest <strong>tools</strong> to start using! Let us dive straight into the verse:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>“The rule of three you should apply</strong><br /><strong>To things like: times you should ask why<br />Or pair of eyes that should something view<br />And alternative scenarios that could be true”</strong></p></blockquote>
<hr />
<h4>So, what does it mean?</h4>
<p>The rule of three is my second most favourite rule. (The first one being the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Pareto principle</a>)<br /><br />This can be applied to, among other things, having 3 different perspectives look into a problem and talk about solutions, trying to dig into at least 3 layers of “why” to get to the root of something instead of accepting the first “because” and trying to come up with 3 solutions to a problem (or explanations to why something happened).<br /><br />The concept behind it, for me, is that in order to reduce the risk of biased decisions I need to force myself to apply the thinking brain instead of the reacting brain. <br />If you haven’t read “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Thinking fast and slow</a>” by Daniel Kahneman, I really recommend it! In it he talks about the two different systems ruling us: <br />One is the energy-efficient, fast system that is also biased, over-values how smart it is, takes shortcuts and allows us to get through the day without (hopefully) being exhausted by the vast number of decisions we have to take each day. It’s the one that allows you to “know” how another person is feeling when you see their body-language.<br />The other is the conscious, deliberate, thinking things through but is slow, energy-consuming and we avoid switching to it if we don’t have to. This is the one that kicks in when you try to solve a hard logical puzzle or recognize that the sound that you just heard is a particular bird that you learned about in school. <br /><br />When we are faced with a problem, our instinct is to solve it with minimal energy. This could, as examples, be by doing it in a way we have done before, by doing it in a way you are very comfortable with, by doing it the way you would have wanted it to work or by doing it in a way that you just read about/learned. It’s easy. It’s fast. But it might not be right.</p>
<h5>Three different perspectives</h5>
<p>I like a method called Three Amigos. In short: When trying to solve a problem: Have someone with a business perspective, someone with a testing perspective and someone with a developer perspective talk it through. That way we lower the risk of getting stuck in one way of thinking, one way of interpreting things and we come to a better common understanding of both problem and solution. </p>
<h5>Three layers of why</h5>
<p>Originally it was “The five whys” and comes from Toyota, but for some reason I’ve always known it as three. Not sure why but the principle is the same. Don’t accept the first, seemingly obvious, answer – try to get to the root of the problem. Sometimes three is enough, sometimes you might have to go to seven (or more?).<br />Say you get a request from Customer Service that you add a function that looks up a personal number against some official service and returns the corresponding name.<br />First why might get you that another team needs it in order to show that name on a web page.<br />Second why might get you that they want the customer to confirm their identity before submitting the request.<br />Third why might get you that people enter the wrong personal number and we end up sending one person’s data to another person.<br />Etc. The root cause might lie even deeper but I hope you understand the concept. </p>
<h5>Three explanations or solutions</h5>
<p>Did I mention that we are lazy and want the easy solution? Because we do.<br />We instinctively go for the easiest solution and we are biased against looking at alternatives. If we force ourselves to come up with at least three, and prove and/or falsify those, we usually end up with a better solution.<br />In my Speed-testing workshop (every time I use Bling-R-Us in a workshop actually), one of the simple “traps” I put in there is this short explanation of the discount system:</p>
<ul><li>1-2 items No discount </li><li>3+ items 10% discount on the total price</li><li>Every 5th item Free! </li></ul>
<p>Usually when doing the exercise, people make one of these assumptions:<br />1: By 3+ they mean more than three. The first line is wrong.<br />2: By 3+ they mean three and more. The second line is wrong,</p>
<p>Can there be more? Probably. To me it signals that the person writing the requirement needs to explain what they actually want to <strong>achieve</strong> because I have so many questions just by that short paragraph!<br /><br />Another aspect of this is in our reaction to other people and their actions. We read so much into what people say, look and do and I encourage you to try the save method next time you get hurt or upset by someone. <br />Are you sure your interpretation is correct or can there be other explanations? Try to come up with at least three and prove/falsify them. <br />Yes. A lot of times you will still decide that they were indeed jerks, but it will save you some unnecessary sorrow/anxiety/anger if you try to not react on your first explanation. They might not have been laughing because they think you looked stupid, it might just be your imagination. </p>
<h4>Story time</h4>
<p>This one was a looong time ago so the details are a bit vague but I hope I can explain the situation anyway.<br />We got a request to add a column to a report that we had in our system.<br />It was a small change but it would add a lot of complexity to the code (due to where/how the data was stored) and would still require a release and … it was really strange. It was a report with basically all companies that were connected to a certain product and they wanted us to add which ones were new or had changed addresses. Hm, ok. <br />So we asked why.<br />And the answer was that they needed it to send it to an external partner.<br /><br />We still did not really get it. We could do a way better solution pretty easily. So we asked why again.<br /><br />And learned that the report was sent to the external partner who then took all the new and updated ones and moved to another list that they had. Manually, from an alphabetically sorted list.<br /><br />Ehm. This does not sound like a good solution. It must be so much unnecessary manual labour. We asked why again<br /><br />And after a few more why we realized it was because “This is the way it has always been done!” in combination with them having some additional info in their system. Information which, incidentally, we could also provide them with, if they only told us they needed it.<br /><br />We suggested either sending them a complete list with everything they needed, a list sorted after latest update or only sending them the new and updated ones. Not a lot of extra work for us but much much happier people all around!</p>
<hr />
<h4>Quote of the day</h4>
<blockquote><p><strong>“If you can’t think of at least three things that might be wrong with your understanding of the problem, you don’t understand the problem”</strong></p><cite>From “Are your lights on” by Gerald M Weinberg and Donald C Gause</cite></blockquote>
<hr />
<h4>Reading suggestions</h4>
<p><a href="https://qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-rule-of-three-and-me.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">The rule of 3 and me</a> – QA Hiccupps<br /><a href="https://qahiccupps.blogspot.com/2016/06/making-earth-move.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Making earth move</a> – QA Hiccups<br /><a href="https://kanbanize.com/lean-management/improvement/5-whys-analysis-tool" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">5 Whys</a> – Kanbanize<br /><a href="https://www.isixsigma.com/tools-templates/cause-effect/determine-root-cause-5-whys/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Determine the root cause</a> – iSixSigma<br /><a href="https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/three-amigos/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Three Amigos</a> – Agile Alliance<br /><a href="https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/3-amigos-bytesize-agile" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">3 Amigos</a> – Bytesize agile<br /><a href="http://katrinatester.blogspot.com/2014/10/satir-interaction-model.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Satir interaction model</a> – Katrina tester</p>
<h4>Previous posts in the series</h4>
<figure><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Title and link</strong></td><td><strong>Category</strong></td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2019/12/30/would-heu-risk-it-part-1/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 1: Introduction</a></td><td>None</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/01/would-heu-risk-it-part-2-mischievous-misconceptions/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 2: Mischievous Misconceptions</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/03/would-heu-risk-it-part-3-the-rift/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 3: The Rift</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/06/would-heu-risk-it-part-4-the-facade/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 4: The Facade</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/08/would-heu-risk-it-part-5-temptress-trails/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 5: The Temptress’</a><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/08/would-heu-risk-it-part-5-temptress-trails/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"> </a><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/08/would-heu-risk-it-part-5-temptress-trails/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Trails</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/10/would-heu-risk-it-part-6-allies/%20(opens%20in%20a%20new%20tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 6: Allies</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/13/would-heu-risk-it-part-7-dont-turn-back/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 7: Don’t turn back</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/15/would-heu-risk-it-part-8-the-glutton/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 8: The Glutton</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/17/would-heu-risk-it-part-9-beyond-the-border/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 9: Beyond the border</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td> <a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/20/would-heu-risk-it-part-10-forever-and-never/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 10: Forever and never</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/22/would-heu-risk-it-part-11-the-shallows/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 11: The Shallows</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/24/would-heu-risk-it-part-12-the-twins/%20(opens%20in%20a%20new%20tab)" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 12: The Twins</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/27/would-heu-risk-it-part-13-the-observer/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 13: The Observer</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/29/would-heu-risk-it-part-14-alethephobia/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 14: Alethephobia</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/01/31/would-heu-risk-it-part-15-opus-interruptus/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Part 15: Opus interruptus</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/03/would-heu-risk-it-part-16-the-illusionist/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 16: The Illusionist</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/05/would-heu-risk-it-part-17-fools-assumptions/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 17: Fools’ assumptions</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="http://view post https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/10/would-hey-risk-it-part-18-the-unexpected/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 18: The Unexpected</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/12/would-heu-risk-it-part-19-constantly-consistent/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 19: Constantly Consistent</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/14/would-heu-risk-it-part-20-drowning-in-the-deep/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 20: Drowning in the dee</a><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/14/would-heu-risk-it-part-20-drowning-in-the-deep/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">p</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/17/would-heu-risk-it-part-21-the-hive/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 21: The Hive </a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/24/would-heu-risk-it-part-22-the-contract/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 22: The Contract</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/02/28/would-heu-risk-it-part-23-the-shapeshifter/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 23: The Shapeshifter</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/03/12/would-heu-risk-it-part-24-lost-in-translation/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 24: Lost in translation</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/03/19/would-heu-risk-it-part-25-goldilocks/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 25: Goldilocks</a></td><td>Tool</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/04/09/would-heu-risk-it-part-26-the-inconceivable/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 26: The Inconceivable</a></td><td>Trap</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/04/20/would-heu-risk-it-part-27-the-juggler/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Part 27: The juggler</a></td><td>Weapon</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p>The post <a href="https://testing.pejgan.se/2020/04/23/would-heu-risk-it-part-28-three-is-the-magic-number/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Would Heu-risk it? Part 28: Three is the magic number</a> appeared first on <a href="https://testing.pejgan.se" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Testing.pejgan.se</a>.</p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/oDDEAbCkFUc" width="1" />Remaining iterative when your 3rd party isn’t2020-05-05T18:50:43.986000ZDuncshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/ecbFpckPIc4/remaining-iterative-when-your-3rd-party-isnt<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
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<p>We can chose which 3rd parties we work with, however we can’t often choose how they work.</p>
<p>This can lead to friction between our ways of working & theirs. We need alignment between all parties to facilitate a smooth delivery of value for our customers.</p>
<p>This situation occured at a previous customer of mine. We were striving for agility with iterative delivery, whilst our 3rd party was opting for a more traditional, staged delivery.</p>
<p>This post shares some concepts we used to tackle the differential of traditional delivery flowing into iterative cycles.</p>
<figure><a href="https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/a-brilliant-explanation-of-how-a-cars-differential-works-1450429/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><img alt="alt" height="202" src="https://www.duncannisbet.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Screen-Shot-2011-12-16-at-2.23.19-PM.png" width="286" /></a><figcaption>How a car’s differential works</figcaption></figure>
<span id="article-5aOsRuRlBXjfvp3Uc_8Drp9SoKs-more-4391"></span>
<h2>The Challenge</h2>
<p>The organisation is moving towards agility, intent on iterative delivery. </p>
<p>One of the teams gained enough traction to warrant spinning up a full, cross-discipline team consisting of both development & FS stakeholders.</p>
<p>This team would be working closely with a 3rd party to deliver an FS product.</p>
<p>As you can probably gather, our team was iterative, the 3rd party was working to a more staged delivery cycle (Waterfall).</p>
<p>The big question in the team was how can we remain iterative when our 3rd party isn’t?</p>
<h2>What’s in a Value Stream Anyway?</h2>
<p>Although the 3rd party was working with a staged delivery cycle, they were doing it well. We had a clear understanding of what could be delivered when, with the priority order being agreed between the 2 parties.</p>
<p>Their software deliverables only made up part of the value stream.</p>
<p>It’s important to reiterate that value streams contain more than the flow of software (materials) – they also contain the flow of <em>information</em>.</p>
<p>Yes, the 3rd party was delivering software in large chunks, but the information between the 2 teams was frequent & regular.</p>
<p>This rapid sharing of information still enabled questions to be quickly answered & mis-assumptions corrected in a timely manner.</p>
<p>With seemingly conflicting delivery cycles, we could still benefit from short feedback cycles of information.</p>
<p>For example, we could challenge ideas, correct requirements & manage expectations before the code gets written. </p>
<h2>Rocks in the River</h2>
<p>Whilst working with a previous customer helping their large enterprise adopt Agile at scale, I was introduced to the concept of “<a href="https://www.projectmanagement.com/blog-post/22799/Rocks-in-the-River" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">rocks in the river</a>“.</p>
<p>The idea being that rivers contain large rocks that don’t move – water has to flow around them.</p>
<p>The 3rd party software deliverables were our “rocks in the river”. We knew where they were, so we could plan how to flow around them (otherwise we’d hit those rocks head on, which isn’t a good place to be).</p>
<h2>Rocks in the Jar</h2>
<p>There’s also the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/time-management-productivity-rocks-pebbles-sand-2019-2" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">time management story</a> of the professor asking if a jar is full of rocks or not. The professor then adds gradually smaller rocks, stones & sand to show how the jar was not actually full of rocks.</p>
<p>The metaphor highlights the different size tasks we need to accomplish, with the rocks, stones & sand being the tasks & the jar being our capacity to complete those tasks.</p>
<p>As with the “rocks” from the 3rd party, the rocks in the jar do take up a lot of our time, but there are other smaller tasks that can be accomplished in shorter timeframes.</p>
<p>In fact, some of these smaller tasks would need to be completed before we could actully take delivery of the software from the 3rd party!</p>
<h2>Summary</h2>
<p>To round it up then, value streams contain <em>material </em>& <em>information </em>flows. Both of which come in different shapes & sizes (think different sizes & types of rock)</p>
<p>Even if the 3rd party material flows are staged (& therefore probably larger), your team can still break down their own work into smaller work items & work iteratively to deliver them.</p>
<p>You can then plan your work around the large deliverable from the 3rd party.</p>
<p>Information is often easier to deliver in small chunks. I’ve found that people are often keen for more frequent but shorter meetings after they experience the benefits of fast feedback loops.</p>
<p>Over time, you & your 3rd party will likely discover ways in which the staged deliveries can be broken down so that they become more frequent. </p>
<p>You’ll be surprised at how work decomposition improves with trust & rapport!</p>
<p></p>
<p>Have you had to work with a 3rd party delivering value to a different cadence than yourself? How did it go? How did you go about tackling the challenge? I’d love to hear it!</p>
<p></p>
<p>Thanks for stopping by,</p>
<p>Duncs</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://www.duncannisbet.co.uk/remaining-iterative-when-your-3rd-party-isnt" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Remaining iterative when your 3rd party isn’t</a> appeared first on <a href="https://www.duncannisbet.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Duncan Nisbet - Software Delivery Coach</a>.</p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/ecbFpckPIc4" width="1" />Family recipes2020-05-05T18:45:58.260000ZAuthorhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/ox_wdanMupw/a-la-plancha.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/family-recipes/5454096:93ad6e">shared this story</a>
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<span style="font-family: verdana;">I could have sworn that my mother told me this story, but when I asked her where she read it from, she told me that I was the one who told it to her...so, unfortunately, I won't be able to quote the source this time (I will do some research when I can and update this post if I find the source of the story). </span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">This post was inspired by a comment that <a href="https://twitter.com/tottiLFC" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Toyer M.</a> made in the chat of TestBash Home's during the session "Panel: Leadership. With Shey Crompton, Nicola Sedgwick, Alessandra Moreira and the awesome host Jenna Charlton).<div style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rhehccsRq70/Xq_gCc-JjhI/AAAAAAAAHFk/pH6vSg-pXa8laA7c2U8mj-q8QHAwybJ3gCK4BGAsYHg/Screenshot%2B2020-05-04%2Bat%2B11.25.51.png" rel="noopener" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img height="350" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rhehccsRq70/Xq_gCc-JjhI/AAAAAAAAHFk/pH6vSg-pXa8laA7c2U8mj-q8QHAwybJ3gCK4BGAsYHg/w640-h350/Screenshot%2B2020-05-04%2Bat%2B11.25.51.png" style="border: 0px solid black;" width="640" /></a></div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"> I wanted to tell him this story, but I thought the chat wasn't the right place to do it.<br /></span><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b>The story</b></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Once upon a time, there was a child who received an assignment at school. She had to find a family recipe and write it down, step by step. She didn't have to think too much about it, whenever she thought of a family recipe, "pan-fried fish" sprung to mind. </span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">She came home after school and asked her mom to write down the steps for her:</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">1. Buy fish</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">2. Clean it and cut it in half</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">3. Heat up a pan, drizzle some olive oil, place the fish in the pan and let it sizzle. </span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Girl: Mom, why do you cut the fish in half?</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Mother: I don't know, mom always made it that way. Ask her. </span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">The girl ran upstairs and asked grandma the same question.</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Girl: Gran, you know our family pan-fried fish recipe? Why do you cut the fish in half?</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Grandma: Hm...I don't know...ask Aunt Susan, it's her recipe. </span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">The girl called Aunt Susan on the phone. </span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Girl: Auntie, I'm working on a school assignment and they asked me to write down a family recipe. I chose pan-fried fish! </span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Aunt Susan: That's great!! So what do you want to know about it?</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Girl: Well, my mom said I had to cut the fish in half...I asked grandma and she told me the same thing. But why?</span></span></div><div><span><span color="#4285f4" style="font-family: verdana; background-color: white;">Aunt Susan: When I got the recipe from my mom, I know she used to cut it in half, but only because her pan was so small! I got a bigger pan now and I no longer cut it in half. </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: verdana;">Asking questions is always a good exercise. The reasons why things are a certain way is purely based on the context.</span></div></div><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/ox_wdanMupw" width="1" />Developer/Tester/SDIT Relationships and TestBash Home (Sketch-notes, May Week 1)2020-05-05T18:43:59.228000ZLouise Gibbshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/GzEweo62h4c/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/developertestersdit-/5454096:32a202">shared this story</a>
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<p>This action packed week included 2 webinars and the highly anticipated TestBash Home. </p>
<h2>Do We Need To Be A SDIT?</h2>
<p>The first webinar I watched was given by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/cakehurstryan/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Callum Akehurst-Ryan</a>, as part of the <a href="https://www.meetup.com/The-Bristol-Tech-Symposium/events/270156789/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">iO Virtual Meetup</a>. </p>
<p>In this talk, Callum examined the perception of testers and SDIT’s (Software Developers In Test). He proposed that testers needs a T-shaped set of skills containing a mix of general skills and some specialized skills. </p>
<p>The only different between an SDIT and other testers is the specialism they decided to focus on. Just because a tester has chosen not to focus on automation, doesn’t mean that they are not technical. </p>
<p>Callum provided a possible journey a tester could follow to develop more technical skills, if that is what they wanted to do. This was a journey that he himself followed.</p>
<figure><img alt="a close up of text on a white background" src="https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4D22AQHVFUbNrJpJCw/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0?e=1591228800&v=beta&t=pXsIDXVfFQZuCwLjTWn-FJMd_NxVEaRAPSwisyg6WLo" /></figure>
<h2>MOTrix: Observations on the Developer/Tester Relationship</h2>
<p>The second talk was delivered by Richard Bradshaw, the Ministry of Testing BossBoss. </p>
<p>We’ve all rolled our eyes when a developer has provided the unhelpful response “It works on my machine!”. We’ve also moaned in frustration when a developer accuses testers of not being technical.</p>
<p>However, testers are guilty of their own sins like accusing developers of not testing. Despite being a talk developed for a testing audience, it also provided an insight into frustrating actions of testers from a developer point of view. </p>
<figure><img alt="No alternative text description for this image" src="https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/image/C4E22AQHG4hdIbcb8SQ/feedshare-shrink_2048_1536/0?e=1591228800&v=beta&t=0KaLDhNZMHAr_OfWFonCk34HUO9BTrWHUOZ7wSkGIFc" /></figure>
<h2>TestBash Home</h2>
<p>If you’ve ever been to a TestBash conference before, you’ll know that its much more friendly and collaborative when compared to other conferences. It seemed impossible to achieve the same experience from virtual conferences…but somehow they did. </p>
<p>Last week saw the debut of TestBash Home. A new virtual conference that replaced the TestBash events cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>I posted all my sketch-notes from the talks in the following blog posts: </p>
<p>First 12 hours: <br /><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-first-12-hours-sketchnotes/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-first-12-hours-sketchnotes/</a></p>
<p>Last 12 hours: <br /><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-final-12-hours-sketchnotes/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-final-12-hours-sketchnotes/</a></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/GzEweo62h4c" width="1" />Risk Mapping (automation prioritisation)2020-05-05T18:37:35.279000ZDiogo Nuneshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/aD0llRwLS4k/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/risk-mapping-automat/5454096:2a1f20">shared this story</a>
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<p>Scenario: My team wanted to write more automated checks, but we had too many features to cover and not enough time. We had to prioritize what to test… but how to do it objectively? Sam Connelly wrote an article about Visual Risk. The exercise visually maps features in terms of frequency of use and impact … <a href="https://www.diogonunes.com/blog/risk-mapping-prioritisation/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Continue reading<span> "Risk Mapping (automation prioritisation)"</span></a></p>
<p>Continue reading <a href="https://www.diogonunes.com/blog/risk-mapping-prioritisation/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Risk Mapping (automation prioritisation)</a></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/aD0llRwLS4k" width="1" />5 Steps to Getting Started with Risk-Based Testing2020-05-05T18:33:19.616000ZShawn Jaqueshttps://www.stickyminds.com/article/5-steps-getting-started-risk-based-testing<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/5-steps-to-getting-s/2931561:bc2c4b">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/2931561.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> StickyMinds - Software testing and software QA online community with content, conversation, and practical advice on software test automation, test management, test techniques, agile testing & more.</b>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://www.stickyminds.com/article/5-steps-getting-started-risk-based-testing"><img alt="Person parasailing" height="480" src="https://www.stickyminds.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/article/2020/action-active-activity-adventure-132429.jpg?itok=u-3JQxsp" title="Managing risk" width="480" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Risk-based testing is an approach to testing that helps us handle our limited resources. It’s also a valid model for years to come because it focuses testing resources where they can have the most impact—regardless of whether limitations are due to budget, tight schedules, or even the uncertainty of an unexpected situation like COVID-19. Here are some practical tips, examples, and steps you can use to adopt risk-based testing. </p>
</div></div></div>Get ahead by learning to communicate2020-05-04T18:40:51.748000ZKevin Tuckhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/_SqjMwSVdsg/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
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<p>Whether you are a sole tester on a software project, part of a larger team. Or even a test manager or lead. We all have the ability to influence and connect with others, not only with through our voice or traditional written methods like emails. But also through listening to the thoughts of others and …</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://kevintuck.co.uk/get-ahead-by-learning-to-communicate/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Get ahead by learning to communicate</a> appeared first on <a href="https://kevintuck.co.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Kevin Tuck</a>.</p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/_SqjMwSVdsg" width="1" />Visualizing and Measuring Quality (30 Days of Quality, Day 12/21)2020-05-04T18:35:31.297000ZLouise Gibbshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/7GaOhv7joEs/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<p><strong>Each year, Ministry of Testing launch a #30DaysOfTesting challenge. This year the topic is ‘<a href="https://www.ministryoftesting.com/dojo/series/30-days-of-testing/lessons/30-days-of-quality" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Quality</a>‘. The challenge began in March, but I was a little late getting started. So, throughout April and May, I’m going to be posting a series of blog posts where I talk about what I’ve learnt while completing each task. </strong></p>
<p><strong>Day 12 – Create a visualization that can help describe the different aspects of ‘Quality’</strong><br /><strong>Day 21 – Share a resource on how you might measure quality</strong></p>
<p>On <a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/defining-and-measuring-quality/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 1</a> of the 30 Days of Quality challenge, I discussed the idea that quality could be measured by listing the most important quality aspects of an application, placing these in a pyramid by order of importance and then identifying the level on the pyramid that has been reached. </p>
<p>This concept would work in a way that is similar to Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. Higher levels of the pyramid cannot be reached unless the lower levels have also been reached. </p>
<p>With this in mind, I took the eight dimensions of quality and used them to created a new version of the pyramid. </p>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/image-9.png" /></figure>
<p>This works a little differently from my earlier idea as a high level quality can still be achieved for the upper levels of the pyramid when they are assessed independently, even if it doesn’t exist on lower levels . However, the overall quality of each level is still dependent on the lower levels. The application can look amazing, and do all the things it is meant to do. However, this would be pointless if the application does not work. </p>
<p>The order that each dimension appears in the pyramid will vary depending on the business priorities. The order that has been used here reflect my own opinion of what should be prioritized. Quality cannot be achieved unless the application works, and this version of the pyramid reflects this point of view. The lower levels of the pyramid represent the foundations of most applications. Without them, the product will not be stable. </p>
<p>Perceived quality appears at the top of the pyramid because it is directly impacted by all 7 dimensions. </p>
<h2>Measuring Quality</h2>
<p>For Day 21 of the challenge, I was required to share a resource on how we might measure quality. A business will choose to measure quality based on its own goals and priorities. However, while creating my own visualization of quality, I was inspired to also devise a way that quality could be measured using the eight dimensions of quality. </p>
<p>Each level of the pyramid is giving an independent quality score. This is a rating out of 10. For this, you can group levels together or give each quality aspect its own level. The order of the levels can vary depending on the priories of the business. In this example, I chose to separate out each level.</p>
<div><figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/image-12.png" /></figure></div>
<p>I used the following formula to calculate the perceived quality for each level:</p>
<p>W = (Y * Z)/X</p>
<p>W = Perceived score for current level<br />Y = Perceived score of lower level<br />Z = Independent score of the current level<br />X = Maximum possible score</p>
<p>The lowest level (performance) would be calculated first, followed by the level above it (reliability) and so on until the top of the pyramid has been reached.</p>
<p>Here is how an overall perceived quality score of 0.22 (or 22%) would be calculated:</p>
<figure><table><thead><tr><th>Individual Quality Score</th><th>Perceived Quality Score</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Aesthetics</td><td>4</td><td>0.22</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>8</td><td>0.55</td></tr><tr><td>Conformance</td><td>8</td><td>0.69</td></tr><tr><td>Durability</td><td>9</td><td>0.86</td></tr><tr><td>Serviceability</td><td>4</td><td>0.96</td></tr><tr><td>Reliability</td><td>3</td><td>2.40</td></tr><tr><td>Performance</td><td>8</td><td>8.00</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p>The perceived quality score for each row is a reduction of the perceived quality score for the row beneath it. The amount the score is reduced by on each level is dependent of the individual quality score of the current level. This demonstrates how the perceived quality is directly dependent on the quality of the levels beneath it. The lower levels have a higher impact on the overall quality, because without them the rest of the pyramid will break.</p>
<p>The quality score can be increased by arranging the levels, if doing so is in the best interests of the business. Some business’ may place higher value on aesthetics, so may choose to have this level further down the pyramid. </p>
<p>If the quality of one level increases, then the quality of higher levels will improve. However, the levels beneath the level which was improved will remain unaffected. Here is what happens if the Reliability and Serviceability scores are increased to 10. It improved the score of all the levels above it, however the Performance score is unaffected. </p>
<figure><table><thead><tr><th>Individual Quality Score </th><th>Perceived Quality Score</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Aesthetics</td><td>4</td><td>1.84</td></tr><tr><td>Features</td><td>8</td><td>4.61</td></tr><tr><td>Conformance</td><td>8</td><td>5.76</td></tr><tr><td>Durability</td><td>9</td><td>7.20</td></tr><tr><td>Serviceability</td><td>10</td><td>8.00</td></tr><tr><td>Reliability</td><td>10</td><td>8.00</td></tr><tr><td>Performance</td><td>8</td><td>8.00</td></tr></tbody></table></figure>
<p>To increase the perceived quality score, we need to focus on improving the quality score for all levels.</p>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>This was a idea that I came up with while completing the 30 days of quality. It is purely theoretical, but I think that it could be developed further with time. </p>
<p>The idea was based on the fact that certain quality aspects are more important than others, but these levels may go unnoticed. Some of the more essential dimensions are hidden to the end-user.</p>
<p>The eye at the top of the pyramid is used because the perception of quality will vary depending on who is looking (some inspiration also came from the Illuminati symbol). Some people observing an application from the top of the pyramid will only see the top levels. Others will see all the way to the bottom.</p>
<h2>Further Reading</h2>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_dimensions_of_quality" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Eight dimensions of quality</a> – Wikipedia article<br /><a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs</a> – Saul Mcleod, Simply Psychology</p>
<h2>Earlier Ideas</h2>
<p>Here are some sketch notes and an earlier example of the pyramid showing how this idea developed.</p>
<figure><img alt="alt" height="444" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/img_0555.jpg?w=924" width="462" /><figcaption>Initial idea for a visualization that describes the different aspects of quality. This shows how I grouped the different dimensions together by thinking what what questions they answer. </figcaption></figure>
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<figure><img alt="alt" height="506" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/img_0556.jpg?w=924" width="462" /><figcaption>Initial sketch of the pyramid</figcaption></figure>
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<h2>#30DaysOfTesting – Progress so far</h2>
<ul><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/01/defining-and-measuring-quality/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 1</a> – Lookup some definitions of what ‘Quality’ is and share your own definition on The Club</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/achieving-a-pleasing-level-of-quality/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 2</a> – Read and share a blog post on Quality</strong></li><li>Day 3 – Pick a book to read that discusses ‘Quality’ and share on The Club why you’ve chosen it<ul><li>Will be completed along with Day 30</li></ul></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/perceptions-of-quality-30-days-of-quality-day-4-6-8/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 4</a> – Capture five different perspectives on Quality and share their similarities and differences.</strong></li><li>Day 5 – Get some members of your team to join you in a game of Quality Jenga<ul><li>Can’t complete due to COVID-19 Pandemic. Not sure how to play Jenga when everyone is working from home.</li></ul></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/perceptions-of-quality-30-days-of-quality-day-4-6-8/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 6</a> – Find out what ‘Quality’ means to your teammates</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/07/perceptions-of-quality-30-days-of-quality-day-4-6-8/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 8</a> – Sit with your team and find out how you’re building ‘Quality’ into their work</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/09/quality-discussion-who-decides-quality-30-days-of-quality-day-9/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 9</a> – Contribute to a discussion on The Club about ‘Quality’</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/15/feedback-from-customers-and-the-business-30-days-of-quality-day-10-22/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 10</a> – Find and read feedback from your customers. What does this tell you about the quality of your product?</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/visualizing-and-measuring-quality-30-days-of-quality-day-12-21/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 12</a> – Create a visualization that can help describe the different aspects of ‘Quality’</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/visualizing-and-measuring-quality-30-days-of-quality-day-12-21/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 21</a> – Share a resource on how you might measure quality</strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/04/15/feedback-from-customers-and-the-business-30-days-of-quality-day-10-22/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Day 22</a> – Find out what metrics your internal stakeholders care about and why</strong></li></ul><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/7GaOhv7joEs" width="1" />TestBash Home – The Final 12 Hours (#Sketchnotes)2020-05-02T18:45:20.660000ZLouise Gibbshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/JuTnF5Atvsc/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
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<p>I’ve had just 4 hours sleep in the last 24 hours (and this doesn’t include the days work I did the day before), but it was so worth it. TestBash Home has been a wonderful community driven event with so much learning, enhanced by its interactive style. Being online in no way negated the friendly and collaborative experience commonly associated with TestBash events. </p>
<p>I’ve had so many messages about my sketchnotes. I’m glad you like them. I’ve found reviewing other peoples sketchnotes at past conferences a useful exercise as it allows me to compare other peoples interpretation of the talk. Feel free to borrow, copy or steal these notes, they are there to be shared. </p>
<p>Sketch-notes from the first half of the conference can be viewed here: <a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-first-12-hours-sketchnotes/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-first-12-hours-sketchnotes/</a></p>
<p>I’ve not been able to watch all the talks, but I might watch and post sketch-notes for the talks I missed at a later date. </p>
<p>The notes for talks you won’t see here are: </p>
<ul><li>A Bug Hunt Live <ul><li>really don’t think this talk is suitable for sketch-noting</li></ul></li><li>Panel: Coaching and Management </li><li>Evil User Stories – Improve Your Application Security</li><li>Exploring Black Box Puzzles<ul><li> Again, not really suitable. Also, I took part in this. I can’t sketch-note a talk I was in. </li></ul></li></ul>
<h2>Sketch-notes From The Second Half</h2>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0695.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0697.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0702.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0704-1.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0706.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<h2>99 Second Talks</h2>
<p>Here are my notes from the second round of 99 second talks. I wrote these out live during the session. I use this as a note taking exercise, to train myself to recognize and write the key points. I then add additional notes to them in a different pen colour. These are new ideas inspired by the 99 second talk, which go on to inspire future blog posts or discussions. </p>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0707.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<h2>Live Coaching – Exploring The Black Box Puzzles – With James Lyndsey</h2>
<p>I eagerly volunteered (maybe a little too eager) to take part in this very curious workshop. We were given a puzzle, and told to carry out exploratory testing to try and find out what the basic principle was. It was fun, even if we didn’t work out the answer. I’m still working it out now. </p>
<p>Go to the following link to give it a go. If you want the answer, then you’ll need to contact James Lyndsey directly:</p>
<p><a href="http://blackboxpuzzles.workroomprds.com/puzzle35/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://blackboxpuzzles.workroomprds.com/puzzle35/</a></p>
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<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/ileana_herrera?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener" target="_blank">@ileana_herrera</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Louise_J_Gibbs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener" target="_blank">@Louise_J_Gibbs</a> being superstars and exploring a, well, a very puzzling puzzle, LIVE! <a href="https://twitter.com/workroomprds?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener" target="_blank">@workroomprds</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ministryoftest?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener" target="_blank">@ministryoftest</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/testbash?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener" target="_blank">#testbash</a> <a href="https://t.co/Q7SJemvfDK" rel="noopener" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/Q7SJemvfDK</a></p>— Antonella Scaravilli <img alt="🚀" src="https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f680.png" style="height: 1em;" /> (@AntzScaravilli) <a href="https://twitter.com/AntzScaravilli/status/1256181932821557248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener" target="_blank">May 1, 2020</a></blockquote></div></div></figure><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/JuTnF5Atvsc" width="1" /><script id="twitter-wjs" type="text/javascript" async defer src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>TestBash Home – The First 12 Hours (#Sketchnotes)2020-05-02T18:45:15.957000ZLouise Gibbshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/Dk7d80Psnx0/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/testbash-home-the-fi/5454096:4fc6e9">shared this story</a>
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<p>Test Bash Home is finally here! </p>
<p>Apologies in advance if parts of this blog post make little sense. I’ve managed a few naps to get me through the night but I am generally sleep deprived. </p>
<p>I’ve drawn up sketch notes for all talks I’ve watched. I can’t promise I’ll draw up notes for every talk, but I’ll do my best. </p>
<p>Sketchnotes for the 2nd half of the conference can be found here:<br /><a href="https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-final-12-hours-sketchnotes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://louisegibbstest.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/testbash-home-the-final-12-hours-sketchnotes/</a></p>
<p>The notes for talks you won’t see here or on the follow up blog post are: </p>
<ul><li>A Bug Hunt Live <ul><li>really don’t think this talk is suitable for sketch-noting</li></ul></li><li>Panel: Coaching and Management </li><li>Evil User Stories – Improve Your Application Security</li><li>Exploring Black Box Puzzles<ul><li>Again, not really suitable. Also, I took part in this. I can’t sketch-note a talk I was in. </li></ul></li></ul>
<h2>Sketch-notes From The First Half</h2>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/img_0686.jpg" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/img_0687.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0689.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0690.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0691.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<h3>99 Second Talk notes</h3>
<p>I use this as a note taking exercise and future idea generator. I will add additional notes in another pen color at a later date and use this as inspiration for future blog or social media posts. This is why they are not as colorful as my other notes.</p>
<p>I managed to squeeze all the talks (other than my own talk) onto a single piece of A4 paper. Bruce’s talk only just fit. </p>
<p>My connection dropped out briefly during Emna’s talk, and I thought she mentioned a 4th skill. Can anyone let me know what it was?</p>
<figure><img alt="alt" src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0692.jpg?w=2048" /></figure>
<h3>More Photos</h3>
<p>I started the night in my awesome Ministry Of Test t-shirt, but I succumbed to the temptation of sleep. So I changed into my pajamas and took a nap. Well done to anyone who has stayed awake the entire time.</p>
<figure><ul><li><figure><img src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0685-1.jpg" /></figure></li><li><figure><img src="https://louisegibbstest.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/img_0688.jpg" /></figure></li></ul></figure><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/Dk7d80Psnx0" width="1" />Can We Choose for the Common Good?2020-05-02T18:45:01.177000ZJohannahttps://createadaptablelife.com/2020/04/can-we-choose-for-the-common-good.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<b>
karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/can-we-choose-for-th/7375292:aa4966">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/7375292.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Create An Adaptable Life.</b>
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<p><a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/concentric-circles.jpg"><img alt="" class="alignleft wp-image-19232" height="184" src="https://createadaptablelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/concentric-circles-300x300.jpg" width="184" /></a>We have some ideas about how to manage the coronavirus. We know that if we ask people to shelter in place—for a while—we can avoid overwhelming the local hospitals. Once we are past the initial surge of cases, we can begin limited reopening of our “common” areas. (Businesses, restaurants, parks, and more.)</p>
<p>I see differing opinions on what happens when we start to reopen our common areas. What happens if we have another surge? What if the surge is limited to nursing homes and older-people facilities? What if the surge sweeps through schools?</p>
<p>And, how long can we ask people to work “full time,” teach their children “full time,” and live in their houses full time?</p>
<p>Our current lives are not sustainable. We have too many pressures, pulling us against each other.</p>
<p>And, because the virus doesn’t care who it infects, I’ve been thinking about the common good.</p>
<p>Common good is the idea that we work for the benefit of society as a whole, not our individual private good. For example, I live in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The <em>idea</em> is that we work for the betterment of all residents of the state. We are not better or worse than any other state—I’m not claiming that. I claim that because we have the word “Commonwealth” in our name, we might think a little more about how to optimize for our whole, not our individual parts.</p>
<p>We can already see the results of this “common good” thinking. Several eastern state governors are collaborating on how and when to open our common areas back up. So have some western states. (I’m not aware of any European countries doing this, but I might not know.) These governors are not playing zero-sum games—they are playing the common good game.</p>
<p>They have a <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/2020/04/how-can-you-find-your-realistic-optimism.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">growth mindset</a>.</p>
<h2>Move to a Growth Mindset</h2>
<p>The more we collaborate “up,” for the common good, the less we play zero-sum games. When we play zero-sum games we have one and only one winner. Everyone else loses. Zero-sum games often arise from a <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/2018/03/do-you-believe-in-scarcity-or-abundance.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">scarcity mindset</a>.</p>
<p>So, my questions for how we can act for the common good:</p>
<ul>
<li>We might ask <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/2019/10/how-many-options-can-you-hold-at-one-time.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">How Many Options Can You Hold at One Time?</a> to see many possibilities.</li>
<li>Can we create short, small <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/newsletter/cal-tip-12-create-use-experiments" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">experiments</a> and learn from them? Given the virus’s contagion patterns, we already have a two-week delay built into the system which means we might not easily detangle which action causes which result.</li>
<li>We might check to see if our <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/2020/04/how-can-you-prevent-your-fear-from-limiting-your-options.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">fear is limiting our options</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>When we use the growth mindset, we might see what we can do for the common good.</p>
<ul>
<li>What do we need to practice to obtain feedback? I say it’s generating more options with experiments.</li>
<li>What skills do we need? We need to move from protecting hospitals from the surge to protecting people so we can leave our homes.</li>
<li>Where else can we learn from others? Gather and learn from the data other states and countries have generated.</li>
</ul>
<p>I wish I had answers. I still have more questions. And, when we create questions for the common good, we might generate more interim experiments, which offer data. The data might prompt us for more questions and experiments.</p>
<p>Dear adaptable readers, that’s the question this week: Can we choose for the common good?</p>
<p>The post <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com/2020/04/can-we-choose-for-the-common-good.html" rel="nofollow">Can We Choose for the Common Good?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://createadaptablelife.com" rel="nofollow">Create An Adaptable Life</a>.</p>Manager's Playbook: Heuristics for effective management2020-05-02T18:34:57.482000Zhttps://github.com/ksindi/managers-playbook<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/managers-playbook-he/5982259:ed062a">shared this story</a>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23026750">Comments</a>SSH hacks – a little sanity for remote workers2020-05-02T18:34:52.683000Zhttps://smallstep.com/blog/ssh-tricks-and-tips/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/ssh-hacks-a-little-s/5982259:aa0762">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/5982259.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Hacker News.</b>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23025756">Comments</a>Why Testing Is No Longer Sufficient for Today’s Software Delivery Pipelines2020-05-02T18:34:42.135000Zhttps://blog.overops.com/why-testing-is-no-longer-sufficient-for-todays-software-delivery-pipelines/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/why-testing-is-no-lo/5982259:294e1f">shared this story</a>
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<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23034650">Comments</a>Ladies and gentlemen, …. start your testing2020-04-30T18:52:14.015000Zsimonsaysnomorehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/RnUrfCImZo0/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/ladies-and-gentlemen/5454096:1b47db">shared this story</a>
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<p>Every start of a (new) sprint, the development work of the user stories starts. At that moment, for the tester(s) there is no software to test, hence the development work just started. That does not mean that the tester(s) can relax and wait until some piece of code is delivered by the developers and start testing at <u><em>that</em></u> moment. When the sprint starts, the testing work starts too. It is not execution work but preparation work.</p>
<p>As I’m a proponent of Session Based Exploratory Testing, I start my test preparation with writing my session reports the moment the work in a sprint begins. As a tester, I do an intake of my test work. i.e. which user stories are we developing within the sprint, collect some user story specific information and the details of the test environment. I write three session reports for this;<br />
– an <a href="https://simonsaysnomore.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/session-based-test-intake-session/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">intake session report</a> with information of the user stories within the sprint.<br />
– a <a href="https://simonsaysnomore.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/session-based-test-survey-session/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">survey session report</a> where I collect more detailed information about each user story within the sprint.<br />
– a <a href="https://simonsaysnomore.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/session-based-test-setup-session/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">setup session report</a> where you collect all the information of the test environment(s). Here you also can put the target release information for the sprint</p>
<p>When this information is collected and clear for everybody, you can start with the risk assessment of each user story. You have some requirements, some acceptance criteria’s and some information about the definition of done. This is your starting point of doing the risk investigation of a user story. Extra information you are looking for is where the software is changed or newly introduced, something you can ask the developers. You can also ask the the visual designer for some screen layouts related to the user story. It is also possible that the business analyst has formulated some feature files (BDD- or Gherkin-scripts).<br />
With als this information you can define the areas where to test and come up with test ideas. Als this information you put in an <a href="https://simonsaysnomore.wordpress.com/2016/10/02/session-based-test-analysis-session/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">analysis session report</a>. For each user story you can create such a report.</p>
<p>These four reports combined are you test plan for the sprint. When you are finished with this, you will be a few days further in the running sprint. Perhaps the moment you finished your preparation, the developer can deliver the <a href="https://simonsaysnomore.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/first-impression-test/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">first parts of the software</a> of the user stories which are developed. The right moment to start your first <a href="https://simonsaysnomore.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/session-based-test-deep-coverage-session/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">deep coverage test sessions</a> and the first lines of code for the automation scripts if needed.</p>
<p>So to conclude; when the sprint starts, your testing starts too.</p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/RnUrfCImZo0" width="1" />X-ray Vision and Exploratory Testing2020-04-30T18:49:13.214000ZNicholas Snogrenhttps://www.stickyminds.com/article/x-ray-vision-and-exploratory-testing<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
<a href="https://karlosmid.newsblur.com/story/x-ray-vision-and-exp/2931561:f7d023">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/2931561.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> StickyMinds - Software testing and software QA online community with content, conversation, and practical advice on software test automation, test management, test techniques, agile testing & more.</b>
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<div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://www.stickyminds.com/article/x-ray-vision-and-exploratory-testing"><img alt="X-ray of a computer's motherboard" height="328" src="https://www.stickyminds.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/article/2020/mathew-schwartz-dq7kElwnFFg-unsplash.jpg?itok=P1_YuL6E" title="X-ray vision for testing" width="480" /></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Imagine you have X-ray vision. Instead of seeing through walls, you can see the inner structure of programs, the bugs lying inside, and how to expose them. Anyone could execute the steps you gave them to reproduce the bugs. The difficulty in testing, then, is not in executing steps; it is figuring out what steps to take. How do you find those hidden bugs? We need to <i>be</i> the X-ray vision.</p>
</div></div></div>Take-aways from “Coffee and Mentoring with Anne-Marie” session2020-04-29T18:52:35.800000ZNithinhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/OnIIjH8AQig/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
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<p>Last Friday, had an opportunity to have a virtual coffee session with the amazing personality "Anne-Marie Charrett" who is an internationally recognised expert in software testing, Co-founder of Testing Times, keynotes speaker for international conferences. It was a coincidence that I came across her Mentoring session which was open for 8 Members, happens every friday... <a href="https://synapse-qa.com/2020/04/20/weekly-retrospective-1/#more-463" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Continue Reading →</a></p><p style="clear: both;"></p><p><img alt="Lean Coffee" src="https://synapseqablog.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/coffee-session.png?w=944" /></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/OnIIjH8AQig" width="1" />Hunting Production Bugs: Month of April2020-04-29T18:43:26.121000ZMarie Drakehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/5-D7sosm3gk/hunting-production-bugs-month-of-april<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
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Because of the current COVID-19 situation, my screen time has massively increased the past few weeks. I’ve been visiting different sites than usual and accidentally finding production bugs that slipped. I’m thinking of starting a series of posts (probably every month) where I share production bugs that I’ve encountered. These bugs will range from server error bugs, visual bugs, functionality bugs, etc. I am not shaming these companies but I just want to raise awareness that there is no such thing as 100% bug free application - and it’s ok! Production Bug #1: Blooming Artificial Couple of weeks back, I was trying to order a plant from Blooming Artificial. I found a promo code that I wanted to use but when I clicked checkout, the following error occurred. When I refreshed the page, the error disappeared but my shopping cart was empty. Production Bug #2: Daily Record Here’s an example of a visual bug of an advert overlapping with the news content. It didn’t mind me as much because I could still read the content but visually, it was a bit annoying to look at Production Bug #3: Coop While buying groceries online, I noticed a couple of bugs from the coop website. I set my filters to browse long life milk and the filter count said 9 of 8 products. Not sure where the 9th item came from but I counted the products manually and there were only 8. The following day I decided to visit the site again because I forgot to add a couple of items in my grocery list. It seems that even though my basket is currently empty, the price for the previous items that I bought is still displayed. Production Bug # 4: Daily Mail Browsing the online papers again and this time, I was looking at Daily Mail. I wanted to see their most watched News videos so I swiped right only to find empty blocks. Production Bug #5: Cypress Docs Site I was looking at the Cypress documentation site to look at examples on how to use one of their commands. There was nothing functionally wrong but in terms of readability, the example code was difficult to read because it wasn’t formatted properly. The keyword javascript is also added at the beginning. Only seems to be an issue on mobile devices though as desktop version is returning the format as expected. These all shows that we're all human, it's ok to slipped bugs in production (but not all the time!!). I know I have a fair share of bugs I've deployed in the past<p style="clear: both;"></p><p><img src="http://static.wixstatic.com/media/nsplsh_437050394c30554f4f4c34~mv2_d_5184_3456_s_4_2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" /></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/5-D7sosm3gk" width="1" />Toasters for AI2020-04-29T18:39:58.469000ZRiyaj Shaikhhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~3/Z2vQNLjJOQU/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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karlosmid
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<p><strong><span>Some Background</span></strong></p>
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<p>I was <em>tester</em> for brief period of time in 2011. I was also part of an organization where quality of products has been rigorously tested.</p>
<p>Later, around 2014, chose <em>Artificial Intelligence</em><strong> </strong>(AI) as my field that I want to excel in and working in it still in 2020.</p>
<p><em>In the last decade, I have built teams of AI, delivered some of the awesome projects for various clients & build products. Be it predictive machine learning, recommendation engines, chatbots, deep learning applications, big data applications. I tried my hands wherever I can.</em></p>
<p><strong><span>The need of testing Bringing Quality in AI products</span></strong></p>
<p>The experience I gained – taught me lot of about value of testing these products. While I was building products and delivering projects – I simply couldn’t find a tester who can do testing of my AI products. This was around 2018. I tried asking few thought leaders into testing & started working towards how we can bring effective quality procedures for AI applications.</p>
<p>I also found there aren’t much information available on internet who can help me learning testing for AI. It made my task harder and challenging. Fortunately – one of good piece that I found is Martin Fowers CD4ML – where he has written extensively about building a continuous delivery application for Machine learning systems. <a href="https://martinfowler.com/articles/cd4ml.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Please read it, it’s a great article.</a></p>
<p><span><strong>Toasters – to be toasted by testers! </strong></span></p>
<p>Title of the post – Toasters of AI , is an analogy of scenario where AI could fail. In fact we can fool AI to<a href="https://slate.com/technology/2018/01/google-researchers-tricked-an-a-i-into-thinking-a-banana-was-a-toaster.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"> recognise/behave in certain way without explicitly mentioning. </a></p>
<p>Imagine you are building a image classification or video object detection applications using deep neural networks. And you have a test dataset where you can <em>evaluate </em> an accuracy of model by observing predictions on test dataset.</p>
<p>Now you tweaked few images to make it look like a toaster. But they aren’t actually a toaster. If you pass the image through model – you will probably get recognition as a toaster, when there is nothing.</p>
<p>“Toaster” is just an analogy and frequent word in AI teams to mention that machine learning model that was trained is not robust yet and can fail to noisy signals or data.</p>
<p>In upcoming blog posts – I will be introducing good number of ways you can toast your AI applications – by bringing (or adding) toasters. I will be writing about AI and specific things testers needs to learn so that they can be well-equipped with knowledge before starting a testing project for AI.</p>
<p>Hope you enjoyed till here – if you are a tester , do subscribe for the future blog posts. </p>
<p>Until then, stay safe and healthy! </p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mottestingfeeds/~4/Z2vQNLjJOQU" width="1" />