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April 14, 2009 |
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What I Learned From Testers at STPCon Spring
By Edward J. Correia
Many of the industry’s best and brightest minds were present at the Software Test & Performance Conference in Silicon Valley earlier this month to talk about software testing. And some great instructors were there too. To all who came to learn, thanks. I hope your experience at STPCon was valuable, pleasant, and one you’ll repeat many times. (And I repeat my thanks to all our great instructors).
I learn something whenever I spend time around testers. At this spring's STPCon, I observed the testers’ love of music and inspiration in places other than the classrooms. More on that in a moment.
In testing, we talk about many things. But if we had to narrow our jobs in technology—or any field—down to the single most important and far-reaching issue, it would certainly be communication. Keeping yourself and others on your team informed is key to worker efficiency, team effectiveness, career growth, and good relations. It’s also a critical part of the agile process, as test consultant and scrum master Bob Galen emphasized in his one-hour session titled “Releasing Agile Products in the Enterprise.”
The Scrum variant of agile centers around daily status meetings to discuss the sprint, is a longer period (typically two to four weeks) during which usable application components are built and tested. “Everyone can come together on one day and get one consistent feeling,” said Galen. “If it doesn’t get done during the sprint, you remove a task and put it in the backlog.” It’s important to “honor the time box” stressed Galen, but added that delivering an unfinished component is never part of the plan. “Always make the product owner aware of the adjustments in the product test. Make them aware of issues as they come along.” Communication is key.
Agile also includes the concept of cross-functional teams; groups of testers, designers and developers, working together before and during the coding process. “This means not waiting for testing to begin after development…to test while developing with collaboration between developers and testers.” Again, communication is central to this process, and one of its main byproducts is agility. The variable in agile is scope, says Galen. “Agile allows for the adjustment of scope. Agile is realistic; it allows for change as priorities change.”
Other pearls of Galen's wisdom were found in “Setting Agile-centric Release Criteria.” This session focused on the content of “doneness,” a major quality-centered activity among agile teams to determine the readiness as it relates to end of an iteration or sprint. “Are goals important and why?” Galen asked the group. “To know when you're done,” answered one attendee. Others indicated that it helps with focus, measurement and, as Galen also pointed out, supports the self-organizing, self-directed-team principle behind agile testing. “Plans don't drive people or success, people do. And goals drive the team. And teams need to know how to align to the goal.” Galen described the four levels of done-ness with examples of each, and explored patterns to exercise collaborative skills to influence teams toward more complete and valuable work.
Would your organization have benefited from such a class? E-mail me to find out how to download the slides. And perhaps you and your team should attend STPCon this fall.
Sound Stimulation
On opening night, we were inspired by entertainment provided by San Francisco Bay Jazz, a sextet led by LogiGear chairman and CEO Hung Nguyen. He was gracious (or crazy) enough to let me sit in on drums for their version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Take the A Train.” I’ve since learned that the 1939 classic became the trademark of the Duke Ellington orchestra after Duke’s son Mercer found the arrangement in Strayhorn’s trash. And Elisha Welch, on staff for the conference, sang an excellent rendition of the popular jazz standard “Blue Skies," by Iriving Berlin.
Music on the second night was supplied by the great Pollo Del Mar, with instrumentals from the 1970s, including by request the Dick Dale & the DelTones version of the 1920’s Greek classic “Misirlou.” (I recognized this as the theme from the opening credits of Quentin Tarantino’s classic Pulp Fiction). Later, guitarist Ferenc Dobronyi admitted that “Chicken of the Sea” (translated from the Spanish) had not played that song in about seven years. I don’t think anyone noticed.
But I noticed something else. The experience reaffirmed what I’ve come to know from other conferences: testers like music and count many musicians among them. Are you one? E-mail me (Subject: I am a tester who loves music) about your talents and interests. Teresa Cantwell and Jen McClure contributed to this story.
Contact Edward J. Correia at ecorreia@stpcollaborative.com
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Save the Date!
October 19 - 23, 2009 - Hyatt Hotel, Cambridge, MA
Stay tuned for more details!
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Test & QA Report is published by Redwood Collaborative Media
Editor: Edward J. Correia Publisher: Andrew Muns Associate Publisher: David Karp
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