STWC - Software Testing World Cup 2104 (här kommer inlägg om högt och lågt i okronologisk ordning, bara för att jag vill minnas det!)

Laget bestod av Sofia Brusberg, Erik Brickarp, Cliver Zardan och mig själv.

Vi möttes på Arris, Sofia hade bokat lokal. Snabbt fördelade vi ansvarsområden. Jag tog rollen att hålla i klockan, samt att ställa frågor och följa kommunikationen i youtubekanalen. Erik skötte dokumentatinen, och kom med en välförberedd mall. Sofia och Cliver testade för fullt. Sofia hade en mall till felrapport som vi använde oss av.

Vi hade på ett planeringsmöte nån vecka tidigare fördelat rollerna. Vi planerade att använda oss av partestning, men vi blev så indragna i systemet och tävlingsmomentet att vi glömde bort det. Vi glömde även bort några av våra korta avstämningsmöten som vi hade tänkt hålla, men vi bröt testningen vid ett par tillfällen för att debriefa varandra - och det var vi nog samtliga väldigt nöjda med att vi hade gjort. Det förde oss framåt och hjälpte oss att hålla fokus.

Vi kom på tredje plats (av 200 lag) i den Europeiska uttagningen. Grymt stolt och nöjd över det! En av mina höjdpunkter i karriären faktiskt! 

Challenges in Exploratory testing

Today I attended a lunch meeting at EAST. Erik Brickarp held a presentation on Challenges in Exploratory testing. He talked about stuff he encountered through his career at Ericsson and later VeriSure. Interesting!

Some items in notes form for me to remember:

- Session Based Test Management, SBTM - "Wrinting better chartesr" by Michael Kelly, available at Youtube - need to look up!

- Estimation - who wants to know what and when (personal reminder: check out the notes from Michael Bolton on estimation in Stockholm, May 2015)
Information of interest is usually on the lines of "we're on time", "we're behind, but it is ok because of this or that" or "we're behind and it is urgent to solve our obstacles"

- Check out test framing by Michael Bolton/James Bach

- Low tech dashboard - James Bach

- SBT (metrics) Setup - Bug - Testing - the ratio/percentage of time spent on each bit. Can show that setuptime is crazily large (expensive) in relation to testing. Can show that quality has decreased (higher time spent on Bugs than 6 months ago...) ...

- SFDIPOT - google the translation S=Structure, F=Funcionality etc.

We also discussed the differences between test idea, test case and charter.

Erik has a document with loads of questions to ask when setting a stretegy, not all are relevant always, but some are relevant sometimes.

The heuristic test strategy model by MIcheal Bolton is well worth spending time on recap. 

Step out of the comfort zone

(Ok, this was apparently a blog post I wrote some time ago but never published. Hmm... I'll publish it today then! :) Spoiler alert – I did get on the team of facilitators….)

I very recently started running. I've been doing aerobics and other group activities as exercise earlier, but this spring I decided that I needed to start running to be able to get the exercise into my life even if there was no scheduled event that fit my time, or if was travelling or squeezing the exercise in while my husband put the kids to sleep and so on. So I did. I bought new shoes, and got myself out there. I didn't do very well. It took me more than 8 minutes to run one km, and as a matter of fact I don't even think I ran one km without pausing at least once. I don’t really remember, because it is not important for me to remember that.

Today I have a tempo of approximately 6:30 min/km, and 5 km is not a problem for me anymore.

Speeding up and getting more and more distance into my training was not that difficult, once I put my mind to it. But, I really needed to step out of my comfort zone, just to use an old cliché. It was not comfortable to run faster and longer. Not comfortable at all. I think comfortable is to sit in the couch in the evening, or outside on the porch in summertime with a glass of wine. But running - not comfortable! However, I had set my goal for myself only, and I wanted to reach it. So I did. Today I have moved that target, to run further and faster. And I kind of like running. It is still not comfortable, but the times when it is the most uncomfortable it usually means (to me) that I am improving.

I want to make that an analogy to testing. I happened to start testing some eight years ago. Or actually, I don’t think I understood that I was testing, but one day I noticed in the corporate phone book that someone had given me the title “function tester”. Anyhow, that was kind of an eye opener for me to start a career as a tester. I started looking for job ads for different testers. After a few years I actually applied for a job as test lead, and through that I got into testing even more. Before that testing was a job, but now it became a life style. My eyes and interest turned to the context driven testing community. One thing led to another and last year I got an opportunity to go to Let’s Test 2013. Wow. That was a life changing event. Maybe I’ll give you more on that some other time…

So, this year I am challenging myself to learn more and more about testing. I want to improve! I want to become awesome! I want to change the ways I do things, and I definitely want to change the way my corp do things… I need to start with myself. In an earlier blog post I noted down some ideas on want I want for myself. I think they are still valid. I have registered for Lets Test 2014, and one thing I really want to do is to try to get on the team of facilitators. It would be scary, and uncomfortable, but hey, I know from running that getting out of that comfort zone is when I’m improving. And since I want to improve - Let’s do it!

This poor forgotten blog...

Just hang inte there sweet blog! I have a lot of ideas on blog posts I want to give you, just never seem to be able to prioritize the time in that way... Soon I will give you my experiences and reflections from Let's Test 2014. And oh, there's this Software Testing World Cup coming up on Friday this week... think I need to give some posts on that too. Coming up, dear blog, coming up.

EAST meetup in February

It's taken some time to collect myself into writing down my notes from the latest EAST meeting. This time we met at Verisure in Linköping. After some nice greek food we started out to draw the outlines of an ideal testing project. Focusing really on the word "ideal". We had a lot of fun. Things from "clear requirements"* to "resulting in peace in the universe" were added on the whiteboard. At this moment of writing I don't have the time to elaborate on the topic and the result, but I will post the photos from the whiteboard and promise to come back to explain it a bit more later.

We started out with defining the four different phases: Project idea, Planning/strategy, Test execution, Finish. Then we just added whatever came to mind that we wanted to have in place for an ideal test project. Note that perfect and bugfree code is not included in an ideal testing project.

* = actually, looking at the pictures after writing the above text I notice that "requirements" weren't mentioned at all... that's funny! In my memory they were. Apparently we don't really care about requirements in an ideal testing project... that idea probably calls for a separate blog post to figure out!

Here goes:

I did not make any new year resolutions. However I have a few ideas that I want to write down to remember them if I ever get to creating my own "learning experience goal list".

I want to write blog posts about testing, at a recurrent interval.

I want to be more active on twitter.

I want to participate in the EAST network meetings.

I want to host an EAST meeting.

I want to participate in the Let's test conference.

I want to ask a question/comment on something during at least one of the turorials at the conference.

I want to get a personal relation to other testers, especially some of those I follow on twitter.

I want to be a speaker at a conference in 2015, maybe Let's test? Testzonen? other?

I want to watch webinars about testing.

I want to read more stuff about testing.

I want to write my own testing profile - who am I, what are my expert areas, etc.

I want to be more active in my employers' testing strategy work on a national level.

Ok, that's enough for now. 

Welcome!

This blog has just been created as a step in my individual learning experience. I will use this blog as a tool for stuff I want to remember, stuff I want to elaborate on while at the same time trying to understand them better, and stuff I just feel like writing about. All (mostly at least) related to software testing.

Feel free to read, however I do want to state that I mainly write for myself as audience.