I'm dragging myself towards the holidays, two more weeks left of work and then there will be two weeks of nothingness, well almost, the first couple of days I'll be at RockArea festival at the Loreley theatre in Germany, but after that: I'll just lay back on my garden chair with a lousy novelette. At least there are no suprises there: woman meets man, they come together, they fight and they come together again, and live happily ever after. Man is always handsome and rich of course and the woman always has had issues in her passed which are generously forgiven by the man. Finally issues that really get solved :-)
Why not a good book or literature? Well; I've read my share of serious knowledge at the beginning of this year, and it seems that I'll be reading a lot more in the months to come - believe me-, so I refuse to do any serious reading in between.
Last couple of weeks have been very hectic with my project, luckily it went live this week [successfully] so now the only tasks ahead are wrapping up the last bits-and-pieces; writing the end reports, evaluating, that kind of stuff. I think it has never been so relaxed in the weeks before my vacation; and I think I've never been more bored. I like some action at the workside; that makes it more rewarding to relax at home. I like the fact that I won't have any late-night chores for work (part of the hectic stuff) but now the project is delivered for this stage, the work is TOO slow. Makes me wan't to cry out: 'Are we there yet?'.
So what do you do when work is slow? Yes indeed: you relax at work, but that means you make pace at home (world turned around). This means I have loads of work at home and non-client related stuff. The stuff I don't come around to do when work's hectic.
So currently I'm working on a new presentation called "Unusual testing: Lessons learned from being a casualty simulations victim", to be held at Capgemini's TestEvent 2010. I'm still working on some sessions of the 'Software Testing Ethics Debate', one to be held at NoorderTest 2010 in Leeuwarden and one to be held at ExpoQA:2010 in Madrid. I still have some work on Business Intelligence Testing (formerly known as Data Warehouse Testing) and Test Architecture Framework, and some reviewing on NEN/ISO items that are test-related (or related to some other field of expertise which I'm familiar with). So now I'm so busy at home that I really look forward to my holiday and desperately cry out: "Are whe there yet???"
All : have a happy and relaxed vacation! I know I will :-)
donderdag 15 juli 2010
woensdag 19 mei 2010
A lot on my mind...
Lately I've visited some presentations and read some stuff about certification, standardisation, evidence and the different opinions about those, and I can't help myself but I feel anger and frustration when I read certain blogs and the comments on those blog entries.
I find that a certification like ISTQB doesn't make me a better tester, but it didn't make me a worse tester either. What makes me a better tester, in my opinion, is that I explore different possibilities and what I find important is that I have knowledge on all areas of testing and am capable to use that knowledge in the best way for the organisation I'm testing for.
I find both knowledge on ISO, IEEE and BS (ISTQB) as usefull as other information and knowledge about testing (exploratory, agile, etc),not matter what origination. What I DO with it and HOW I use this information most in the most valuable and effective way is quite another issue.
I NEED structure that schools, trainings and courses provide to learn. I don't have the discipline to set myself to learn it all, although I can sometimes set myself goals and learn about stuff, that is not always the case. Certificates give me a certain feeling of pride, I don't know why, it is just so. That doens't mean I don't value or practice self eduction. What pisses me off is the fact that certain people don't respect that.
A couple of months ago I had a discussion on Twitter, that person even disrespected me even more by saying that 'if I wanted to learn testing I was always welcome to attend his course'. It was perceived by me that, because I was proud on having learned and passed the ISEB Practicioner exam, I didn't know about testing. The person in question could judge me completely on those couple of tweets posted.
In the same way home-made-psychology is used, this person KNEW as a fact that I didn't know how to test apparently. This felt to me as complete disrespect, give me some credits please!
My 'plan of approach' or the way I work preferably is that I know about all historical and new developements, THAN I use the knowledge to get to a effective and - for the client comfortable and understandable- way of working. This isn't directed by the ISO standard, the ISTQB certification or the teachings about exploratory testing and storybased testing. I don't think either way is better or worse, I think 'traditional' ways are as usefull as 'new' ways, both should be added to our own knowledge base and be put to good use. That could be that one way is totally unusefull for that particular organisation, but at least I KNOW the contents of what I dismiss and if I have a discussion at least I know what the theory says and can compare it to practical usage.
A filosopher once said that by knowing more, we even know less. I think certain people forget about that basic principle, for it could also be used in other perspectives. By teaching 'non schooling' you become that what you oppose to: a teacher that gives an outlined (and scoped) teaching. By evangelising a way of working it becomes (or has a chance of becoming) a (defacto) standard and that standard was the thing the evangalist was all against in the first place.
In one of the comments it was mentioned that development of the standard was taking five years, it was mentioned with a certain amount of disbelief and in a way that it was the 'fault' of the person that leads that particular project. This triggered another 'pissed at' moment.
First of all the development of the standard takes that long because prescribed procedure of ISO/IEC doesn't allow it to be shorter.
Secondly a lot of arguments come from people from a country that doesn't provide any subject matter experts to the project (except for an ISO 'veteran' who doesn't have software testing as expertise apparently), it's easy to have comments on something, but it's - IMHO- better to participate and provide valuable input or feedback so we can get to a better product. And again I like to mention here: a standard isn't a commandment, it's a GUIDELINE! (there seems to be a lot of arguments on that)
Some other writings that I read have whole argumental epistels on what they THINK is about to be presented. Why do I put it like this? Well the subject discussed (a track at EuroSTAR 2010) has not been presented yet and still whole arguments are already written about it, based purely on what the abstract (!!) states. Mind: it still has to be presented, so the arguments are based on - in my opinion a very non-testing thing- assumptions. The most worrying thing about this is that the arguments are stated by visionairs and thoughtleaders in the software testing 'science'. (I myself don't think it's a science but a profession) . The arguments are also written in an agressive, non respective way in my perception.
I really don't like these kind of developments, they give me chills and make me sad and angry. I cannot help myself by finding that having read the pieces a personal vendetta is fought out. This has nothing to do with 'making your point' I feel, but more like 'I'm always right and everybody else (and in particular that person) is wrong'. BLERGH!
All this stuff: It gives me a bad taste in my mouth, something similar as with discrimination and generalizing.
So let me share some thoughts:
I think everybody is entitled to have his or her own opinion.
I think everybody should be able to practice the way of education he or she prefers, without being judged on what path is chosen
I think nobody should judge something on assumptions (let alone argument on that judgement!) [and yes, I'm guilty too I guess]
I think everybody is entitled to respectfull manners no matter if you agree or disagree
I think nobody should be excluded from oppurtunities based on 'a piece of paper', but everybody should have an oppurtunity based on (valid) experience
I think nobody is 'better' of 'worse' based on 'a piece of paper' (but that also counts for 'having done a course' or 'not having a piece of paper')
I think everybody has a right to speak his/her mind (but doesn't have a right to 'go for the man' or has a right to do so on anothers expense)
I think there isn't a right way or a wrong way; it's DIFFERENT ways that matter
I think I think a lot of things right now. But most of all I think of one word: RESPECT
Let's all cherish this in a grande way so we can all be passionate about -what we feel is the best and most fun- way to practice the profession of software testing.
I find that a certification like ISTQB doesn't make me a better tester, but it didn't make me a worse tester either. What makes me a better tester, in my opinion, is that I explore different possibilities and what I find important is that I have knowledge on all areas of testing and am capable to use that knowledge in the best way for the organisation I'm testing for.
I find both knowledge on ISO, IEEE and BS (ISTQB) as usefull as other information and knowledge about testing (exploratory, agile, etc),not matter what origination. What I DO with it and HOW I use this information most in the most valuable and effective way is quite another issue.
I NEED structure that schools, trainings and courses provide to learn. I don't have the discipline to set myself to learn it all, although I can sometimes set myself goals and learn about stuff, that is not always the case. Certificates give me a certain feeling of pride, I don't know why, it is just so. That doens't mean I don't value or practice self eduction. What pisses me off is the fact that certain people don't respect that.
A couple of months ago I had a discussion on Twitter, that person even disrespected me even more by saying that 'if I wanted to learn testing I was always welcome to attend his course'. It was perceived by me that, because I was proud on having learned and passed the ISEB Practicioner exam, I didn't know about testing. The person in question could judge me completely on those couple of tweets posted.
In the same way home-made-psychology is used, this person KNEW as a fact that I didn't know how to test apparently. This felt to me as complete disrespect, give me some credits please!
My 'plan of approach' or the way I work preferably is that I know about all historical and new developements, THAN I use the knowledge to get to a effective and - for the client comfortable and understandable- way of working. This isn't directed by the ISO standard, the ISTQB certification or the teachings about exploratory testing and storybased testing. I don't think either way is better or worse, I think 'traditional' ways are as usefull as 'new' ways, both should be added to our own knowledge base and be put to good use. That could be that one way is totally unusefull for that particular organisation, but at least I KNOW the contents of what I dismiss and if I have a discussion at least I know what the theory says and can compare it to practical usage.
A filosopher once said that by knowing more, we even know less. I think certain people forget about that basic principle, for it could also be used in other perspectives. By teaching 'non schooling' you become that what you oppose to: a teacher that gives an outlined (and scoped) teaching. By evangelising a way of working it becomes (or has a chance of becoming) a (defacto) standard and that standard was the thing the evangalist was all against in the first place.
In one of the comments it was mentioned that development of the standard was taking five years, it was mentioned with a certain amount of disbelief and in a way that it was the 'fault' of the person that leads that particular project. This triggered another 'pissed at' moment.
First of all the development of the standard takes that long because prescribed procedure of ISO/IEC doesn't allow it to be shorter.
Secondly a lot of arguments come from people from a country that doesn't provide any subject matter experts to the project (except for an ISO 'veteran' who doesn't have software testing as expertise apparently), it's easy to have comments on something, but it's - IMHO- better to participate and provide valuable input or feedback so we can get to a better product. And again I like to mention here: a standard isn't a commandment, it's a GUIDELINE! (there seems to be a lot of arguments on that)
Some other writings that I read have whole argumental epistels on what they THINK is about to be presented. Why do I put it like this? Well the subject discussed (a track at EuroSTAR 2010) has not been presented yet and still whole arguments are already written about it, based purely on what the abstract (!!) states. Mind: it still has to be presented, so the arguments are based on - in my opinion a very non-testing thing- assumptions. The most worrying thing about this is that the arguments are stated by visionairs and thoughtleaders in the software testing 'science'. (I myself don't think it's a science but a profession) . The arguments are also written in an agressive, non respective way in my perception.
I really don't like these kind of developments, they give me chills and make me sad and angry. I cannot help myself by finding that having read the pieces a personal vendetta is fought out. This has nothing to do with 'making your point' I feel, but more like 'I'm always right and everybody else (and in particular that person) is wrong'. BLERGH!
All this stuff: It gives me a bad taste in my mouth, something similar as with discrimination and generalizing.
So let me share some thoughts:
I think everybody is entitled to have his or her own opinion.
I think everybody should be able to practice the way of education he or she prefers, without being judged on what path is chosen
I think nobody should judge something on assumptions (let alone argument on that judgement!) [and yes, I'm guilty too I guess]
I think everybody is entitled to respectfull manners no matter if you agree or disagree
I think nobody should be excluded from oppurtunities based on 'a piece of paper', but everybody should have an oppurtunity based on (valid) experience
I think nobody is 'better' of 'worse' based on 'a piece of paper' (but that also counts for 'having done a course' or 'not having a piece of paper')
I think everybody has a right to speak his/her mind (but doesn't have a right to 'go for the man' or has a right to do so on anothers expense)
I think there isn't a right way or a wrong way; it's DIFFERENT ways that matter
I think I think a lot of things right now. But most of all I think of one word: RESPECT
Let's all cherish this in a grande way so we can all be passionate about -what we feel is the best and most fun- way to practice the profession of software testing.
vrijdag 23 april 2010
A visit to the DutchTestingConference 2010
It's Wednesday 21st of April. Today is the first edition of the Dutch Testing Conference at 't Spant! in Bussum and I'll be attending it.
There where also two tutorial days, but I didn't actually got to register for those because I only heard later on (from a colleague) that these where actually held [shame on the marketing of DTC...]
Before I can go there I have a LOTUS job, so I arrive just before the first coffeebreak. It seems I haven't missed a lot, most people I talk to say that the keynote was very 'dry' stuff; you could also read the slides and know just as much. It seemed that the speaker just read out the tekst on the slides. I haven't seen it myself so I'll have to take their word for it. Alas this keynote is one of the presentations that aren't downloadable from the site (it only shows the abstract) so I'll never know.
Sogeti has some sweet little cakes during the coffeebreak. Apparently they have 'sold' their 100.000th book (http://eng.tmap.net/Home/archief/958058.jsp) if you want to see the picture look at the Dutch version of the article (http://www.tmap.net/Home/archief/858036.jsp), because there is a picture on the NL but not on the UK version.
After the break I attend the track: FEAR: The psychology of software testing, by
Rik Marselis of Sogeti. I like Rik as a speaker and I'm alway curious on what he has to say.
Rik doesn't dissapoint on the point of presentation and fun, but on content I found the presentation a bit light. I liked the idea of using the 7 habits of Highly effective people by Covey and the thought on the fear of the unknown. I also liked the 'testers happiness curve'.
But to be honest, I had a little trouble with the 'red line' in the whole presentation and the 'what's in it for me'. Maybe my expectations where just too high.
The next track: Omgaan met complexiteit by Peter Wanders, KLM & Boukje van Tulder, Logica was far worse, it made the presentation of Rik rather excellent material.
It was a shame to see that the whole presentation was set up around development and test and the business (focus of DTC is Business-audience as far as I know) was completely ignored. At some point an idea grew in my mind about a tool that was shown so I have to admit I was at some point inspired, but the rest of the presentation didn't even slightly live up to my expectations. Apparently the complexity adressed was the complexity in end-to-end or chaintesting, coping with these was adressed by suggestions. When I asked the question about how the business perceived these suggestions when implemented (did they find it usefull, did the see advantages regarding transparency etc.) the answer was that 1. they didn't implement all suggestions (so no experience but only theory) and 2. apparently the suggestions implemented weren't validated with business in mind, the answer given was just to uncertain.
I went of to lunch a bit disillusioned. Lunch itself was good though. Quality of the food was excellent and the organization made sure we had healthy stuff with all the fruity drinks and smoothies that where there.
An attempt for a 'tweeting' failed alas. I only saw three tweeps at the entrance of the DTC so that was a pity.
I walked around the expo a bit. Met up with a lot of testcolleagues and chatted a lot (no I won't say anything about what I know about the EuroSTAR programme ;-) ). There was champaign at Polteq who celebrated their 10th anniversary. And I filled in a card for the lottery to win an iPad at Systemation/ iTKO-LISA.
Full of good hope I went to the afternoon keynote: The Dolt's Guide to Self-Organization by Jurgen Appelo of Sociotoco. (http://www.noop.nl/)
It started out rather good, people where really enthusiastic there and didn't have any trouble with the dreaded 'after lunch dip'. Slide deck was good, dynamic.
Some quotes and phrases where absolutely brilliant: "That is like teaching people all about fruit flies, And then lumping everything else together in the group of… non-fruit flies".
“Self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.”
Alas, after twenty minutes or so the presentation style of Jurgen seemed not to win of the after-lunch-dip for several attendees. The two gents on either side of me dozed off (when mentioning this later on one of the 'dozers' said "I was in deep thought on the content of the presentation" ;-) - yeah right). For those who read this and want to catch up: this presentation was based upon an upcoming book about Management 3.0: www.management30.com
After a coffee break, again with the healthy touch of fruit, fruity drinks and smoothies.
I went to Beyond Agile Testing, Sander Hoogendoorn, Capgemini. I saw his presentation on the COP Testing of Capgemini and I was curious in what way he changed his presentation with the given suggestions and to give support. There's no doubt he is a smooth (and FAST) speaker. Although the contents is now a bit too familiar for me, the overal respons of the audience seemed to be positive and I saw a lot of positive nods here and there. I like some dept, which wasn't in this presentation, but in this case the audience and the purpose (business scope) made this presentation just right. Time management is still an issue with Sander, with an overrun of 5 mins. So no time for questions and a shorter break, which little people seemed to mind.
The last track I visited was Defect Prevention: a wake-up call by Geert Lemmens, Coralius NV. I guess I missed the wake-up call here. I really like everything with defect management, defect prevention, the IEEE 1044 and so on, but the presentation just wasn't inspiring or invigorating. Reading the sheets, no interaction with the audience, in short: boring. How difficult can it be to insert some examples and make it applicable? Some of the other attendees probably felt the same because some critical questions that where answered received some dissaproving nods.
Underneath are some sheets, the first one is rather funny I have to say.
After the tracks there was a 'meet and drink' in the expohall (more chatting! and no: I still won't say anything about the EuroSTAR programme...).
There was also a prize for the best presentation. Which was 'Omgaan met complexiteit by Peter Wanders, KLM & Boukje van Tulder, Logica. I honoustly have no clue how the expert-panel came to this presentation. Was the rest thát bad??? I don't mean to offend anybody, but seriously I see some submissions on the program that must have been - no doubt about it- better.
After this prize a couple of vendors that where on the expo found it nescessary to also hand over their prizes. Sogeti had five winners for their Lecture Dinners, Google had a lot of prizes (by lotery) for a lot of people and Systemation had a lottery for the (very wanted) iPad. I found that the timing and the place were wrong. There should've been only the 'best presentation' (should have been the highlight) and prizes from vendors should have been done before that or at their own booth.
Overall:
the venue location was very good
food and drinks were excellent
the venue itself was very good
presentation level was meagre
network value was pretty good
Going next year? - maybe... I might.
There where also two tutorial days, but I didn't actually got to register for those because I only heard later on (from a colleague) that these where actually held [shame on the marketing of DTC...]
Before I can go there I have a LOTUS job, so I arrive just before the first coffeebreak. It seems I haven't missed a lot, most people I talk to say that the keynote was very 'dry' stuff; you could also read the slides and know just as much. It seemed that the speaker just read out the tekst on the slides. I haven't seen it myself so I'll have to take their word for it. Alas this keynote is one of the presentations that aren't downloadable from the site (it only shows the abstract) so I'll never know.
Sogeti has some sweet little cakes during the coffeebreak. Apparently they have 'sold' their 100.000th book (http://eng.tmap.net/Home/archief/958058.jsp) if you want to see the picture look at the Dutch version of the article (http://www.tmap.net/Home/archief/858036.jsp), because there is a picture on the NL but not on the UK version.
After the break I attend the track: FEAR: The psychology of software testing, by
Rik Marselis of Sogeti. I like Rik as a speaker and I'm alway curious on what he has to say.
Rik doesn't dissapoint on the point of presentation and fun, but on content I found the presentation a bit light. I liked the idea of using the 7 habits of Highly effective people by Covey and the thought on the fear of the unknown. I also liked the 'testers happiness curve'.
But to be honest, I had a little trouble with the 'red line' in the whole presentation and the 'what's in it for me'. Maybe my expectations where just too high.
The next track: Omgaan met complexiteit by Peter Wanders, KLM & Boukje van Tulder, Logica was far worse, it made the presentation of Rik rather excellent material.
It was a shame to see that the whole presentation was set up around development and test and the business (focus of DTC is Business-audience as far as I know) was completely ignored. At some point an idea grew in my mind about a tool that was shown so I have to admit I was at some point inspired, but the rest of the presentation didn't even slightly live up to my expectations. Apparently the complexity adressed was the complexity in end-to-end or chaintesting, coping with these was adressed by suggestions. When I asked the question about how the business perceived these suggestions when implemented (did they find it usefull, did the see advantages regarding transparency etc.) the answer was that 1. they didn't implement all suggestions (so no experience but only theory) and 2. apparently the suggestions implemented weren't validated with business in mind, the answer given was just to uncertain.
I went of to lunch a bit disillusioned. Lunch itself was good though. Quality of the food was excellent and the organization made sure we had healthy stuff with all the fruity drinks and smoothies that where there.
An attempt for a 'tweeting' failed alas. I only saw three tweeps at the entrance of the DTC so that was a pity.
I walked around the expo a bit. Met up with a lot of testcolleagues and chatted a lot (no I won't say anything about what I know about the EuroSTAR programme ;-) ). There was champaign at Polteq who celebrated their 10th anniversary. And I filled in a card for the lottery to win an iPad at Systemation/ iTKO-LISA.
Full of good hope I went to the afternoon keynote: The Dolt's Guide to Self-Organization by Jurgen Appelo of Sociotoco. (http://www.noop.nl/)
It started out rather good, people where really enthusiastic there and didn't have any trouble with the dreaded 'after lunch dip'. Slide deck was good, dynamic.
Some quotes and phrases where absolutely brilliant: "That is like teaching people all about fruit flies, And then lumping everything else together in the group of… non-fruit flies".
“Self-organization is a process of attraction and repulsion in which the internal organization of a system, normally an open system, increases in complexity without being guided or managed by an outside source.”
Alas, after twenty minutes or so the presentation style of Jurgen seemed not to win of the after-lunch-dip for several attendees. The two gents on either side of me dozed off (when mentioning this later on one of the 'dozers' said "I was in deep thought on the content of the presentation" ;-) - yeah right). For those who read this and want to catch up: this presentation was based upon an upcoming book about Management 3.0: www.management30.com
After a coffee break, again with the healthy touch of fruit, fruity drinks and smoothies.
I went to Beyond Agile Testing, Sander Hoogendoorn, Capgemini. I saw his presentation on the COP Testing of Capgemini and I was curious in what way he changed his presentation with the given suggestions and to give support. There's no doubt he is a smooth (and FAST) speaker. Although the contents is now a bit too familiar for me, the overal respons of the audience seemed to be positive and I saw a lot of positive nods here and there. I like some dept, which wasn't in this presentation, but in this case the audience and the purpose (business scope) made this presentation just right. Time management is still an issue with Sander, with an overrun of 5 mins. So no time for questions and a shorter break, which little people seemed to mind.
The last track I visited was Defect Prevention: a wake-up call by Geert Lemmens, Coralius NV. I guess I missed the wake-up call here. I really like everything with defect management, defect prevention, the IEEE 1044 and so on, but the presentation just wasn't inspiring or invigorating. Reading the sheets, no interaction with the audience, in short: boring. How difficult can it be to insert some examples and make it applicable? Some of the other attendees probably felt the same because some critical questions that where answered received some dissaproving nods.
Underneath are some sheets, the first one is rather funny I have to say.
After the tracks there was a 'meet and drink' in the expohall (more chatting! and no: I still won't say anything about the EuroSTAR programme...).
There was also a prize for the best presentation. Which was 'Omgaan met complexiteit by Peter Wanders, KLM & Boukje van Tulder, Logica. I honoustly have no clue how the expert-panel came to this presentation. Was the rest thát bad??? I don't mean to offend anybody, but seriously I see some submissions on the program that must have been - no doubt about it- better.
After this prize a couple of vendors that where on the expo found it nescessary to also hand over their prizes. Sogeti had five winners for their Lecture Dinners, Google had a lot of prizes (by lotery) for a lot of people and Systemation had a lottery for the (very wanted) iPad. I found that the timing and the place were wrong. There should've been only the 'best presentation' (should have been the highlight) and prizes from vendors should have been done before that or at their own booth.
Overall:
the venue location was very good
food and drinks were excellent
the venue itself was very good
presentation level was meagre
network value was pretty good
Going next year? - maybe... I might.
donderdag 1 april 2010
My first article in print
Very short 'blog', well more of a message actually....
My first article in print got published in the Software Test & Performance, vol. 7 no. 4.
It's about the Software Testing Ethics Debate.
and I'm very proud of the result!
With thanks to Julian Harty and the crew of STP Collaborative!
http://www.stpcollaborative.com/knowledge/594-the-ethics-debate
My first article in print got published in the Software Test & Performance, vol. 7 no. 4.
It's about the Software Testing Ethics Debate.
and I'm very proud of the result!
With thanks to Julian Harty and the crew of STP Collaborative!
http://www.stpcollaborative.com/knowledge/594-the-ethics-debate
zaterdag 27 maart 2010
Blooming of the Testing Garden
*** Column published in Capgemini's CoP IT Testing Newsletter ***
Days are getting longer and some of the bulbs my husband and I planted in autumn last year are already blossoming. As I watch this coming alive in our garden, I think of all the ideas that are blossoming in the testing industry. Creativity and innovativeness are qualities that particularly seem to bloom in the spring, as do the bulbs. Spring also seems the time that many professionals choose to share their experiences on usage of new ideas in practice. Currently I’m in the position that I get to see lots of these ideas, inspiring ideas and enthusiastic stories.
So let me share some insights with you.
Two years ago ‘Agile’ was just a hype word, a bulb that was planted but many could not see what the result would be, very conceptual. Last year Agile became more ‘solid’, it showed its potential and was applied in some projects with successful or not so successful results; like the bulbs you put in the ground in autumn, some come above the ground, but some of them didn’t seem to be ‘doing’ a lot. This year, ‘Agile’ is definitely grounded, all bulbs have fully bloomed. In fact, I read so much about ‘Agile’ now, that I get a bit tired of it, a bit numb. I even see some developments on Agile, specialized process improvement, specialized tooling, specialized test management. A lot is evolving around ‘Agile’, the bulbs are not only blooming, but they are also cultured more and more.
Another bulb that will bloom strongly this year is Chain testing and testing of software integrated in the actual organization. Not only from a testers perspective this is blooming, but also from the organizations’ perspective. It seems like organizations are now, more than ever, becoming aware of the importance of testing. Organizations with a solid test program in place are willing to share their stories and organizations that don’t have them, will – I expect- definitely be willing to have testing integrated in their processes.
Organization-wise there is also a need for quality in their information processes. BI(M) and Testing thereof will also be a flourishing field. Data warehouse testing will definitely have its roots solid in the soil this year. There aren’t yet that many specialists on this area it seems, so this will be an area that will have to be developed and teached. I encourage people to gather information on the subject and help develop this underestimated field of expertise.
Some other bulbs that will be planted or will start showing their beauty this year are ‘Testing as a Service’, Cloud related testing (testing of applications in clouds or cloudofferings in testing), Weekendtesting (just Google…) , other test process improvement methods than TPI and TMMi and all kinds of Exploratory-like testing techniques.
So this year will be a very colorful garden which will certainly need it’s gardeners, but will also provide beauty and enough flowers to pick from.
Get inspired to plant your own testing bulbs or to pick from those wonderful flowers that have already bloomed! I’m certain that something beautiful will bloom in our Testing Garden.
Days are getting longer and some of the bulbs my husband and I planted in autumn last year are already blossoming. As I watch this coming alive in our garden, I think of all the ideas that are blossoming in the testing industry. Creativity and innovativeness are qualities that particularly seem to bloom in the spring, as do the bulbs. Spring also seems the time that many professionals choose to share their experiences on usage of new ideas in practice. Currently I’m in the position that I get to see lots of these ideas, inspiring ideas and enthusiastic stories.
So let me share some insights with you.
Two years ago ‘Agile’ was just a hype word, a bulb that was planted but many could not see what the result would be, very conceptual. Last year Agile became more ‘solid’, it showed its potential and was applied in some projects with successful or not so successful results; like the bulbs you put in the ground in autumn, some come above the ground, but some of them didn’t seem to be ‘doing’ a lot. This year, ‘Agile’ is definitely grounded, all bulbs have fully bloomed. In fact, I read so much about ‘Agile’ now, that I get a bit tired of it, a bit numb. I even see some developments on Agile, specialized process improvement, specialized tooling, specialized test management. A lot is evolving around ‘Agile’, the bulbs are not only blooming, but they are also cultured more and more.
Another bulb that will bloom strongly this year is Chain testing and testing of software integrated in the actual organization. Not only from a testers perspective this is blooming, but also from the organizations’ perspective. It seems like organizations are now, more than ever, becoming aware of the importance of testing. Organizations with a solid test program in place are willing to share their stories and organizations that don’t have them, will – I expect- definitely be willing to have testing integrated in their processes.
Organization-wise there is also a need for quality in their information processes. BI(M) and Testing thereof will also be a flourishing field. Data warehouse testing will definitely have its roots solid in the soil this year. There aren’t yet that many specialists on this area it seems, so this will be an area that will have to be developed and teached. I encourage people to gather information on the subject and help develop this underestimated field of expertise.
Some other bulbs that will be planted or will start showing their beauty this year are ‘Testing as a Service’, Cloud related testing (testing of applications in clouds or cloudofferings in testing), Weekendtesting (just Google…) , other test process improvement methods than TPI and TMMi and all kinds of Exploratory-like testing techniques.
So this year will be a very colorful garden which will certainly need it’s gardeners, but will also provide beauty and enough flowers to pick from.
Get inspired to plant your own testing bulbs or to pick from those wonderful flowers that have already bloomed! I’m certain that something beautiful will bloom in our Testing Garden.
zaterdag 13 maart 2010
's been a while...
I realize it’s been a while – again- since I blogged. I’ve been just so very busy, that blogging just moved to the background.
Firstly I’ve been writing my first large article, which will be published in the Software Test & Performance of April. It’s about Software Testing Ethics and I’ve written about some feedback that I got in the debates I held till now, among others the Ethics Debate held at EuroSTAR 2009. It was a lot of work, but I’m pretty proud of the achievement.
Secondly I also worked on an article on Test Architecture, Test Architecture Framework and the use of Eclipse Method Composer, together with a colleague of mine, for Testing Experience. Alas the editing board thought it was a sales pitch so it was rejected for publication. So me and my colleague (mostly my colleague) are now rewriting the article so that it will be a more scientific article, as the article was intended to be. We never set out to write a ‘sales pitch’.
Although, also this project is a bit on the background now, due to....
The larger part of my time I’ve been – besides working a lot- busy with reviewing the EuroSTAR 2010 submissions. I’ve set out on a quest to review all the submissions. It just seemed fair to know them all, before making the decision on the final program.
And there have been a LOT of submissions, it’s a record number this year! 433 submissions have reached my mailbox and I’m only as far as 229 in my reviewing process.
It is a slow process, since I take a lot of breaks, every submission deserves a fresh review without being ‘numb’ of reading dozens before.
Qualtech has anonymized them all (I can’t even imagine the amount of work that must have been), so I review purely on contents, applicability, innovation and – what else – passion, so I’m not biased by the knowledge of who the submittee is.
It’s a fun progress to be engaged in, but again, it takes a lot more dedication and effort than I would have suspected. Nice is that by making small notes on the subjects and keeping ‘topic keywords’ I’m a bit able to make some statistics. Alas, I’m not able to share anything of content related material of information at this time. But perhaps later this year, I’ll write another blog about this or a small article in the STARtester, we’ll see.
So, until I’ve reviewed all the submissions on EuroSTAR, I guess blogging is on the second plan. Hang in there and take care!
Firstly I’ve been writing my first large article, which will be published in the Software Test & Performance of April. It’s about Software Testing Ethics and I’ve written about some feedback that I got in the debates I held till now, among others the Ethics Debate held at EuroSTAR 2009. It was a lot of work, but I’m pretty proud of the achievement.
Secondly I also worked on an article on Test Architecture, Test Architecture Framework and the use of Eclipse Method Composer, together with a colleague of mine, for Testing Experience. Alas the editing board thought it was a sales pitch so it was rejected for publication. So me and my colleague (mostly my colleague) are now rewriting the article so that it will be a more scientific article, as the article was intended to be. We never set out to write a ‘sales pitch’.
Although, also this project is a bit on the background now, due to....
The larger part of my time I’ve been – besides working a lot- busy with reviewing the EuroSTAR 2010 submissions. I’ve set out on a quest to review all the submissions. It just seemed fair to know them all, before making the decision on the final program.
And there have been a LOT of submissions, it’s a record number this year! 433 submissions have reached my mailbox and I’m only as far as 229 in my reviewing process.
It is a slow process, since I take a lot of breaks, every submission deserves a fresh review without being ‘numb’ of reading dozens before.
Qualtech has anonymized them all (I can’t even imagine the amount of work that must have been), so I review purely on contents, applicability, innovation and – what else – passion, so I’m not biased by the knowledge of who the submittee is.
It’s a fun progress to be engaged in, but again, it takes a lot more dedication and effort than I would have suspected. Nice is that by making small notes on the subjects and keeping ‘topic keywords’ I’m a bit able to make some statistics. Alas, I’m not able to share anything of content related material of information at this time. But perhaps later this year, I’ll write another blog about this or a small article in the STARtester, we’ll see.
So, until I’ve reviewed all the submissions on EuroSTAR, I guess blogging is on the second plan. Hang in there and take care!
maandag 1 maart 2010
STaaS on Request
Suddenly it was there in my mailbox: “How do you feel about Software Testing as a Service, a.k.a. STaaS and could you blog about that?”. A request for a blogpost, hmmm, that’s different. Especially since I haven’t had much to do with the subject (yet), other than reading the different articles and offerings on Cloud, SaaS and the sporadic services that are offered as ‘hosted testing software’. But I like a challenge and I’m also interested in the topic so I set out on my information-gathering quest, there’s no such thing in my world as giving an opinion without knowing the background of the subject under discussion.
Sure I got a feeling, but is that feeling realistic and based on founded grounds or is it just based on (false) assumptions?
First of all: is STaaS any different than SaaS? Well, simply said: NO. Bottomline is that SaaS is, for those of you who didn’t already know, software that is offered as an online service. So if looked at it black-and-white; STaaS is nothing more than offering software that can enable software testing activities offered as an online service.
When I look at it this way, I say: “Good initiative”. Organizations that don’t have testing as a core business or don’t have the infrastructure (or recources) to host that kind of software, this would be a great solution. Think about the possibilities: imagine a big library-like site where you can choose-and-click the software testing software you need and then make use of it as long as you like without having the pains of administration.
Alas, STaaS as term, is used for more types of ‘products’ or ‘services’. So with the explanation above, I won’t be giving a complete answer. There are at least two more perspectives.
The first one is the infrastructure for testing ones software itself (the space/ hardware), for which I find the STaaS term isn’t appropriate. This should be more like ‘Serviced Test Environment’ or something like that. You can think of ‘virtual environments’ and so on. For example: when more testruns are done where older versions have to be ‘frozen’, this is ideal, because you can temporarily upscale your infrastructural capacity without having to buy the whole hardware package yourself. When not needed anymore the virtuals are just ‘deleted’ and you don’t have the hardware still in your server room and thus no maintenance and administration costs.
The second one is the service of Software Testing itself (activity). I find, that there is nothing new here and certainly not worth naming ‘STaaS’. For one, the meaning of aaS is that of product-like nature and not activity-like nature. Secondly; when one hires people for doing their testwork one can call it ‘Consultancy’ or if one hires people who test their software off-site, than it’s called, among others, ‘outsourcing’, ‘offshoring’ or even ‘testfactory’.
I do – however- think there’s still some development in these kinds of offerings. I think there are still services to be offered that will fit much more to the business needs than just ‘hiring people’ or ‘letting the product be tested by a company’. All of these shouldn’t be named ‘STaaS’ though.
So, my conclusion (now), is that STaaS as term isn’t necessary at all, it’s redundant and confusing. SaaS will do just fine. The ideas behind the different explanations of STaaS are however worth developing or investigating, but should be named in a way it’s clear what is meant by it. I think organizations will benefit from products which will enable high qualitative software activities without having to be burdened by the administrative and organizational hassle. I think this kind of products, services and offerings are still scarcely out of the egg and need some serious development, but it has an important role in the way software testing will be done in the future.
Sure I got a feeling, but is that feeling realistic and based on founded grounds or is it just based on (false) assumptions?
First of all: is STaaS any different than SaaS? Well, simply said: NO. Bottomline is that SaaS is, for those of you who didn’t already know, software that is offered as an online service. So if looked at it black-and-white; STaaS is nothing more than offering software that can enable software testing activities offered as an online service.
When I look at it this way, I say: “Good initiative”. Organizations that don’t have testing as a core business or don’t have the infrastructure (or recources) to host that kind of software, this would be a great solution. Think about the possibilities: imagine a big library-like site where you can choose-and-click the software testing software you need and then make use of it as long as you like without having the pains of administration.
Alas, STaaS as term, is used for more types of ‘products’ or ‘services’. So with the explanation above, I won’t be giving a complete answer. There are at least two more perspectives.
The first one is the infrastructure for testing ones software itself (the space/ hardware), for which I find the STaaS term isn’t appropriate. This should be more like ‘Serviced Test Environment’ or something like that. You can think of ‘virtual environments’ and so on. For example: when more testruns are done where older versions have to be ‘frozen’, this is ideal, because you can temporarily upscale your infrastructural capacity without having to buy the whole hardware package yourself. When not needed anymore the virtuals are just ‘deleted’ and you don’t have the hardware still in your server room and thus no maintenance and administration costs.
The second one is the service of Software Testing itself (activity). I find, that there is nothing new here and certainly not worth naming ‘STaaS’. For one, the meaning of aaS is that of product-like nature and not activity-like nature. Secondly; when one hires people for doing their testwork one can call it ‘Consultancy’ or if one hires people who test their software off-site, than it’s called, among others, ‘outsourcing’, ‘offshoring’ or even ‘testfactory’.
I do – however- think there’s still some development in these kinds of offerings. I think there are still services to be offered that will fit much more to the business needs than just ‘hiring people’ or ‘letting the product be tested by a company’. All of these shouldn’t be named ‘STaaS’ though.
So, my conclusion (now), is that STaaS as term isn’t necessary at all, it’s redundant and confusing. SaaS will do just fine. The ideas behind the different explanations of STaaS are however worth developing or investigating, but should be named in a way it’s clear what is meant by it. I think organizations will benefit from products which will enable high qualitative software activities without having to be burdened by the administrative and organizational hassle. I think this kind of products, services and offerings are still scarcely out of the egg and need some serious development, but it has an important role in the way software testing will be done in the future.
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