EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - part three

I woke up with a major headache, maybe it's the tension for the track I'm doing today. I only had 1 cocktail during dinner and 1 pint of beer last night, so it can't be the booze acting up. Well, nothing a good old Aspirin can't fix.
I had to be at the conference centre at 0730 again to practice the last GMM session already. Today I'm again pointing out the Testlab, since it's an excellent place to be at to test and meet people and I'm highlighting the European Testers Survey in my weather report. I'm also sneaky referencing the closing event. I'm all into the details and it's going to be such fun! Before I went to the conference centre I picked up a huge eggnog latte at StarBucks, I love these different flavours in foreign SB's (I had a Pumpkin spice in Portland), it's a shame they don't have them in the Netherlands.

We practised again till the people came in the auditorium. It seems that more people don't want to miss the GMM's, the buzz is apparently going around that there's fun stuff in there and people don't want to miss it, which is good.

Photo by Rik Marselis: Me as weather girl on the big stage during GMM session.
The keynote was that of Ben Walters, I didn't notice it, but apparently he was as sick as could be and he just came out of bed to do the keynote before returning to it again (chapeau dude! I take my hat off for you if I'd wore one). It started out promising, but as Twittering and mailing increase, mark a period of my declining interest, I must conclude I was losing my interest half way the talk. My headache came up again so I wished for the track to end so I could pop an aspirin again. I got more stressed for my talk this afternoon...and that took a toll on my attention.

I went to Architecture Testing after the break by Peter Zimmerer. I listened to his talk with interest as I'm busy setting up something on how to do this with an architect at my current client. I didn't get what I expected to get from it though and I didn't agree with the content in a whole, I have a different perspective on architecture testing and it is good that different perspectives are there, but it sucks that this will probably set a new discussion and confusion that goes with it around the subject to get a common (for what that's worth) understanding. I see a lot of evangelising to be done there.

I went to Michael Bolton's dashboards track after that. I had high hopes and expectations, as I learned something new and very applicable every time I visited a track by Michael. I couldn't be more disappointed this time. It might have been very applicable for newbies, but for me, it was (very) old news and the stuff told I apply naturally in my work, as I know most of my colleagues do (and not only colleagues from my company but also most of the testers in NL and UK I know) because they are educated in reporting and giving feedback to the client when you're doing testing. I even go as far as to say I learned a lot of this stuff during my ISTQB course, but maybe that's because I had a good teacher for this course. It's not about the numbers, although a lot of non-ISTQB testers think we ISTQB people are only into 'coverage by percentage' etc. (it's not that bad: it's what you DO with it that counts ;-) ) , I actually learned that you first go to your client/ stakeholders and ask them what their need is regarding the information and reporting during testing and produce my information accordingly. I never use the same reporting for one organization in another, I even got specialized reporting for some specific stakeholder groups if it gets more clear for them or they feel more happy about a certain lay-out. Whiteboards are okay, but I'm having a conflict there when I think about the strict clean-desk policy most organizations have nowadays; they'd get a heart-attack when seeing this stuff all out in the open, it's all in the context and this solution isn't for my context.
I was considering changing to 10 challenges by John Montgomery, but I figured I could relax a bit have a bit and browse through some mail. It wasn't a complete waste of time, so I still was LEAN ;-)

Between that track and the lunch I went to StarBucks to escape and relax a bit. I have to remember to breathe...

My turn. I was nervous, VERY nervous. I've been 'speaking' before but at my Ethics debate the attendees do most of the talking and at my Unusual Testing track there's so much non-testing info, I'm quite sure the oddness protects me somewhat. This time I really felt exposed, I was talking about work I actually done as a tester and I felt I could only be exposed as a fraud or an idiot. Although my client was very pleased with my work (which I find most important) and I'm really proud of my work and want to share my lessons learned because they helped me and maybe could help others (or inspire), I'm still very unsure. It's also my first time on the 'BIG stage', I can tell it's different being on a stage in an auditorium, where seats are going up all around you and a smaller room, where you are the highest point in the room. I'm also not used having an AV team regulating my slides and having a slide-button and separate pointer. I was scared that I would screw up. I was scared switching the devices and look clumsy or making stupid English jokes, that are hilarious in Dutch but are are an insult in English or something. I was SCARED, I was NERVOUS...it went fine.

I had people asking questions, I had a happy client (which was in the room) and somebody that wanted to ask more inside info from an Austrian railway company and even - a first for me- somebody wanted a picture with me (I felt like a rock star :-)) ). I had a headache again, but this time from the tension leaving my body. I let out a sigh from relief and went for coffee.

The last keynote was from Isabel Evans. She still is one of the most inspiring people I have met and she always has always has something to tell that you can pick snippets from to use in your own work. I've never thought of sight disabled people and using IT, although I have a colleague that ought to have triggered me, but now I have really got something to think about. Again the added value of this particular conference is the things that surprise me as I would not have thought about before but really make something to bring home. It's one of the aspects that go in to my custom-made toolbox and check lists for testing questions.

The closing session is finally there. The audience doesn't know yet, but behind their seating is an envelope with a live (a special device that Morton made) or dead bug in it. I know because before my track during lunch, I've been putting them there (together with Derk-Jan, Morton and two Qualtech girls) and after that I sat on every chair (!!!) to make sure they didn't fall out (I still have my upper leg muscles complaining a bit because of this). On one of the dead bugs (encased in plastic) there's the winning number in-scripted for the Golden Ticket to EuroSTAR 2012. My job is to ensure everybody that wants to win this ticket is in the sections where the bugs are. Then it finally starts, the boys are ready and the lights go out... It's a spectacle and it goes exactly as planned. The TestLab is having their time to do the news on the lab. Then the 'bugtime' is there; it's hilarious with screams coming from here and there in the audience. Then it's already over and only the Gala-dinner remains.

The dinner is at 'The Monastery' and its really spectacular, the lighting gives it a very special and awesome atmosphere. There's champagne and there's good company. The choir, including Dorothy Graham and Fiona Charles is singing beautifully and finishes with a few of my favourite techniques written by Dot and specially arranged for the choir. It's magnificent.

The awards are given at the end of the dinner. Julian Harty wins the European Testing Excellence Award and I think it's well deserved. The chair for next year is also announced: Zeger van Hese will be chair for the Amsterdam 2012 edition.

I said my goodbyes at the Monastery, but there was also a drink at the Jury's Inn where I was invited to, so I tagged along with the others and had a good pint (or two) of Strongbows (to finish with what I started the whole adventure with I found that appropriate). I went to my hotel around one-ish and was surprised by one hell of a shower of rain. And of course my umbrella and poncho were still in the bag with weather-girl stuff :-), a bit of an ironic end of the the conference I thought, but what a conference it was... now to wait for a whole year for a new EuroSTAR to start, hoping to see you all there then.

Photo by Rik Marselis: Derk-Jan and Me at Schiphol Airport waiting at the passport control checkpoint

EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - part two

Well as they say : "the early bird catches, gets the worm"... as I say "I'm not into earlies and I'm certainly not into worms". I had to get to the conference centre at 07.30 to practice the GMM-session again, and I can't skip it since I'm a part of it today, as if I would, because I really like participating so actively, it just gives an extra dimension to visiting a conference I find.

I figured out that the StarBucks is just around the corner of the conference so I went there first to get some (well not some, but a large cup) coffee. I even got in the auditorium in time, which is quite essential if you're the timekeeper. We practised until the audience came in and we couldn't any longer. I was putting on my poncho for the weather gig back-stage and got my adrenaline rush again. Better than coffee I thought, but it hasn't got the same easiness.

It went well I think, at least I was happy with the way it went. And I think I did some good attention drawing to the testlab (which needed the attention since it was a bit out-of-the-route) and the expo. Today I'll have to keep an eye out for the weather-forecast items for tomorrow morning.
The opening keynote was that of James Whittaker (Google). Last time I saw him was also on a testing conference, where he (than employee of MicroSoft) had an item with a movie from MicroSoft with future technologies and that testers were laughing at that since they were sure they had work for them the upcoming years, he made a point that testers and developers were different then. It made the current message from him a bit shallow. Back then tester had a job, now we should become developers. Am I to believe a message from somebody that changes the message with the changing of the name of the organization that pays his salary? He's a good speaker though and it's entertaining to listen to him. The message wasn't all that bad, I still think myself that we shouldn't be in just one small part in the development phase but that we ought to be involved in the whole phase, I think we ought to have a broader skill set (maybe only some general kwowledge) to be more involved in the whole development cycle. Having been a developer myself I don't see why I should develop myself in my current job though; there are people who are MUCH more effective in that than I am. I find it bullocks to scratch 'tester' from my job title just to get 30% more salary; I'm proud on the work I'm doing thank you very much. If I learned anything from the 'death of tester and testingphase' keynotes it's that testing is as alive as ever.

My program of this day was:

• Minitracks (Martin Mussman and Jackie McDougall)
• Afterlunch tracks - visiting testlab, do some conferring
• checking first moments of Houston we've got a problem (Maurice Siteur and Rien v Vugt) and sneak out to finish with Social software development
• Tester get out of your cave (chairing this one)
• conferring time, checking the expo, maybe visit the lab again
• Mixing open and commercial tools (chairing this one)
• Keynote and closure
• Attending North West Testing Gathering (meetup)

So after the keynote I went over to the minitracks and enjoyed some very nice minitracks. The first minitrack being of Martin Mussman about mindmapping. The mindmaps for making your testdesign is a really good idea to let everybody involved get a clear view on what's going on. So I will use my FreeMind more often (FYI: list of wikipedia mindmapping software).
Jacky McDougall did a very passionate story on educational paths in her boot-camp track, which inspired me to look into some educational stuff for my organization. Both tracks brought me something I could really take with me. So I was happy with my choice to have visited them.

I visited the expo after that, tried to find the speaker that I was to chair that afternoon and did some conferring, I didn't get to see the next mini-tracks that I planned. Time seems to be going SO fast here...

I went to Houston of my colleagues Maurice and Rien after the coffeebreak. They started with a play to illustrate the goal of the talk. I sneaked out when Rien started on statistics. I already planned not being there the whole session and this seemed as good a moment as any. What I saw was okay, but then again, I didn't see the whole session.
I really wanted to visit the testlab during my EuroSTAR conference so I hurried there. I had to install the RedNoteBook application on my laptop and re-start, that cost me some time. But I got it running and even got time to report a bug; earning me two stickers: 1) labrat sticker and 2) I logged a bug in the testlab sticker, both are now proudly showing on my laptop.
The pair-testing sessions started which I would have really liked attending, but I had two sessions to chair also, one of which started in twenty minutes so I had to run again, grab some lunch and prepare the introductions.

Jan Jaap Cannegieter was the track I was chairing and I got to sit and relax a bit while listing to this pleasant track about 'tester: come out of your cave'. Although some statistics came around (from a survey) and as I said I'm not a fan of statistics, I liked the message and the thought process that came from these numbers. And I really agreed with the statement that we should develop more political skills as testers, I'm a big fan of learning and gaining non-typical-testing skills to enhance my testing work.

I didn't get to the testing lab again, which was rather a shame though, since it was really a good place to be and learn. I really don't know anymore what I did between this session and the session I had to chair next. I know I wandered around and visited some more expo, but the rest? I haven't got a clue.

After the afternoon break I chaired Mauro Garofalo. He was an Italian guy who spoke in English for the first time. He had a good topic, about combining open source tools with COTS tools, but alas not all of it came out in the most flourishing way due to the language barrier and he really was a smart guy, only nervous as hell. It also was a bit short. I tried to make it a bit longer by trying to get to some discussion and ask questions, but I had to end the session after 35 minutes already. I picked up the Maveryx info though an I'm really going to check that one out.

I had a bit of stone in my stomach to go to the keynote. I was afraid that it would bring more doom-messages of the end-of-the-testing-world or something. I like my job, so I'm not a fan of hearing all this 'it's going to end, because I'm just a blanket' stuff. I take my job seriously and I think it takes real skills to do it in a good way. So being called a security blanket (or a snugly Slanket for my part) isn't exactly what I like to hear.
Luckily I was wrong. Daryl told about communities to make a change in the Deutsche Bank organization. I really liked the view from this perspective, helped me perceive some better in persona's. There was somebody twittering that it shouldn't be in a testing conference, I was just thinking "You're not getting the message here, you seem daft" it is exactly this what makes this conference having an added value; giving different views from different perspectives.

After closing I didn't go to the North West Testing gathering directly. Paul Gerrard was hosting a debate at the Midland Hotel about the future of the testing profession. I decided to hang out with Derk-Jan de Grood who apparently had the same plans as I had for that evening. So we went to the debate together. It was a 'fishbowl' like session. I found it a fun session, although some attendees sat on the chair and kept sitting there and didn't give other people a chance to speak their mind and claiming all the speaking-space. Enough people spoke their mind in the end though and I'm very interested to read about it and see what of this maybe comes back in the new book that Paul Gerrard is going to publish in a short while.

Derk-Jan and I set out to grab something to eat on the way to the North West Testing gathering. We ended up in a place called 'Eden'. It had a really good choice of foods and I enjoyed a really good cocktail with ginger and some roasted pork belly, while Derk-Jan's choice was a pizza with an Eastern twist. We were a bit surprised and felt a bit akward to find out it was THE gathering spot of transsexuals as groups of 'women' came in an gave us some strange looks. Time to head out to the NW Testing Gathering and grab a sturdy beer...

When entering the Lass O'Gowry it was almost a shame to have to climb the stairs to the gathering as live music was played in the bar. I felt at home though, cause I'm a bit of a StarWars nut and the hallway to the gathering room was full of StarWars stuff. The presentations were well over but the screen still showed silly, amazing and fun error-messages so I stared at the screen for a bit. I also had some good talks with some of the testers there and enjoyed the great atmosphere that was there. After finishing my pint, Derk-Jan and I decided to get back to our hotels. I still had to do my weather map for tomorrow's weather-report and Derk-Jan still had to do some editing for his movies in the session. It had been a long day and there was still (only?) one to go...

EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - day one

I arrived in Manchester very late and shared a cab to the hotel with Tim Koomen en Jan Jaap Cannegieter. Well almost, they were at Jury's Inn and I was at Castlefield so I got to go on the Cab a couple of minutes longer. The staff of the hotel was most pleasant, they even opened up the cask of Strongbow's for me so I could relax a bit after my journey. The room was basic and a bit outdated, but it had all I needed and it was clean, so I was happy with it. Besides that I got a good view on the museum of Industry and Science and the possibility to have a swim in the pool or do some exercising in the gym, bot of which I would not get to this week for that matter.

On Tuesday I was planning to go to the conference centre at about eleven, but Geoff Thompson tweeted that I should be at the centre at nine for the dress rehearsal of the Opening and the Good Morning Manchester sessions. I've been involved in this thing since the beginning of this year or actually since Expo:QA in Madrid november 2010. I was sitting next to Geoff at Isabel Evans' keynote where she mentioned a sort of morning show for some fun in testing, like 'Good morning with Geoff and Nathalie' as we were the first two that were in sight. Geoff and me (and Graham Thomas) went a bit further on this concept and it grew to Good Morning Manchester. I got to be the director, which evolved to 'the teacher' role to keep the guys to their time-schedule during the GMM-session, there's a lot more to it then meets they eye at first glance. I also get to do a 'weather report' on Wednesday and Thursday morning to highlight some of the stuff during the conference, but more of that later.

So instead of getting there at eleven I had to be there at nine, which cut my lie-in morning a bit short and I actually had to hurry to get there. And although I was a bit short on my coffee intake (which always makes me bit grumpy) I had a great reception by the Qualtech team and the program team. It was way better than any coffee could accomplish, certainly regarding the coffee they make at the centre, which isn't awful, but isn't great either. We did two full and three half-runs of the opening session, still making some adjustments if they worked better than the original plan, it looked a bit like an agile project.

And then suddenly it was almost half pas one and people started coming in the auditorium. Adrenaline started flowing through my veins, I can only imagine what Derk-Jan, Morton, Graham and Geoff must have felt like standing behind the screen waiting for their grand entrance. It went great! The smokemachine worked perfectly (there were some worries there :-) ) and the lighting was done as it should be. Timing was almost disaster though, the interaction with the audience caused them to run over time almost 20%, despite me waiving my ruler franticly from the front row.

After that there was the first keynote from dr. Richard Sykes. I'm not sure weather I got it all, maybe I should lay off the twittering a bit more and get my attention to the speaker a bit more. On the other hand, when I'm very interested in a topic, I don't get to twittering a lot, so I guess I didn't find it THAT interesting. I catched some phrases about new tech being of influence on our work in testing, but that was about it. Or maybe I was just still 'into' the zone about the opening of the conference itself.

The program I set up for myself today was:

• Opening and keynote (have to be there for a specific reason...)
• Acceptance testing at it's best (Erik Boelen)
• The pursuit of Quality (Paul Gerrard)
• Keynote and drinks
• Attending Intechnica drinks? (I know they have the FunTESTic cocktail developed, but am not sure wheater I'm invited actually :-&)

I almost got to keep to that program.
I went to Eric Boelen's track, although I came in a bit late and had to be out of there a bit early because I had to do EuroSTAR TV recordings. I actually forgot a bit about them but luckily my phone reminded me of the event. The Qualtech team asked me to do something spontaneous, so I got in there and planned on doing something on how nostalgia of EuroSTAR in Manchester 2006 still triggered me to stuff now. I didn't expect for me to have an hour slot, I'm not THAT a spontaneous person I could just flick my sleeve and have stuff in there to fill an hour, so I got to a twenty minutes and felt okay about the recording.
Eric Boelen's track was held at one of the 'Exchange' rooms and it was packed full, there were even people sitting on the floor at the back of the room, which seemed odd to me, because you won't be able the slides and speaker from there, but I guess it's the content that counts. What I heard made sense, Eric is a pleasant speaker with an enthusiastic story to tell and this time was no different.

After the recordings I was on time to attend the track by Paul Gerrard. I like his tracks and I don't think I ever missed one whenever he was on a conference to speak and I was there. Last year was about axioms, which was very interesting (and there's also a little book available about this), so I was very curious what this one was about. Pursuing Quality.. chasing tornado's or just hot air. I could relate to the topic, about that same things can be perceived differently by different persons; rain could be a blessing for a farmer but a disaster for a tourist for example. Then there was a whole piece about models and what the impact of that is on testdesign and perception of stakeholders. Not all new, but a good shake-up for the brain. I noticed I didn't twitter that much during the session :-)

The last keynote of the day was that of Gojko Adzic 'Death to the testing phase'. SLIDES HERE. I read Gojko's 'Specification by Example' and liked it, so I was interested in what he had to say. I liked the refreshing style of the slides at first, but after a while I got annoyed with them in a way, it was a bit belittling, like I was in kindergarten and only would understand his story by these simplistic drawings. And then he showed a joke about Berlusconi and women, my first reaction was that I found it funny, but then I actually hated it and then my state of mind was already set in a kind of way and I didn't think it would get better. The main thing I got from it was actually that I should look up my more then ten year old schoolbooks about iterative stuff and I would read the same stuff as I heard in this keynote. So yes, I got SOMETHING out of it, but it was a reminder to browse some old books.

So I was really looking forward to the conference drinks and meet up with people. I felt like I've been doing loads of stuff and actually hadn't had time to do it all satisfactory to my liking. Maybe my head was just buzzing too much with all the impressions from today. I planned going to the Cloud23 party also. But after drinks I had to get back to the auditorium and practice the GMM session for tomorrow, and when that was finished it was already late and on my invite it stated that the drinks in Cloud were till 19.00 and it was already passed that so I left it for what it was and decided to go and have dinner with the program guys. We had a really pleasant evening at a place called OXnoble, which was a gastro-pub and had really good food (2 course meal for 10 pounds). I had sausage and mash and some lovely bread pudding and was happy. Went to my hotel and fell asleep almost immediately.

EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - prologue

I can't believe today is already the day I'm flying to EuroSTAR again. I have my bags packed, printed the timetable, tickets and reservation documents and am ready as can be. Alas I still have to work half a day... I like my job, don't get me wrong, but when I'm really looking forward of going somewhere like EuroSTAR, it's agony, maybe you know the feeling. The tweets on #esconfs stream don't help either... they're just enlarging the feeling of wanting to BE THERE already, but it'll have to do, at least I get to get into the conf-feeling a bit before hand.

So let me share my program (as it is now - still open for last-minute changes though)

Monday.
Arriving at Manchester (hoping that the fog won't delay me too much)
Speaker/ chair meetup at Cloud23
**UPDATE: arriving in Manchester AFTER meetup; due to fog flight is cancelled....

Tuesday.
Opening and keynote (have to be there for a specific reason...)
Acceptance testing at it's best (Erik Boelen)
The pursuit of Quality (Paul Gerrard)
Keynote and drinks
Attending Intechnica drinks? (I know they have the FunTESTic cocktail developed, but am not sure wheater I'm invited actually :-&)

Wednesday.
Opening and keynote (have to be there for a specific reason...)
Minitracks (Martin Mussman and Jackie McDougall)
Afterlunch tracks - visiting testlab, do some conferring
checking first moments of Houston we've got a problem (Maurice Siteur and Rien v Vugt) and sneak out to finish with Social software development
Tester get out of your cave (chairing this one)
conferring time, checking the expo, maybe visit the lab again
Mixing open and commercial tools (chairing this one)
Keynote and closure
Attending North West Testing Gathering (meetup)


Thursday
Opening and keynote (have to be there for a specific reason...)
Architecture testing (Peter Zimmerer)
Dashboards:... (Michael Bolton)
The challenges we face... (Lloyd Roden)
Catching a high speed train (my own track)
Keynote and finishes
Attending Galadinner


I would love to see your programs too! so please share if you dare :-)
And for now... back to work.

Portland and Pacific NW Software Quality Conference (PNSQC) 2011

In the beginning of the year I got the news that my paper 'Unusual Testing; lessons learned from being a casualty simulation victim', was selected for the PNSQC programme.
I couldn't believe my luck, me - not being out of Europe ever before - got to go to India (April this year) AND to the United States in the same year, I was SO excited!

SATURDAY
October 8th I board the plane to Portland (yes, in NL we're lucky to have a direct flight to PDX) and 10 hours later I set foot on US soil for the very first time.
I found my way rather quickly; I found the airport and US infrastructure all very organised and the MAX transportation system in the 'Rose city' which Portland also is called, is very efficient (not to mention affordable in comparison to Dutch public transport fares). So barely an hour later I could drop my stuff in my hotel room.

It was very nice weather in Portland and fall was just setting in, so the trees (the Portland area is very green) had just started to change hues from green to orange, red and browns. I just HAD to visit a US StarBucks. Everybody who knows me a little, knows I'm a SB addict. There were two in the vicinity of my hotel (one even with a drive-thru!) and I walked to the one that was furthest so I could check out the surroundings a bit. I ordered a Pumpkin Spice Latte (alas not available in NL, but they should be!) and a piece of Portland Coffee Cake and sat down at one of the tables on the outside patio, catching some of the warm sun rays and observing the Portland ways-of-life.



After the vitamine-SUN injection I set out for a quick nap, I hadn't slept in the plane and in NL it was about night time by now, so I figured it would be a good idea. After the nap I ventured out to a place called 'Chipotle', a bit of organic-style Mexican fast-food place. I recommend small-portion eaters like me, to first check out what other people are ordering, the portion are HUGE! I decided to order a kids-meal (which seemed odd to the people behind the counter, since they tried to sell me an adult-meal twice and asked me whether I was sure I only wanted 1 taco). The meal was served with a child-size beverage, which is not 0,2ltr as in NL, but a 0.4ltr.

SUNDAY
Sunday was a bit more rainy, but I set out to the Portland centre. The MAX transportation system is FREE within the centre zone (cool!), so you can get around without paying a cent. I figured I would check out where the conference was held first, which was at the World Trade Centre, but there was a Marathon and a demonstration so I had to walk all the way around to get there. I noticed how well the Marathon was organized and all contesters got a foil blanket on arrival, a rose and a medallion, the last mile 'victory style' music was played through speakers to encourage the walkers.
At around 11 a.m. the shops opened up and I took the oppurtunity to buy some souvenirs (way cool Oregon Beavers sweatshirts!) and some cheap jeans at Macy's which were on sale. I grabbed a late lunch, single SteakHouse burger (which was enormous) at a place called Carls'Jr. I visited another StarBucks on my way back to the hotel and worked a bit on some mails in my room and took another nap. In the evening I visited the hotel bar and checked out the sports, the chickenstrips and had some very cool conversations with some people there. It's great to find out that the people I met in the US are so nice and conversational. I found out that Oregon has some great red wines, especially the Pinot was way better (and a bit more full and heavy) than the European Pinot's. I got into bed early, since my internal clock was totally off now and I wanted to be somewhat fresh for my performance at the PNSQC conference.

MONDAY
I got into the US commuting life early in the morning. Starting off with another StarBucks visit (those Pumpkin Spice Latte's are really good :-) ) and walked to the MAX.
The World Trade Centre, and especially the registration desk of the PNSQC conference was already buzzing with people coming in. Starting time? 07.30.
I was greeted by the registration team and it was no trouble at all to find my badge, since it was - as usual- the badge that was printed to the edges, it was decorated with a huge ribbon stating 'SPEAKER', so it was hard to miss I guess.
In the reception hall (located on Mezzanine level) I was surprised to find that StarBucks coffee was served and how cosy the venue looked despite the size of the conference centre itself.

NB: I have only written down my perceptions of the tracks, if you want a comprehensive content of the tracks, please visit: www.pnsqc.org. As I understand the papers and abstracts will be published there.

Bill Gilmore opened the conference in the Auditorium (Bridge level) and I was surprised to suddenly find Julian Harty sitting next to me, but the pieces of the puzzle fell in place when I heard that Goranka Bjedov had fallen ill and Julian was back-up for the opening Keynote. Julian had both an entertaining and interesting talk about the Future of Quality. What is our perception on faults, bugs and errors when software is free of charge? There seems to be a correlation on tolerability and the price of the software that we pay was my thought on that. I was especially impressed by two mentioned bugs. One was of a cable bill of a 17-figure sum that totalled almost 2000 times the national debt (US-debt that is): 23 quadrillion, 148 trillion, 855 billion, 308 million, 184 thousand and 500 dollars. The other was a charge for a pack of cigarettes: 23 quadrillion!

After a half-hour break in the Mezzanine, I went to Julie Fleischer from Intel. Who had a track on 'Volunteer armies can deliver quality too: Achieving a successful result in OpenSource, Standards Organizations and other Volunteer projects'. I found her presentation interesting, although the motivational aspects she mentioned (acts of kindness, non-financial stuff) also very applicable for commercial organizations.



The presentation after that was of Alan Page; an introduction to Customer Focused Test Design. I was interested to hear this one, because I wanted to figure out if 'we' in NL have a different perception or maybe run behind on this subject. But as the track went on, I didn't hear anything revelationous. What I heard was that that one should commence with non-functional quality attribute testing (such as performance, reliability and security) that have an impact on the customer perception of quality as early as possible. Maybe I'm a - as he called it- tester with a generous toolbox, but for me, that's not an eye-opener. Although I found it nice that the focus on that was a bit refreshed.

During the lunch there were Deep Dive Birds of a feather sessions, but I just took my time to have a relaxing lunch. In the afternoon I would be speaking myself and I needed to sit down and take-five. Again I had eyes as big as a saucer when I saw the sandwiches. In NL we have a sandwich with one small layer of roastbeef, maybe a slice of tomato and a leaf of lettuce, this is a sandwich with at least 3 cm thick roastbeef, mayonaisse, lettuce and tomato on it. The sandwich seems to be just to be there to hold the beef. And then there's also the bag of chips, a piece of fruit and a can beverage. I decided to cut my sandwich in two re-package the second half for later that day. I had some nice conversations with people about Agile/ SCRUM and how it was used within the organizations of my table-mates.



After lunch I visited the 'Lifecycles' track, which started with 'Increasing Software Quality with Agile Experiences in a non-technically-focussed organization' by Aaron Hockley from the Multnomah County, Oregon (of which Portland is part of btw). It was nice to hear about this case-study of Agile and how a relatively small IT department coops within a governmental user-organization.
After that it was my turn. I was nervous as hell. I just can't seem to shake those shivers no matter how many times I go before a group, and this time was extra special since I didn't have a clue on how a US crowd would react on my talk.

In NL for example it isn't customary to leave the room before the talk is over, but in US people walk in-and-out the track, for a NL speaker that might seem a signal that you're doing a bad job and you could freeze totally because of this, but that doesn't have to be the case at all in US, it's just the way of doing things here. I only had one 'leaver' at one time, and that was at the start of my 'delivery video' and he was male, so it was totally understandable :-) (I warned about the sometimes gruesome imagery ;-) ) The feedback was positive afterwards so I was pleased with the performance overall, despite the fact that there was no video sound and I had to improvise with holding my microphone close to my laptop's speakers.

After again a break. I visited 'Inspiring, Enabling and driving Quality Improvement' by Jim Sartain of McAfee and 'Audit Effectiveness - Assuring Customer Satisfaction' by Jeff Fiebrich from Freescale Semiconductor Inc. Both tracks had very interesting aspects, I liked the last one best, because it had the focus on audits which isn't a usual 'suspect' in most quality conferences. I recommend reading both the papers, because they both contain good stuff.

If you think that at 05.30 the conference is over, think again. Now the conference social kick-off with the poster-paper sessions begins till 08.00 PM. This part was also open to the public and several speakers, me included, and also non-speakers had an opportunity to present their post-papers. It's a sort of 'market' where you have your poster behind you on the wall or on a stand and where you get to talk about your subject with visitors to your paper. It gives a very intimate and free-format kind of happening. At 07.30 I had my eye-lids almost hanging on my toes though, and I decided to break things of and sneak-out to my hotel.

TUESDAY
I'm getting the hang of this commuting with a StarBuck quick-stop stuff and arrived at the WTC early. That was also because I wanted to make a better poster. I had totally not thought of bringing a poster to a poster-paper session (dumb huh) and yesterday I improvised a very simple flip-over sheet with my laptop on a table, today I wanted to have a better more attractive poster during my sessions. So I got some markers, a clean flipover paper and found myself a quiet place to be a bit creative.
I was very curious about a pink box from a place called 'Voodoo Donuts' that passed in my eye-sight. And boy you WANT to see that. If you ever get to go to Portland you should certainly visit this Voodoo Donuts joint. I got hold of a 'fruitloop donut' (which was even too sweet for my sweettooth :-D) and it was an experience. They even got 'maple nut bars with chocolate and baked bacon!!

The first keynote was that of Rob Sabourin from Amibug.com. He had this great concept of stories and when he told a story he had an image of campfire on the screen. The keynote itself had the title Value Sync. And one thing that got anchored in my mind was that a practice in one context copied 1-on-1 to another context won't work.

After the break I visited 'Michael Bolton's ' standard and deviations. I have my own thoughts on the subject and they aren't that of Michael, to say at least. Some of you might have picked up on some Twitter (@FunTESTic) discussions on this during the conference. Although I don't disagree with the content of the presentation, I don't agree with it totally either. Michael stated that the standard was a 100-page document, I know it's only 26. And although it seems from the presentation the standard itself is a bad and evil thing, I keep with the fact that it's not the standard itself but how people and organizations USE it that's the problem. What I also find a 'thing' is that although it's intended to be a guideline, the standard is presented as a mandatory rulebook. I say: if you don't agree with it or can't use it, just don't and leave it be, pursue your own ideas instead of spending (wasting) so much effort on burning it down, but that's my opinion.



After the (double session) track there was a lunch break (again with a huge lunch 'wrap'). I grabbed the opportunity to participate in the 'lightning talks', which were held during the lunch and did a statement from my Ethics Debate. Although it was only one statement, the ten minutes seemed too short. The conference attendees made a great debater audience and the interaction was great.

I went to 'No Test Levels Needed in Agile Software Development' after lunch, I intended not to see the whole session in advance so I left half way. The one thing that I noticed that when Leo van Aalst asked the question on how many people did 'Agile' more then 80% raised hands. When he showed the Agile Manifesto and asked again how many used this 'purely' and thus did 'Agile', less than 10% raised hands... Saying Agile doesn't mean Doing Agile it seems.
Ian Dees had an interesting title 'Dirty Tricks in the name of Quality' so I went to that track after Leo's. I noticed what a pleasure it was to listen to this speaker. Fun and clear, entertaining. I had a good time. And although the title might looked provocative, it wasn't all that provocative in content but I found it very educational with loads of examples (certainly recommended to check the paper!)

The last break with a poster-paper session was very well visited. I had some great discussions and had a great time explaining how I got to software testing to casualty simulation and back again.
After that I went to 'Hard Lessons About Soft Skills - understanding the psyche of the software tester'. Marlena Compton from Mozilla had a bit of bad luck because her microphone ran out of batteries, but she did a good job on the presentation where I especially loved the way that she incorporated so much of her own and made it a personal story. 'If people say why are you angry, and you are not at all' you might start wondering...
The last normal track that I visited was that of BJ Rollison from MicroSoft on 'Paramerized Random Test Data Generation'. I had to make a switch from soft-skills and processes to this very hand-ons technical en practical track. I recommend reading the paper, it's very interesting and educational for those of you who are into testdata generation!

The last keynote was a very cool one. 'The science of being HAPPY and Productive at Work' by Scott Crabtree (Happy Brain). The talk was an award winning one and was co-sponsored with the ROSE CITY SPIN. I really loved the keynote - 'BE KIND'/ 'FORGIVE', 'Savore life's joys' and 'focus on the present moment' where some phrased, but I figure that it's a very expensive speaker to have. A very good one to close my PNSQC experience!
The conference - for me- was over at 07.30 PM

THE AFTERMATH
It's raining a lot when I leave the WTC. I saw a twitter message that there is a brewery-bar called RockBottom not far from the venue, where PNSQC peeps are at. I didn't get to find them there, but I had an excellent 'October Fest Brew' and a 'home special brew' (which had loads of HOPS in it and was kind of citrussy).

The next morning I still had some hours to visit Portland once again, before having to go to the airport. So I decided to visit the Pearl District. I checked out the WholeFood grocery store (I have this funny thing of visiting supermarkets in countries that I go to :-) ) and walked around the area. I found a coffee bar and had an autumn spice latte (Peet's coffee). This district is full of fun shops and has a cool vibe. I recommend it to everybody who visits Portland.
After that short visit I returned to my hotel where I had some packing-puzzeling to do and some troubles closing my suitcase and then I returned to my Oregon-point-of-origin PDX. I grabbed a single 1/4 pound cheeseburger at Wendy's (Burger King eat your hart out!), which has a square burger ! (can you imagine you can also get a triple half-pound cheeseburger??? how do you eat that???) and I waited in the area-with-a-view on the plane that would bring me back to Amsterdam, intensely happy with the hit-and-run visit to US and the PNSQC conference.

The VacationPrep Blues

Although I love my own vacation, there's one thing in the vacation season that I really dislike and that's the stress that comes from the extra activities you have to follow up on from the people that are on vacation.

I don't know why; but these activities always seem to have high priority (more than your own activities) and in the project where you are filling in, there always seems to be emergency situations that have to be managed, causing your own work to get delayed. I've been more than ever been busy telling my management that work is slow due to all - also very usefull and important - activities in other projects and workareas.

Some time ago I covered for two colleagues (and supporting the back-up of a third). I was constantly busy steering, giving people information and was doing loads of back-log administrative stuff. It was extra work since the project was getting behind schedule (this was already the case before I was involved mind!) and I'm appointed to fast-forward the activities and - because I seem to be doing stuff kinda right- more people are stopping by at my desk. Besides that, I also have to figure things out, since I'm not THAT insider in their projects.

I've come around loads of stuff that could probably have gone much easier if the transfer of the activities was done more structured. I'm the kind of person who loves structure and thrives on it and I'm a big fan of checklists. So in this blog I'm making the suggestion for all of you who go on vacation and who pass on work to other colleagues to make a checklist of things that are must-do's and won't do's.

Even if tasks or procedures might seem simple to you, it takes a lot of time when your back-up has to figure out this procedure because he/she isn't familiar with it. For example: in my case the standard defect logging procedure was clear, but I soon learned that some specific agreements were made and it cost me time to exactly get the process right. When I made the remark to my colleague about it when he came back, the answer was that the activity was so common for him that he hadn't even thought of writing it down.

The next thing might help: when you are planning your vacation, note down your activities during the week before your departure and describe the particulars of them.

Had a meeting? Make sure the minutes are available and write down any information that seems relevant and isn't in the minutes (such as: J.Doe might still have some questions about X or Selma will be coming by a couple of times to ask about, etc). This makes your back-up prepared and reduces uncertainties with other parties. Remember that your back-up is perceived, just like you, as the person who gives insight in the quality of the product, not knowing answers or not be able to answer them on a short notice, is not very comforting for your stakeholder(s).

Don't leave high-priority tasks unfinished or unmanaged. If you aren't able to finish, make sure you inform your recipient about it (as well as your back-up) and try to delegate the task to a colleague who is well informed or communicate that the task will finished when you get back.

Don't rely on your back-up too much: he/she might not have the same sense of urgency or might pick up the task completely different than you would have done, bringing you further from home.
Remember that your back-up still has his/her own job to do and is not able to squeeze in your full-weeks worth of tasks too. So don't make promises based on the same progress speed as you normally have: a task or activity will take longer to complete.

Some food for thought to close with: Everything you aren't clear about, haven't written down or have discussed with your back-up is a carte blanche. Things you had organized can turn into a whole different approach, set-up or deliverable as you had in mind. Your back-up will try to get the job done, but it might give you loads more (corrective) work to be done upon return.

Holidaytime, readingtime

I'm on holiday and nothing more relaxing than to sit back in a garden chair and catch up on some reading, so that's what I did.

During the last half year I got two smaller books from Dutch testing colleagues that I still got on my to-read list and I got a book that I still had to finish so I grabbed the three, poured myself a large cool glass of (organic) pear-apple juice and started reading.

The first was finishing 'What got you here, won't get you there' by Marshall Goldsmith. (http://www.amazon.com/What-Got-Here-Wont-There/dp/1401301304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312367632&sr=8-1). I started reading this one as a recommended book from my coach in a leadership development program. Although I'm lazy regarding the whole setup of getting feedback and follow-up and probably won't follow the whole path described in the book. I have sure (already) grabbed some stuff from this book to apply in my daily practices and it made me aware of some habit I have that I might improve and gave me tips on how to do this. I think this is a must-read for all people who aspire to be better in their jobs, leadership and what not more, I even dare to go that far that it would be a good book for people who wan't to improve their personal lives, some of the examples in the book are also good for some homeimprovement.

The next one was the Dutch 'De held die voor mijn nachtrust zorgt' by Derk-Jan de Grood (the hero that takes care of that I have a good night's sleep)(http://www.valori.nl/de_echte_wereld/de_held_die_voor_mijn_nachtrust_zorgt).
It's a small book that is published (as first one) in the Valori, real-life series. Small books that make the theories of things applicable in practice or in other words; how it applies in day to day practice.
Derk-Jan's book describes some good stuff and makes it undertandable not for only 'us testers' but also for other disciplines in the IT. It focusses on having grip in the development process (on the project) and providing comfort within the organisation, most of it from the human perspective (like perception, feeling and emotions) in stead of theoretical models.
The material is clear and simple to understand (for me at least), and is accompanied by examples from some experts known in the testing community. Although most of what I read was 'an open door' for me (and I hope it would be for most of us who are into testing, testcoordination or testmanagement) the book is a good read to refresh the memory, to re-think (an reflect) on approaches that we apply and food-for-thought on the perceptions of stakeholders in our projects that we might have overlooked over time. The size of the book makes it a handy and easy approachable reference.

After reading I couldn't help to still have the feeling 'and who is that hero then..' it just seemed to miss something. Maybe my expectancy was that it would be more a description of what the hero does, more written from the person (that would be the hero) view. I also missed this connection in the concluding chapter. I would have expected something '.. applying this and that, makes the X my hero that takes care of... etc. ', now it was more a book full of (mind: usefull!) techniques and theories, but it just wasn't applied to 'the hero' that is mentioned in the title. IT gave me a bit 'I didn't just get what I expected' feeling that would immediately inspire me to grab the material in the book and become the hero in my organisation myself. In short; the question I formed in my mind 'What can I do to become this hero' wasn't answered in an obvious way.


The last book was that of Ard Kramer and Hans de Rooij: 'Het Q-mysterie' (also a Dutch book; the Q-mystery)(http://www.eclipseit.nl/over-ons/nieuws/categorie/Algemeen/titel/publicatie-het-q-mysterie).
First of all; the book is beautiful to see. Very impressive artwork and very high-quality glossy paper, it's a treat to just flip through the pages.
But don't judge a book by it's cover right?

The book is a very easy to read one. The examples are done by metaphores and it makes it really understandable and accessible. It's contents is not about theory, but focusses on the need of quality(level) within an organisation, related to its goals and why testing should thus be applied in stead of applying a bunch of strategies, techniques and templates to coherse some (false) feeling of quality. The main goal is to make the connection between testing and acquiring the optimal return of investment. The main tool to provide insight in the exact need for quality for product or organisation is the Product Quality Strategy. The PQS, which is short for the Product Quality Strategy, is a guideline which uses the ISO 9126 quality characteristics 'Functionality, Usability, Efficiency, Maintainability, Portability and Reliability' to make a diagram of the exact needs regarding these characteristics for the component of organisation.
Although I could follow most of the text regarding this concept; the diagrams and figures where mostly confusing, there was even one diagram with ecliptic figures in it, where I still haven't figured out how to read it. I guess that when you have the theory in mind and know it by heart, it's easy to understand those (beautiful) graphics, but in my case; it just confused me and should have more information in them to explain exactly what the (parts of) the images meant.

But honestly: The book is very pleasing, both in a graphical way and in the content way. It has really applicable stuff in it and I figure Eclipe (company of the authors) might also have an oppurtunity here to develop a workshop or short course to be able to use the PQS. I think the material is really applicable and very usefull to apply on a daily basis. It won't (have to/ should) take up much (valuable) time and will certainly help to focus on the exact needs. Ard and Hans did a good job!

Tip for both Derk-Jan as Ard/ Hans: consider publishing your books in English too... I think it would really benefit our non-Dutch colleagues as well.
And... I would REALLY like to thank both Derk-Jan as Ard for handing me the books (with a personal message in the cover!) to read (and apply..): THANK YOU!

And for know... I'll get back to my garden chair with my next 'want to reads' :
Terry Pratchett's 'I shall wear midnight', some novelettes, Personal Branding by Frank Kwakman and 'Managing the Testing Process' by Rex Black.