Category Archives: Teach things

Branding software testing, Speaking, Teach things

Finding courage

After more than 10 minutes of discussion the work item was clear to the developers and the product owner. Then the standard question was posed: “Are there any more questions?”

As a tester I had digested the information. I was not sure about the solution, so I raised my hand. Everyone looked at me.

What’s Up, Doc?

Currently I am the only tester in my team. If something has impact on testing or a quality related attribute, then I talk about it. It is something some people take for granted.

In the past people started rolling their eyes, if I questioned something. Until the main stakeholder supported me. Look who’s talking?

A few years ago I heard about a demo for a certain project. I tried to invite myself. My project leader objected with: “There is nothing to test.”

I persisted and attended the demo. Every now and then I posed a question. After the demo I heard no more objections about my presence.

Invitations for the remaining demos were even sent to me. The stakeholders obviously valued my input. Look who’s listening?

No harm intended

Last month the Skype rehearsal was not that successful. I had one month left to improve the exercises. They were crucial for my workshop at TestBash NL.

During the session I zoomed in on some exercises. In hindsight they were too big to handle in 1 go. Agile people might call them epic.

By breaking them down I got digestible mini exercises. I liked the idea.

Fast feedback for me and you.
[On the melody of Tea for two]

Some exercises had the complexity of my daily work. Using simple tests I might overlook edge cases. So let me complicate things please.

At the beginning of this section I wrote that the exercises were not that successful. I expected that the exercises went more smoothly than experienced.

Luckily there was useful feedback to improve the exercises. I had something to act upon. Things could only improve now. Also by writing down my thoughts and actions in this post.

During the preparation of every talk or workshop of mine there is a moment I think: “I cannot tell this.” And then the presentation is getting better. These experiences form my word of comfort.

The Skype rehearsal reminded me of #30daysoftesting: Lisa Crispin had doodled about experimenting. She was struggling, how to fit it in.

I tweeted her:
“There is no failure. There can’t be, if your only mission was to “see what happens”. ”
@sivers

Speaking, Teach things

Thank you for your attention

“I think I found something.”
All developers were looking straight to their screens. So I waited for a reaction.
“You can talk.” the Scrum Master said. “We are listening.”
I started to tell about my observation. One dev stood up and looked on one of my screens. He went back to his workplace. After a couple seconds I heard:
“I know where the problem is.”

We are both looking

A few years ago this actually happened to me.

The recruiter stood up and made a gesture to the desktop at the other side of the room. “Now you can show your presentation.”
I liked the comfortable sofa, where I was seated on.
“I can show it here.” I pulled my smartphone out of my pocket.
The recruiter seated himself next to me.

“This is the presentation I will give. It still is a draft version.” After flipping the first slides I started a casual talk about a performance test in the past. “On this slide […]” I described the situation.
“I am familiar with performance tests.” the recruiter remarked. I just filed his words somewhere in my memory. Hey, I can still remember them.

“If you look at the graph, […]” I zoomed in on the graph and talked about the lines: what did they tell me?
Slowly the storyteller came up in me. My tone of voice changed. I started to talk in an animated way. The story started to grip me.

I had something to tell.

Excuse me for the interruptions

Last week I started a delayed Skype session with my friend. After some small talk it was time to look at my workshop for Testbash Netherlands.
“Okay. I gonna share my screen with you.” He saw nothing. This was similar to a broken beamer. There was no reason to panic yet.

I switched to Plan B. “I will send you the presentation.” I picked a PDF loaded with Fieldstones.
“Did you receive the presentation?” I kindly informed after a minute. I got no for an answer.

A few moments I heard that my mail was in his spam box.
He put me on the Whitelist.
You’ve got a friend in me.

After he had opened the file, I did a walk through in my native language Dutch. “On this slide I will say […]”
“On slide 4 [….]”

Later in the session I explained an exercise to him and off we went. “What would you do with the sticky note?” I got a reassuring answer. Now I came to the difficult part. He had to connect the imaginary stickies.

I could not give him visual clues. Therefore I focused on his voice. It sounded lower than usual. He was hesitating: there were too many options. So I added a constraint to the exercise. The tone of his voice became higher: that was positive.

Beginning this year I had visualised the solution within seconds. Now I had to breakdown the solution in small pieces for him. I took a metaphor to explain the first step. Confusion was on his mind.

Now I had to be patient.
I repeated the solution several times. Nope. I used other words. I did not hear anything. Then I revealed the solution a little bit and got a good response. Phew.
So I will have to simplify this. As simple as that.

Another exercise followed. The slides were not ready, but I had enough information for him. It took him some time to read it. That was something I could not influence as a workshop leader.

Then I told him his assignment. He told me in a steady flow, what he had found. He picked up the right information. Then he was sidetracked.
“O no”, I thought and kept my mouth shut. I really had to listen. He kept talking. By using logic he figured out the right solution. This went quite smoothly after all.

This exercise was too easy for the middle part of my workshop. I looked for it in the mind map for the second hour, but it was in the First Hour Mind Map. That was just fine with me.

I got valuable feedback by carefully listening and questioning.

A few weeks earlier I showed some slides to my wife. She was more than happy to recognise some pictures. But one slide was really bad and she had good arguments. Right. Make that wrong: I still need to tweak that slide. And yes, my wife is right.

I thank you for reading and the reminder to improve that slide. And uuuuh …. something else, which drew my Attention.

Just give me a couple of blog posts. It will spring in my mind again. Cheers.

A leader ships, Mind mapping, Teach things

Test Creativity, Inc.

Using the book ‘Creativity Inc.’ as a basis for this blog post, I made a mistake. I tried to craft a compelling story, how creativity could be used in every phase of software testing. But the post became a struggle for me. Then I realised that the book was not about creativity or management. It was about leadership. Let me write about it.

Learn, Struggle, and Tell

During one of my workshops about mind mapping I talked with a colleague, who was specialised in project support. She told me, that she already had been taught mind mapping during her master class. She was quite proud about the nice mind map as a deliverable of one master class group project. She described the beautiful details, but I sensed some reluctance to use mind maps for her daily work.

One of my kids had to give a talk. In the US it is called Show and Tell. An object is shown to the class and the pupil tells about it. The teacher of my kid would give a penalty, if no mind map could be shown.

Where’s the fun?

Flow and Tell

What I like about mind maps, is that they are playful in use. I can get in a flow, during which I can add and modify information in a continuous way. I can focus and defocus. With a single delete action I can remove a complete subtree of information.

A mind map makes a TODO list more interactive than a standard checklist. I can make sub tasks and move them around. It shows me, which things need my immediate attention.

This is useful fun for me.

Use and Tell

Years ago I used to work for a consultancy firm. This company had a special program for consultants between projects. One of the workshops was Introduction Mind Mapping, which appealed to me as a knowledge worker. The reasons to attend my workshop were different:

  • “I am curious, what mind mapping is.”
  • “I heard good stories about this workshop.”
  • “It might be useful for my work.”

During the years it became a feel good workshop. I found the right mix between practice and entertaining stories.

In order to maintain the quality of the workshops I was requested to collect filled in evaluation forms. Once I even scored a 10 for the whole workshop on scale from 1 to 10. You guessed right: 10 is perfect. For Dutch people this is quite exceptional. Most of the time I scored 8 or 9, which is good.

The feedback about the use of mind maps after the workshop was quite limited. One consultant used a mind map in a presentation, which I attended.

Another consultant had a long call with me to look at the use of mind maps as a vehicle for knowledge management. And there were a few more.

Show and Provide

There was not enough time to make a test plan. My project manager was quite strict: you have to do your job with the available resources. So I asked my project lead to use a mind map. The reaction was like “Sure, why not?”
I confirmed my request:
“You won’t get [word processor] doc, but a mind map.”
“That’s no problem.” she answered with a smile.

I went back to my computer and made one of the most compact test plans ever. I mailed the plan to her and started playing the theme of Mission Impossible in my head. I succeeded.

Later I heard that the plan was converted to a document. This was not entirely my intention.

Show them & They Tell me

Another time another mind map. This time I presented the test plan mind map to the stakeholders. It was scrutinised and becoming better after each feedback. Weeks later I requested information from a colleague, she answered with:
“I looked to your mind map and […]”.
Just imagine that smile on my face.

A few weeks later I got questions from another colleague. I opened my mind map and talked about the options. It was highly constructive. Test ideas were reframed with new facts and questions. The focus was on the content and not on the form.

There’s No Business like Show Business

There are many people, who already use mind maps like me. So my creativity is not that high. The use of test plans for management is standard in many companies. But the constructive discussion about the tests to be executed was quite unique for me. My test plan mind map was discussed, adjusted, and used to give a direction.

Am I a leader, because people follow me? Maybe they are chatting and not paying real attention. Maybe I am a leader when I tell the right direction in the back of the group. But they might follow another group or be led by some else in the group.

Real leadership is granted and not imposed.