Why Your SOA Effort May Fail

I'm getting ready for my StarEast trip, but want to mention an interesting article I read this week titled, "SOA failures traced to people, process issues" on Networkworld.com (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/043008-interop-soa.html).

The article quotes Anne Thomas Manes of the Burton Group in response to a question about what overriding message IT executives need to hear about Service-oriented Architecture (SOA).
"The problem's not technology, Howard said. People and processes are at the heart of what's wrong with SOA as it currently exists in enterprises."

I found it interesting that in an audience of around 300 people, only 6 indicated that their SOA efforts were proceeding well.

I can add my own observation that adds support to Manes' comments, that is, people in my course on testing SOA seem to be much more interested in the technology aspects than they do the people and process aspects. This has been bothering me for some time now.

I agree that the technology seems to be progressing more than the human aspects. For example, getting the business folks to work better with the technology people is a big challenge in some companies. In fact, I think this is the big challenge of getting people to adopt agile methods as well.

The acticle goes on to state, "IT departments implement a SOA program that may be technically proficient but doesn't meet the needs of business users, Chris Howard said, noting that Burton Group is researching SOA successes and failures through interviews with IT pros and business executives at dozens of clients. Business executives often conclude that IT pros exaggerate predictions of reusability or underestimate project cost, Howard said. IT professionals are generally bad at presenting the business case for SOA, and need to get better at explaining the long-term benefits in cost and flexibility to CEOs, he said."

Interesting stuff, and it lines up with what I see as well.

Take a read and see what you think.

On a different note, yesterday (May 3) was the 9th anniversary of the F5 tornado which ripped across Oklahoma. It was a record-setting event, with sustained winds of over 318 mph and 40 deaths. There were 675 reported injuries. The damage estimate was 1.2 billion dollars. The outbreak spawned 66 tornadoes. The main tornado passed about 1 mile south of our home and was the closest I've ever been to a tornado. It was an awesome display of the fury of a tornado.

So today when the sirens sounded at noon, as they always do here on Saturdays, it brought back the feelings of taking cover and praying. (By the way, I learned that prayers get real short when an F5 tornado is bearing down on you!) That was quite a day for sure. I still use this as an example in my talk, "The Risks of Risk-Based Testing" as the kind of risk that is so far outside of the bounds that you don't even know how to plan for it.

I'll be posting all this coming week from StarEast, so stay tuned for updates!

A Really Great Afternoon

This past weekend was tough. Saturday, I attended the memorial service for a long-time friend, Lowell Burch of Tulsa.

Lowell and I met in college over 30 years ago, and were "band buddies". Not the marching band kind, but the rock/bluegrass/Christian kind. Although, Lowell did play the trumpet, coronet and many other instruments very well. In fact, he taught band in schools.

We were both Beatles fans. We played a lot of their music and really liked talking Beatles trivia.

We also both liked cars. He was restoring his 1969 AMX (The same one he drove my wife and I in from our wedding to get to my car) and I'm restoring a 1949 Plymouth. We talked a lot about that, and sent pictures back and forth.

So, where's the "Great afternoon"? It was one month ago, almost to the day.

When I found out Lowell had stage 4 cancer, I knew I had to get there to spend some time with him. It was such a great blessing to spend the better part of the afternoon reminiscing about the past, laughing about past gigs and people we know, and even talking about the future. I'm glad that he was feeling well, looking good and was in high spirits.

The first thing I told his wife Susan last Saturday was how blessed I felt that we all had the time together. (Susan was part of the band, too.) She had such a great testimony when she asked me, "Isn't God good? We had that great time together!"

Lowell left a great legacy in his wife, his sons, his extended family and so many friends. As they said at the service, "Lowell made friends and he kept friends."

Fred Smith, one of my favorite authors on the topic of sucess, wrote that his definition of success if the ratio of gifts received to gifts used. I like that definition. Applied to Lowell, he was a huge success in many areas of life.

The reason I share all of this is because I learned some very important things over the years from Lowell, that I didn't realize until now. And this is just a partial list.

1) He taught me how to think outside of my own limits. Lowell was the ultimate "outside the box" kind of guy. When we needed a certain instrument in the band, Lowell encouraged me to try playing it, even if I mainly just played the guitar and banjo. He was very creative and always doing something different.
2) He taught me how to make friends unconditionally. Lowell knew no strangers.
3) He was a "contagious Christian". He was always sharing his faith with someone.
4) He held on to me a lot more than I held on to him. He would call me more than I would call him, but he was never resentful about being the one who had to call first. He would tell others about what I was doing, where I was travelling, etc.
5) He taught me that I need to stay in contact with my friends.
6) He taught me to be positive, because God is in control. Whatever happens, it will work together for our good and God's glory. This was his last lesson to me because I saw him live it out in his final days here on Earth.

All of this lessons will be a major part of my life. I don't believe you can separate "professional life" and "personal or spiritual life." They are too intertwined. Your professional actions reflect your personal spiritual values.

I hope you have someone in your life like this. If you do, call them this week or go visit, if possible.

If you knew Lowell, feel free to post your story.

He's in the best place, now. The land of an unclouded day. Man, I'm going to miss him!

Software Testing Disasters

Thanks to everyone who turned out at the Red Earth QA meeting today in Oklahoma City!

Here are the slides for my presentation, Testing Disasters and Turnarounds in PDF. I hope to have the audio available soon!

I'll be presenting this as a track session next month at StarEast, unless American Airlines grounds their fleet again.

What Makes a Good Leader?

There's this ongoing debate/discussion that asks, "Are good leaders made or born?" I say "yes". What I mean is that some leaders have the gift, while others need to develop it. And then there are some people that should just never try to lead people, no matter what!

This past weekend I was talking with my friend Clint, who I have watched over the past 10 years grow into a great leader. He told me this amazing story and I think you'll also get something from it.

A few days ago, Clint's 10 year old daughter, Keegan, asked him if he could get her into see our pastor. You may be thinking "big deal, just talk to him after church." Well, we have a rather large church (30,000 people in 13 campus locations around the country), but Clint does have access. So, he asked her why. She said that she wanted to ask him what makes a good leader. Keep in mind that Keegan is ten years old. When I was 10, I was thinking about a new bike or something as trivial.

So, they worked it out. Actually, to be able to make the meeting, she had to get up at 6 a.m., but that was no problem at all for her.

Our pastor handled this as only he can. "Does anybody know where I can get a hug from a 10-year old?" She eagerly responded, "Hey, I'm 10!"

After the hug, she asked him the question, "What makes a good leader". His response was something like this:

"It takes three key things: 1) Integrity, so like when you have a test at school and somebody has the answers, you don't look at them, even if you know you won't get caught; 2) The ability to cast a vision clearly so others can see and follow it, and 3) Being a servant to the people you lead. They are not there for you, you are there for them."

Then he signed to her a copy of one of his books on finding God's purpose for life, and got another hug.

This story really impacted me in several ways.

First, what motivates a ten-year old to be bold enough to ask a question few adults ask?

Second, there are many books on leadership, but these three things boil it down nicely.

Third, a true leader always makes time for people.

I have a feeling that Keegan is already a leader, and if she keeps seeking and learning, she'll be a great one.

Now, what are you going to do today to be a leader?

Interesting Software Testing Survey from EuroStar 2007

I ran across an interesting survey that my friends Dorothy Graham and Mark Fewster conducted last December at EuroStar 2007, held in Stockholm. 620 attendees participated in the surveys.

You can download the survey results at:

http://www.qualtechconferences.com/content.asp?ID=263

It's interesting reading. Plus, I think it's great that Dorothy and Mark were able to conduct the survey and report the findings at the same conference. That's cool.

Here's what I found interesting:

59% of the respondents used to write code

43% held the ISEB/ISTQB Foundation Level certification

34% of those with certifications felt that they now know more about testing, and 25% have a better job

11% of the respondents saw the ISTQB certification as a money-making scheme, 49% felt that is shows a basic level of knowledge.

36% of the people have read at least half of 1 - 2 testing books, 20% have read none and 36% have read 3 - 10 books.

50% of the people do not measure the value of testing in their organizations

Well, those are just a few of the findings. I encourage you to download the report and read it yourself. We need to do something like this survey here in the U.S.

ISTQB Software Testing Certification Training

I'm in Dallas this week working on a project that I can't talk about. Well, I could but then...OK, you know the line.

Funny thing. I was here last week and my car got pummelled with quarter-sized hail. About $1,500 in damage. Just got it estimated for repair on Monday. I hadn't been here two hours last night when another hail storm was heading my way. So...I dragged myself out into the rain and moved by already hail damaged car under the hotel entrance. Guess what? Nothing happened. Yea! All you people at the Hampton Inn owe me thanks for keeping the hail away.

I'm happy to announce that I have submitted my Foundation Level Course in Software Testing for accreditation. You can read the press release here.

Hopefully before long, I'll be able to display the ISTQB logo and really get out there promoting the course. My goal is to get as many people certified as possible.

Why?

I think everyone in the field of software testing has an opinion about certifications. I don't believe there is a single "right" perspective. What appeals to one person may not appeal to someone else.

I am CSTE #2, which means I was there at the start. I was a designer of the certification. I am now an officer of the ASTQB, which means I now support wholly the ISTQB program. A big reason I am behind the ISTQB program is because it is vendor-neutral. It's true that people (including me) will make money conducting training courses. But if I wasn't presenting this course, I would be presenting something else. However, no one company "owns" the certification. No vendor can just change the program. In fact, there are many training providers which gives you more options.

Training is not required to sit for the exam. However, I really believes it helps because you get immersion in the terminology and philosophy of the ISTQB syllabus.

Do test certifications help your career? It depends on your situation and your goals.

I know some test managers that could care less about people who are certified and I know others that are certain that having a certification increases their test team's image in the organization. Some people find great value in using test certification as setting a baseline of software testing terminology and practice in an organization. My belief is that having a certification is one way to stand out in your career.

I have personally had clients tell me the deciding factor in using my services was because I held a certification.

There have been debates on this topic, so there are views on all sides.

I have some really cool things in the works that I can't reveal just yet regarding ISTQB test certification training. I'll just say that I'm very excited about doing some things that no one else is doing in software testing!

If you want to get training in ISTQB Foundation Level Software Testing, call me at 405-691-8075, or contact me through my web site to discuss.

Have a great one!

Randy

Making Software Testing Training Green

It's tough sometimes to break out of a mold. That's where we seem to be where training is concerned. Traditional classroom testing has the opportunity to be engaging, but too often it isn't. You have to work at it.

So when I start talking about e-learning, people get concerned about the interaction aspects. And interaction is important! It can be achieved with e-learning.

There are other considerations, such as environmental concerns. With e-learning:

• You eliminate travel, therefore reducing fuel used in airplanes and cars


• You eliminate the big books, therefore reducing the amount of trees used for paper


• You reduce or eliminate the need for a physical facility to heat or cool for a class of 15 or more peopleBut even above the environmental impact, you can save big money and get training that is just as effective as live training!

Then, there are time and cost concerns. E-learning can be scaled up much faster and broader that live on-site training. For example, with my e-learning courses, it is possible to train you entire worldwide test organization in one week for a small fraction of live in-person training.

I like the time-shifted approach. In fact, I believe on-demand content is essential to make e-learning effective. It's just too difficult to co-ordinate everyone's schedule to be connected at the same time. Plus, you eliminate many of the concurreny and performance issues of having many people accessing the same content at the same time. (On the launch of Oprah's new online training event with author Eckhart Tolle, author of "The New Earth", 500,000 people tried to access the event. "Tried" is the key word.)

While you won't have this type of load, you can still have problems with load.

My entire attitude toward training changed after 9/11. It was tough for anyone in the training business for some time because so many people were on travel restrictions. Many conferences were cancelled.

If fuel costs continue to soar, travel costs will also rise. E-learning just makes sense on a variety of levels.

If you want to learn more, check out my e-learning offerings in software testing, IEEE standards and user requiremnts here.

Speaking of green, here is my favorite fishing spot.
It is Bear Lake, close to Cuchara, Colorado.

That's why I say that a bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work!

What Makes Software Testing Training Effective - Part 2

Today I did something that many of my friends have advised me to do for many years. I had my head examined. Really.

I had a brain MRI performed because I have tinnitus in my left ear and in order to rule out a tumor, I had to get this done to get life insurance.

The funny thing is that there was power surge about 10 minutes into the process and they had to "re-boot" the MRI machine. I told them not to worry. "It's not you, it's me! I'm a tester."

To add on to my last post about software test training effectiveness, I was thinking about something I've been intending to post for some time.

That is, to learn in small doses is more effective than trying to train in large chunks. Now, this is just the opposite to how many people think. They want to cram as much information as possible into a training day. The problem is that people start to suffer from information overload.

One of my mentors, Fred Smith, said that, "The best mentoring is intensity in a narrow field...learn, practice and assimilate." He used the example of how he used to dramatically improve the performance of salespeople by teaching just few simple techniques repetitively. Then, the people would go out and try them. When they came back, they all had glowing success stories.

It also reminds me of a friend who is a great guitarist who told me the secret to playing fast is to play slow.

So, for software testers, I suggest in really drilling down into one technique. In one of my intermediate testing courses, I spend two days just teaching and practicing pairwise testing. We spend about three hours on learning how to find the right size orthogonal array. We spend a hour on how to use some of the pairwise tools that are free. I guarantee you one thing. When the workshop is over (it's really not fair to call it a class), people know all about pairwise testing.

By the way, if you would like a taste of this class, attend my Tuesday half-day tutorial at StarEast in about a month.

You will find that some people want to just breeze through the material quickly. These people just want to cut to the chase. They are likely to get impatient when the class wants to discuss questions and observations - you know, where learning actually occurs! I like to set expectations by letting the class know that the goal is not to get through all the slides. It's to internalize the information. So, I encourage people to enjoy the journey!

Remember, another way to make training stick is to take it in sips instead of gulps!

Software Testing Training - What Makes it Effective?

Man, it's been busy here in the office today, but I love it!

I've been thinking a lot about really what makes training "stick", especially in software testing and software quality. Actually, I've been thinking along these lines for several years.

It was a defining moment when back in 1998, I re-designed my testing courses to be "hands-on" computer-based. Then, in 2001 I attended an AYE conference and that put another spin on things for me. (BTW, I highly recommend that conference!) It caused me to add many more experiential activities to my training.

So, why doesn't training "stick"?

Well, besides the basic things like:

You get out what you put into it.
Learn, then apply.
etc...

1) I have observed that my very best training experience, both as trainer and trainee, is when stretching happens. When training doesn't stretch you, it's easy to just coast along and not change anything.

I think learning should result in some form of change. If it doesn't result in change, then has anything been accomplished? After all, there should be some form of improvement seen.

But, back to stretching...

Stretching happens when you have to think long and hard about how to solve a problem. It happens when the case study software messes up and then you have to troubleshoot, learn, test, try again, fail, try again and FINALLY get it right.

Some people complain that the case study should have been more trouble-free. Then, they don't believe that I designed it that way!

Training sticks when people fully understand WHY certain things are done WHEN they are done. Unfortunately, too many trainers focus on the WHAT and HOW, which is great for robots, but not great for transforming people into thinking testers.

So, I'll warn you in advance. If you attend one of my sessions, you will probably be stretched. It's not because I'm mean, it's because I want you to remember.

2) People remember stories more than bullet points. I have had people tell me they didn't remember the bullet points on my slides, but they remembered some of those great project stories. (By the way, my track session at StarEast will be "Testing Disasters and Turnarounds" which will be based on three situations where things went really bad and how some of them were corrected.) You will also hear some good stories in my training sessions.

3) People learn better when things are light. So, I like to use humor tastefully and keep things loose and informal in the sessions I teach.

Here's another take which has a really good example:
http://newsweaver.ie/qualtech/e_article001048145.cfm?x=bcnrJV7,b4V6LhgS

That's it for now. I would like to hear what you think makes training effective!

Heathrow Airport Meltdown

Not to be outdone when it comes to airport chaos (we don't want DFW and O'Hare to get all the glory), the new Terminal 5 at London's Heathrow airport is not being described as a "glitch" but a "meltdown". At last a more accurate description!

I often comment in my "Process Improvement Using Root Cause Analysis" workshop that it is very interesting to see root cause analysis play out in the real world. So, the reason I'm mentioning this situation (still ongoing at the time of this writing) is because it's interesting to observe - kind of like watching a train wreck. Of course, I'm not one of the impacted passengers on British Airways.

I kept thinking, how similar this situation sounds like some of the computer system implementations I have seen, except not on such a grand scale.

Here's one link for the story:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/15802/BA-facing-Heathrow-baggage-meltdown-

There have been cascading problems:

1) Lack of parking for baggage handlers caused them to spend time looking for where to park, therefore showing up late for work, thereby delaying the handling of checked baggage.
2) Lack of security staff to even let the baggage handlers into the airport.
3) A coding error that prevented from baggage handlers from logging onto the baggage handling computer system.
4) Lack of training for the baggage handlers which caused confusion of where to pick up bags and how to take them to the planes.
5) Then...a breakdown of the transit system that carries people from terminal 5 to the satellite terminal 5B.

Is this deja vu all over again? Anyone remember Denver International Airport's "state of the art" automated baggage system that was finally scrapped last year after $193 million?

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4580090/detail.html

In the Evening Standard of March 28th, we find some interesting information:

1) The new automated baggage system which has 10 miles of conveyor belts, 140 computers, designed to process 12,000 bags per hour had never been tested in a live terminal. That would be quite a load test, but still...there were many things both manual and automated that failed that such a test might have found.

2) Small delays in a conveyor system can have a huge impact. Remember the old "I Love Lucy" episode where the chocolates just kept on coming?

3) People played a huge role, although not their fault. Lack of parking, security and training amounted to "no hands on board."

4) There apparently was another computer error that failed on being able to "stack and shelve" baggage that needs to be held for several hours for longer layovers. This required human intervention to correct (not the code, but getting the bags to the right places).

5) There was training...just not enough. The baggage handlers got 5 days of training.

6) There were practice runs since September, but problems apparently were seen as late as last week.

7) Other problems: broken down walkways and elevators and airport monitors not working

8) The clock is ticking. More flights scheduled to move into T5 on April 30.

As one person commented, "I don't think there was one person here who knew what was going on."

The situation got so bad that British Airways suspended baggage check in at the worst peak.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I certainly wish them all the best success!

By the way, I'll mention one of my favorite services: www.pressdisplay.com. For $10 a month you can read up to 30 issues of papers from around the world, just like you see them in paper form.

Stay tuned!

Census Project Going South

Those that have been reading this blog know that I'm big on two things: 1) Not calling major problems "glitches" and 2) Understanding and overcoming the human-computer interface concerns.

Well, this is a story that blends both of these. I was reading our local paper this week and came across an interesting article, "Census glitches may cost billions". " So, I thought "Hmmm. This looks interesting. That's a pretty expensive glitch! What's up with that?"

The skinny is that it looks like the 2010 census project is in trouble. The government figured that the manual method was just too old fashioned for 2010, so they (the census bureau) decided to fund a $596 million project to use handheld computers. (The project cost is now at $647 million.) Now, problems are emerging that will likely add another 2 billion dollars to the original tally of 11 billion dollars for the 2010 census. This works out to about $43 for every man, woman and child in the USA, using the current estimated U.S. population of 303,729,132 at http://www.census.gov/.

At risk is both the accuracy and feasibility of conducting the assessment. (Think "voting machines" and you get the idea.) The problems are so serious that census officials are considering (gasp) pencil and paper!

Further information obtained from congressional testimony reveals that the census bureau was "unprepared to manage a $600 million contract for the handheld computers that will be vital."

Unprepared?? I realize I'm on the outside barely looking in, but good grief, why embark on the project if you don't have the ability to run it? Of course, knowing how the government procurement process works, I'm sure someone was told the project would be no problem at all.

Project management may sound boring, but good PMs know how to bring a project in on time, within budget and at the agreed upon scope. This knowledge is not kept in tightly locked vaults, but is openly available for anyone who wishes to learn. The problem is, the PMs who really need to learn project managent, don't think they need it!

Most projects like this, however, have lots of blame to go around. Things like poorly defined requirements and contracts, lack of communication, difficult project sponsors, expectations that are too high, technical solutions for non-technical problems, etc.

The problems boil down to:

1) The handheld computers are too complex for some temporary workers.
2) The original programming wasn't efficient enough to transfer the high volumes of data generated.

I believe communication is the underpinning of all IT. Interestingly enough, census director Steven Murdock admitted that"communication problems" between census officials and the contractor (Harris Corp) have caused "serious issues."

This is why I'm a big fan of pilot projects. This is a huge scope of implementation. It's good to try things in the small world before ramping up to the big world. Sure, technology changes a lot in 10 years, but at least you have a lot of time to phase in a technology. Plus, you can pull the plug at $1 million instead of $600 million.

So, don't be surprised if you get a paper form to fill out in 2010, or see census workers using "Plan B" - pencils and paper. The sad thing is, it will most likely be a $2 billion "lesson learned" with our money that could be used for more important things. (Unfortunately, there are so many project failures that I doubt the lessons will ever be learned!)

I hope I'm wrong and they can get it sorted out - correctly, that is! Census bureau - We're counting on you! (Sorry about that.)

What project management or testing lessons do you see in this story?

Welcome to Oklahoma Where Your SSN is Public Information

Big rant ahead. Today's news in Oklahoma is that after 9 months of redacting what would normally be considered private information - You know, stuff like social security numbers, dates of birth, everything you need to commit identity theft - now it's deemed OK to have it our there after all.

Initially, the news that this information was on the web from the Oklahoma County Clerk's office caused quite a stir. Then, it was learned that the information has been there for quite some time and that contractors have been working for 9 months to obscure it from public view.

Then, here comes the judges. Today, the Oklahoma Supreme Court rescinded an earlier order issued on March 11 that restricted access to court records containing private information.

The press here threw a fit because that's a good place to dig for news.

According to the court:

"The Supreme Court of Oklahoma is very aware of privacy and identity theft concerns of individuals related to personal data that may appear on the Court's Web site. We are cognizant that many businesses and individuals rely on the information court clerks have placed on our Web site. Personal privacy balanced with reliable public information is critical for every free society.

"Due to the very important issues for all concerned, the Supreme Court is hereby withdrawing its Privacy and Public Access order... handed down March 11, 2008, to give the issue further study and consideration." Free-speech advocates praised the court's decision to reverse course.

“We're happy that they withdrew the order,” said Mark Thomas, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Press Association. “A broad, sweeping closure of massive public records is not the answer to identity theft problems.”

He should have followed that with, "Go subscribe to Lifelock. You'll need it if you live in Oklahoma."

So now the whole issue will be revisited who knows when, which will give crooks around the globe all the time they need to get the information that's out there.

A spokesperson from Hackers United to Rip You Off said "We agree that private information should be made public. In fact, we work hard to make this happen on a daily basis. We applaud the Oklahoma State Supreme Court and the Oklahoma Press Association for this courageous move. Now, I've got to finish ordering my new 60" flat panel television with my new credit card from Best Buy I got today."

Okay, that's a fictitious quote for those of you might not get my sarcasm.

What I don't get is why a simple distinction can't be made between sensitive information (SSN, Date of Birth, etc) and public information. I would also like to point out that:

1) Over 30 states protect such information, and
2) Private companies (like TJX) get fined and prosecuted for losing this kind of information

Man...

Members vs. Non-members

I saw an interesting factoid in USA Today on March 6, taken from a survey of 1,200 working adults 18 and older about the value of membership in business associations.

First, the median income of members was $77,397 vs. $52,585 for people who were not members of any business association.

Second, 74% of people who said they are members of an association said they are satisfied with their job, as compared to 50% for non-members. I think this may be the most interesting finding.

Why would this be? My take is that when you are a member of an association of peers, you feel more connected and you feel you are taking skills and ideas back to your job you can use. This adds value to your career and affects your overall outlook on your job.

Certainly, you can hear people at association meetings complain about their jobs. In fact, one of the big reasons for belonging is that you can find a new job easier.

As an example of the value of associations, in my last posting I discussed the presentation at the meeting last week of the Red Earth QA SIG here in Oklahoma City. We had a good sized group there and people had a great time visiting with each other, and we learned about starting a testing center of excellence - plus some great sandwiches from Jason's Deli.

Attention managers!! If you want free or inexpensive training, check out your local QA chapter. If you don't have one, think about starting one. That's what we did in OKC over a year ago. It's not always easy, but it's not impossible, either.

I'm toying with the idea of starting an online software QA and Testing community (at "at-large" group) with a teleconference meeting monthly for people who live in places where there isn't enough interest to get a small group together. Post a comment or e-mail me if you are interested.

Finally, I'll just say that my very first association membership at the Kansas City QA Association (KCQAA) was where I learned a lot about software QA and testing, but it was also where I connected with many other people and associations (QAI, Bill Perry, Jim Brunk and many others.) I would not be where I am today had I not took two hours a month out of my evenings and attended KCQAA meetings. I'm a believer!

Establishing a Testing Center of Excellence

Today we had a good presentation at the Oklahoma City Red Earth QA SIG. Carey Schwaber of Forrester Research discussed the value and approaches for establishing a Software Testing Center of Excellence (COE). Thanks to Carey, as well as David Vance of Forrester, who facilitated the presentation.

I enjoyed the presentation because the Testing COE is an effective way to deal with opposite poles of how software testing is organized.

There has been a debate in the software testing community for many years now (dating back to the early 90's) about which is better - independent, centralized testing or decentralized, distributed testing. Really, there are pros and cons to each approach.

In my book, Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing, two of the challenges are strongly rooted in centralized testing groups. One challenge is "Testing What's Thrown Over the Wall". Another challenge is the "Lose/Lose Situation", where testers are seen as solely responsible for high quality. On one hand, testers are paid to find defects. However, if they find too many defects, then they are the problem.

In both of these challenges, the isolated nature of the test team often contributes to the problem. It is important to understand that the challenges can be overcome, but there's a gravity that keeps pulling toward the problems.

Then there's the other ditch I often see in performing test assessments. That is, there's a lot of testing activities being performed throughout the organization, but they typically aren't co-ordinated very well. In fact, it's common in this situation for the activities to be in conflict with each other. The value for the investment in testing is reduced to a very low level. I often say that "there's a lot of stuff laying on the floor", meaning that the testing "process" (and I use that term lightly) is in pieces and in ineffective.

The great thing about a testing COE is that it can be a balance between these opposite poles. A Testing COE, as I often define it is "a facilitation team that supports the efforts of software testing across the orgination and promotes effective software testing approaches for all projects."


The big takeaway for me from Carey's presentation was how the scope of the testing COE can span four levels, from establishing the guidelines and standards for testing through the fourth level, which actually performs testing except for developer testing. I think it's a good idea to have a growth path for a testing COE.

By the way, the four levels of COE scope presented by Carey are:

1) establishing the guidelines and standards for testing
2) level 1 activites, and also provides a common infrastructure for testing (such as test environments, test data, test tools, documentation templates, etc.)
3) level 1 and 2, plus performs independent verification and validation to supplement the testing performed by the project teams
4) levels 1, 2 and 3, plus performing all testing except for developer testing (such as unit testing)

Just like a true QA team (one that manages quality - not a test team), a testing COE can be marginalized because of the perception that it doesn't contribute materially to projects. Although the support role of QA is hugely important, when push comes to shove, people choose testing over QA because testers find defects which can be reported and fixed.

So, a testing COE needs to add tangible value by actively engaging in projects.

Establishing a testing COE requires high-level management leadership and investment. It also requires organizational buy-in so that people will actually accept the leadership of the testing COE.

If you are feeling the pain of the extremes in software test organization, you may want to consider proposing and establishing a testing COE. If you need help in doing that, call or e-mail me!

On a personal note, today is my grandson's fourth birthday. Braeden Scott Rice was brought into this wild and crazy world 4 years ago today and our lives have never been the same. Happy birthday, Braeden!

Now, What Time is My Flight?

Image this. You're on the run at DFW airport (typically running between terminals) and you need to find out the status of your connecting flight. You look at the monitor and see this.

Fortunately, my flight to Oklahoma City scrolled up one line, so I could see the actual flight time!

By the way, notice how many flights were late that evening!

Of course, I'm a software tester, so I'm very used to seeing error messages, confirmation messages, etc. - even while making a presentation!

But I wonder what the people think who (like my mother, bless her heart) calls me to ask, "What does this mean?" I can just image someone screaming at the monitor "No!, Don't abort the script!"

Now I'm not bashing American Airlines or the good people who work at DFW. I just think it's interesting to see when the error messages pop up in major places (Times Square, etc.).

By the way, here is the enlarged picture of the message:

On a somewhat-related topic, back on January 25th, I posted an observation about why there's one guy working at the postal counter and another guy working the "automated postal center".

Well, last week I found out why. After standing behind a fellow for 10 minutes while he tried to mail a package, it became apparent that some people need training to use these things. It's not confusing or hard for me to use, but as this fellow apologized "Sorry, this is my first time using this." I offered my help, but he was still struggling. In this case, that other postal worker acting as a tutor would have been very helpful.

I don't know what all this means, but I know that:

1) Usability is subjective

2) Usability issues become fewer with more experience and/or training

3) Coaching can give a false impression that people can use software easier than they actually can use it.

and...

4) Perhaps this is a long societal learning curve. As people get better using technology, maybe they won't struggle quite so much. However, as we software people keep pushing the envelope, the learning curve will keep moving.

As long as the confusion is at the post office or grocery store, not much can be harmed. However, think about the new technology being introduced into automobiles. That's scary!

Your thoughts?

Randy

In the March Newsletter

The March newsletter is out. Yea!! If you are not on my list, then you can get on the list at:

http://www.riceconsulting.com/newsletter.htm

If you just want to read the March issue, you can read it here:

http://www.riceconsulting.com/newsletter_march_2008.html

The feature article is about understanding and assessing stakeholder risk tolerance on a project. This is an interesting and important topic that I haven't seen addressed before.

I also review an SOA book called "SOA Approach to Integration".

By the way...if you live in Chicago, close to Chicago, or need a good excuse to visit Chicago...I am coming back to Chicago this spring to present two really valuable workshops:

Agile and Exploratory Testing (April 8 - 9, 2008)

Process Improvement Using Root Cause Analysis (April 10, 2008)

Register three or more people and get a 10% discount. To see the complete brochure, click here: http://www.riceconsulting.com/chicago-april-2008.html

That's it for today!

Randy

Learning the Ropes

On Saturday I participated in a ropes course with other members of the leadership at the South Campus of LifeChurch (www.lifechurch.tv). It was a great time and I hadn't done one of those courses for about 10 years.

I think my best lesson learned was on the island exercise. For those of you unfamiliar with that exercise, there are three wooden platforms (islands) - two of them about 3x3 feet and one about 2x2 feet. There are also three wooden planks of different sizes - long (about 8 feet), medium (about 6 feet) and short (about 3 feet). The goal is to get the entire team from one big island to the last big island without either boards or people touching the ground.

If a board touches the ground, you lose it. If a person touches the ground, they get a "disease". Our leader, Stephan, was the first to succumb to a disease. His disease was that everything he said had to be the opposite of what he really meant. So, if he thought we should use the long board, he would say, "Don't use the long board."

After over 30 minutes, we still did not successfully complete the event, but we did learn some good lessons about managing resources.

The thing I could really relate to is that as a consultant, I am used to people only following half of what I recommend (or less). It's funny. Companies pay me significant money to help them improve software testing processes, ask me how to fix them, then sometimes do just the opposite of what I recommend. Sadly, many times their efforts fail.

Never mind that I have seen many approaches succeed and fail in other companies. Some people just have an ego that says "We're too different here."

Sorry, ranting over.

The thing that I took away was that when we have to filter someone's language (negative to positive, one language to another), it takes time and concentration to get it right. It also shows how important good communication is when working on a problem. Things like speaking the same language, understanding the same thing.

The final thing I'll say was that jumping four feet across a gap at ground level is no big deal. At 30 feet above the ground, even with a line tied on, my heart beat a little faster. But then, I felt the joy of facing a fear and doing it anyway.

Face your fears today!

Randy

SOA Test Training in Tampa

Just got back in from Tampa, FL where I conducted a private workshop there on SOA Testing. (BTW, thanks for those of you who were in the class for making it a good one!) It's quite a temperature change from the 70's to the 30's coming back home.

It is an interesting challenge to be both learning and teaching. Although I have been working with a variety of companies in SOA testing, some as early as 1999, even those companies are still learning. It's like many people (including myself) are on "the bleeding edge" of this topic. We're still learning as we go. I hope to be sharing many more lessons learned in SOA testing soon on this blog. I would also like to hear more of your experiences.

By the way, here is an interesting quote (not about SOA, but about learning while doing):

"You must learn in real time and in action. You cannot afford to wait until everything is perfect to go out and do what you want to do. If you wait for perfection to go out into the world and do big things, you're never going to get there - or anywhere else for that matter. Many people hold themselves back because they think they have to know everything about how to do something before they actually do it. This is not true. You can and should learn while doing."
Michael Port

If you are into testing SOA, tell others about my blog so we can all get into the discussion.

One big lesson I have learned in SOA testing is that when you go to the conferences, read the articles, etc., many of the approaches are oriented toward a particular vendor's toolset and/or methodology. While the tools are great in providing leverage in SOA testing, vendor stuff happens (like being sold, etc.), which can place your entire testing effort in limbo. Plus, not everyone has the deep pockets for the tools. At least there are open source tools like soapUI that can help.

And it's not only because of tools there may be a skewing of information. It may be the variety of opinions from many people as to what works and what doesn't. These opinions are shaped by many things - the business itself, technologies, people, etc. I'm not saying to disregard anything, just test it for yourself.

It would be much like someone doing a Google search on "software testing" and trying to build a test approach just from the wide variety of opinions and techniques. Take it from a guy who has been around for awhile in software testing that you still need to try, prove and adapt your own testing approaches.

When trying to make it up the learning curve on SOA testing, keep in mind that everyone is learning. As validation, just look at articles written 3 years ago on SOA and compare them to what is being written today. The approaches are maturing. What was important then may not be so important today.

One of the things I learned in teaching the class was a great tool/service called generatedata.com. This is a really cool web-based script that generates test data and lets you export it in a variety of formats, even in SQL commands. I plan to add this to my list of cheap and free test tools and also add a video tutorial soon. Thanks to Ronan Madjar for finding that one and calling it to my attention!

I look forward to continually improving and extending this course to bridge the gap between SOA development and testing. With your help, we can do it!

The Loss of Two Quality Leaders

I just want to post my comments on the loss of two people that have impacted my journey of understanding what software quality is all about.

The first person I'll mention is Rodger Drabick, the author of "Best Practices for the Formal Software Testing Process."

I had the pleasure of working with Rodger and learning from his vast knowledge in software quality. When I went to my first QAI software testing conference in 1989, Rodger had been speaking about software testing and QA for many years. After hearing Rodger speak, I truly realized how much I didn't know about software quality! I have always looked up to him as one of the people of which we stand on their shoulders to practice software testing and QA today. I will remember him as one of the foundational people in my career. I will miss him!

Rodger is survived by his wife, Karen, his mother, two daughters, three grandchildren, and his four siblings. An obituary is posted here: http://www.mountvernonnews.com/notices/12/11/03.html

The family suggests memorial contributions be made to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, 120 Wall St., 19th Floor, New York, NY 10005: https://www.jdrf.org/index.cfm

The other person was Dr. Joseph Juran, who passed away last week from natural causes at age 103. I didn't know Dr. Juran personally, but he also shaped my view of quality through his writings, and impacted the worldwide quality movement for many, many years. Dr. Deming quoted Juran often!

I was very inspired as I read the tribute to Dr. Juran's at http://www.juran.com/. At age 103, he was still making a contribution, working on another book and caring for his wife of 81 years, Sadie.

As quoted in the press release, "In 1937, Dr. Juran coined the Pareto Principle, which millions of managers rely on to help separate the “vital few” from the “useful many” in their activities. He also wrote the first standard reference work on quality management, the Quality Control Handbook, first published in 1951 and now moving into its sixth edition."

These men both ran the race well and they will be missed by many.

What is a Test Case?

I've been training testers for 18 years by now. The thing I've dealt with, struggled with, whatever...is that everyone seems to have their own interpretation of what a test case is.

I guess this is on my mind today because I had to sort through it all again in a class. Don't get me wrong - I don't mind the exercise, but it makes me wonder about where we are in the testing profession when there isn't even anything close to a common definition of a test case.

Sure, there's IEEE Standard 829, but even that definition can be taken many different ways and does not prescribe a format (not that I think it should dictate a format).

So, here's my point. Don't get hung up on the format you use, just make sure you understand why you are using it and that it meets your needs.

I use the format I do because I feel it has some distinct advantages both in manual and in automated testing. However, I'm cool with the fact many people will take one of my classes and still create test documentation in their own ways. Hey, whatever works for you is fine with me. I do think, though, that having a common set of test terminology has tremendous value for a test project and organization.

(By the way, I take the view that test cases are small, distinct tests that can be specified as inputs, predicted results, and a set of execution for each item to be tested.)

However, I would suggest that you take a look at how other testers in other organizations define test cases, why they use the definition and format they use, and if it might be helpful to consider adopting a different approach. Of course, if it ain't broke you don't need to fix something just to be fixing it.

Will we ever have a unified view of test cases as a professsion? I doubt it. Don't even get me started on test scripts, test plans, test scenarios, QA, QC...

What do you think?

Till next time...

What's Wrong With This Picture?

OK, I don't actually have a picture here, so I'll explain.

The last two or three times I've been at my local post office, I've noticed a friendly gentleman standing by the "Automated Postal Center" (APC) assisting people using it. Meanwhile, at the main counter, there are four windows, one attendant and a line winding out the door. (Personally, I only try to get counter service at the post office at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday because everything thinks they close at 12:00, but they are actually open until 12:30!)

Ideally, the APC would help reduce the load of the long line. However, it takes some people longer to use the machine than it does to get help at the counter. Then there was the day when a local business was at the APC shipping about 40 boxes!

I've used the APC and I can't really fault the machine or the software. However, I do think the postal rules have become more complex, which leads to people taking longer to read and interpret the rules.

Now, back to my original thought and a question. Does an automated assistant really help when it must be accompanied by a human assistant?

Maybe it's just a matter of cultural conditioning, but good grief, we've had these things for years now. Whether it's at the post office or grocery store, it takes a live human being on a regular basis to help people use the technology.

All of this makes me think about software usability. I'm sure in these automated service machines there has been due attention paid to usability. Yet, people still struggle. I can think of two notable exceptions: ATMs and airline check in kiosks.

Do you have similar observations, or is it just me?

Oh, and by the way, could we PLEASE get more people at the Post Office counter?

Price vs. Value

Thanks for the comments on my most recent article, TQM is Not Just Dead, It's in an Unmarked Grave. I especially liked the additional tag added by my friend Jim Anderson in Florida, who added, "and the unmarked grave is surrounded by armed guards to ensure nothing miraculous occurs."  I love it. If you have a similar comment, please let me know.  By the way, I plan on writing some book reviews and other articles to keep the thoughts on processes and systems alive. It's not about documentation - it's about profits and effectiveness!

On a different note, I was in a store yesterday with my wife and grandson just to pick up a few small Christmas wrapping items. They had some action figures for $1, and my grandson really wanted one, so I thought, "OK, what the heck." and bought it for him.

Of course, I knew that for a dollar, not to expect too much. However, my 3 year old grandson was expecting more.

When the figure didn't hold the sword very well, he started getting frustrated. He also didn't understand my explanation about "you get what you pay for."

Why am I going down this trail?  It reminded me of how people think first of the price of services, but fail to consider the value (or lack of it).

For example, a prospective client may ask for a price quote for me to come in and train their people. When I provide the quote, I also convey the value of the services, such as more defects found, better information provided to management, etc. I encourage people to consider how many defects prevented or found it will take to pay for the training. I have known some companies that measure defects that have found an average defect costs in the neighborhood of $5,000 to fix in production use.

However, some people just look at price alone. They will get a variety of quotes (nothing wrong with that), but then the comparison is on price alone. They may choose the cheapest option and then ask me to match the price but still deliver the same value as with my normal pricing. I will work with people to get a "win-win", but I don't play the car dealer game to match my competitor's lowest price. I just feel that it's a no-win situation. The client doesn't win because although they might get a low price, I'm not feeling good about my end of the deal and I don't like to risk that affecting my delivery of the service.

On the other hand, when I'm making my rate I go the extra mile for my clients and the results are spectacular. I have clients who think I should be charging higher rates. How often do you hear that?

I know this seems self-serving, but I don't talk about rates very often and it's on my mind so I thought I would blog it. Setting rates is a strange art, but I believe that someone's rate should be based on the benefit delivered, not on the "going rate" or how much it takes to keep the lights on. Consultants and trainers often get a black eye because the service doesn't give the value in relation to the rate. My motivation is to deliver the value in excess of my rate. I like for people to know my thought process about rates.

Speaking of rates, sometimes people ask why I don't post them on the site. I feel that 1) the rate depends on the job and each job is unique at some point and 2) I don't like to let my competitors know. All I'll say is that I'm not cheap, but I'm good!

So, if you ask me for a rate quote and choose someone else, I'm not offended. I just want to make sure you understand that just like the $1 action figure, you get what you pay for.

Have a great day!

Randy

Lessons Learned in a Boston Snowstorm

Well, I'm trying to get home from a class (Adding Value to QA and Testing Processes) I presented in the Boston area this week. It was a great session and I really enjoy teaching people who are engaged in the topic. I was so glad to be able to actually get to the class because in Oklahoma City we were hammered last Sunday by a devastating ice storm.

There were lots of trees destroyed and 700,000+ people without power at some points. (My thanks to the folks at OG&E and the people who came in from outof state to help us! God bless you!) In fact, my flight was one of the first to take off Tuesday afternoon, as the airport had been pretty much shut down most of the weekend.

As it turned out, I was jumping out of the refrigerator into the deep freeze!

As those of you in the U.S. know by now, Boston was hammered by a snow storm on Thursday (Gee, it seems like last week already!). Here's what made it interesting.

Despite the warnings and planning, most of the state was paralyzed. In fact, the warnings may have actually contributed to the problem in a major way.

It took me 4 and one-half hours to travel about 16 miles on the highway. The highest speed I reached was 15 mph, and the average was about 4 mph. I was not alone. In fact, I fared pretty well as compared to some.

The crazy thing was that the snow wasn't that bad. Listening to the radio was a riot. People who have lived there all of their lives were ranting about "what's happened to us here?" I'll admit, as a "Okie", I was thinking that even we handle winter weather better that this. (No offense intended.)

Here's what I think happened and it applies in other situations as well. Warnings went out the day before that the snow would hit during the evening rush hour, so people should plan on leaving work early. So, as people are (including myself), we waited until it started snowing around 1:00 p.m., then left. It was snowing about 1" per hour, so it didn'y take long for it to start getting messy.

However, because EVERYONE left work early, rush hour started at 1:00 instead of 3:00 or 4:00. So, the snowplows couldn't move the snow because of all the people trying to get through the snow. What irony! You might say, the perfect storm.

As much as the weather caused a problem, so did people's response to the weather. I think we may have been better off just giving the forecast and letting people figure out for themselves when to leave work.

We see the same thing happen with software and systems. Consider the web site to buy concert tickets that only gives people two minutes to complete the transaction. Because of the heavy load seen when the tickets go on sale, it's hard to get the response time to finish in two minutes! (As you can tell...I have experience in this scenario.)

When thinking about system performance, give very careful consideration about what people may do that could actually aggrevate problems (like hitting the Enter key multiple times just to make the system go faster). That's why good system performance (and weather response) needs to be well thought-out.

While we can't control what people do, we can influence what they do.

OK, lesson learned. If all goes well, I should get home to Oklahoma City just in time for another snow event. I think I feel a "sick day" coming on.

StarWest 2007 Recap

Hi everyone!

Janet and I had a good week at StarWest last week, along with 1,300 or so of our fellow software testers. I thought I would pass along a few observations for those of you who didn't make it there.

First, many thanks to SQE for inviting me to speak again this year. And many thanks to those who attended by tutorial on Becoming an Influential Test Team Leader and the track session on Taming the Code Monolith – A Tester's Perspective. I plan to have the narrated slide show posted this week sometime.

The full-day leadership tutorial is always a joy to present because I get to meet so many people from all over the world that want to be the best at leading their team. We had over 100 people in the tutorial, which can be a challenge in terms of exercises, but those went well.

I sometimes wonder why some people do the things they do, but I also realize that you can learn a lot by just observing. Case in point – there was one lady on the very front row that from the outset of the workshop chose to read a magazine. Everyone else was engaged and appeared to be interested.

At the first exercise, she left and didn't return. The interesting thing is that the exercise involved working in small teams and everyone getting a card. Each card had a different action or indicated a role. She must have gotten the card that read “You are the Leader!” because that team started the exercise and learned they had no leader. However, someone in the team stepped up with no prompting and led. I guess I know who the real leader was!

I wasn't offended that she left and I truly hope she found a session that was more to her liking. I just could not help but note the contrast between the people who were engaged and those who just sit back and watch. That's why I give everyone a chance to participate – ask a question, share a tip, debate a point, you name it.

So, if you ever attend one of my leadership workshops be prepared. You may be called upon to lead!

By the way, we also made our own list of major testing challenges. We arrived at 30 of them! Guess what, there were none that were purely technical. Most were human in origin and a few were both human and technical.

As for keynotes, one of my favorites was Dot Graham's and Mark Fewster's (Grove Consultants, UK) keynote address on the “Five Doings of Software Testing”. It's not easy to do a duet keynote and they did it very well. On every “doing” they kept the audience engaged. The five doings are searching, checking, assessing, measuring and sampling.

Another keynote address I really liked was Lee Copeland's “The Nine Forgettings.” It was all about the things it seems we software testers have forgotten in recent years, such as lessons from the early pioneers of our field. (Only a few people could name even three out of seven of the pioneers on the slide.) It was a great session to remind us that we need to keep the foundations in mind. Lee handled an interesting group of questions toward the end on topics ranging from the future of testing to the value of test certifications.

My favorite presentation on SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) was by Brian Bryson of IBM. He used the basic Eclipse framework to build and test a simple web service. He presented some lessons learned by the teams at IBM and was just overall a very informative presentation. By the way, there was a decent sized group in the room and it seems that quite a few people are looking to learn how to test SOA. That's encouraging as I am rolling out my new SOA Testing course in two weeks!

I finally got a chance to attend Julie Gardener's (of Grove Consultants, UK) presentation on classification trees. Julie did a great job and her session brought me up to speed quickly on this technique which I plan to add to my intermediate testing course.

Speaking of the “Grovers”, they all did a great job and I appreciate them making the long trip over. They always share very valuable information in very engaging ways. Lloyd Roden presented his Top Ten Testing Myths and Illusions talk, which is always a great session to get people thinking about testing.

(Thanks to the Grove Players for inviting me to be part of their "A Christmas Carol - Testers Version". That's one of my favorites!)

One final note is on Robert Watkin's presentation on the Top Ten Signs You Need to Improve Your Testing Process. I felt a special sense of appreciation for his presentation since we both hail from Oklahoma City and I was able to give him a little advance feedback. Robert had a good sized group in his session and I liked the way he opened up the session for other people to contribute their experiences. Job well done!

I regret that I didn't see the “Testing on the Toilet” presentation by Bharat Mediratta and Antoine Picard from Google. I heard good things about it.

As I close this posting, my thoughts and prayers are with the people in California who have lost their homes and possessions in the fires which started last week. Last week was brutal weather-wise. Temps were in the high 80s+, winds were very high (clocked at over 100 mph on the mountain tops – I estimate about 60 mph at the hotel) and the smoke was everywhere. In the DFW airport on the way home I saw the interview on Larry King's show with Ken Blanchard, who lost his home in the fires. His attitude and faith are an inspiration to me. His words of wisdom were that his family was safe and that's what mattered most, He told about how his church and Christian friends had rallied around him and the other victims. That's how it should be – the Church being there for people.

Thanks for reading this long and winding post. More to come soon.

Best regards,

Randy

Making the Leap to a Mac

Last week was a very difficult week for me, technically speaking. On Monday morning, about 3 hours before leaving to conduct workshops in Chicago and Indianapolis, my Toshiba notebook would not boot. Actually, I did get it to boot after waiting about 30 minutes.

Thankfully, I managed to burn a CD of all my presentations for the week, but it was with a sense of fear and dread that I powered it down. Long story short is that Windows went bye-bye on me.

You might be thinking, just reinstall Windows, right? No, Toshiba didn't make it that easy. Their “recovery” CD is actually a reformat CD, which formats the hard drive before it reinstalls Windows.

So I found myself in downtown Chicago (with no vehicle) early Monday evening searching for a new notebook. I've had it with this Toshiba. Nothing but problems since I've had it. Even as I type this, I realize that “hey, the cursor doesn't randomly jump four or five lines above where I'm typing.” That's nice. How sad that I had grown to accept such poor quality.

First stop was Staples. At first I was excited because they were having a blow-out sale on notebooks. The bad news was that they were all blown out. The shelves were empty of computers.

Next stop was Office Max Express where they only had pens, paper clips and other office supplies for the office worker in a paper-based emergency.

Finally, I headed up the Magnificent Mile to the Apple Store. Things seemed to be leading me to this choice. I've been thinking about switching to a MacBook for sometime now and I guess this was the right time.

After explaining my situation (er, crisis) to the salesperson, she hooked me up with a sweet little 13” MacBook that is a pleasure to use. The next evening, I got the Parallels application and Windows XP, so I can now run my Windows applications that won't run on a Mac. It looks odd to see the XP desktop on a Mac (desecration, I'm sure some would say), but aside from a procedural bug in Parallels, the whole thing with XP works great. In fact, it seems to run faster than my Toshiba, which isn't much of a surprise.

Another cool thing is the 30 second boot up time. That may not last for long, but for right now it's great.

I am having to get used to the differences in usage, such as the mainly single-click and the no right click (it's ctrl and click). I'm a fast learner, though!

I've been working now for over 2 hours and the batter is still going strong. My Toshiba's battery life was down to around 8 minutes (really). I had bought an external power source just so I could work on the plane.

And then there's the coolness. I've never owned a cool computer (and I'm not talking about not overheating like my Toshiba does on occasion). No longer than 30 minutes after I had bought the MacBook, two people commented that I wouldn't regret buying it. Some expressed envy.

I really don't think I'm going to regret the switch. One week now, and things are still great. No regrets at all - only smooth computing. I'm sure I'll have to work through a few issues along the way, but for now, it's just nice to be able to work on the road with a fast, reliable, usable and , oh a cool, computer.

Losing Respect for a Mentor

No, I'm not going to name names.

I just experienced something yesterday that concerned/disturbed me and it got me thinking about the role model aspect of being a mentor.

I have many mentors. Some are personal mentors who I meet with for lunch or at least I can personally correspond with and can interact with them. Others are what I'll call "impersonal" mentors who I may never meet, but I learn much from them, their books, their tapes, etc. Examples would be John Maxwell, Zig Zigler, Jim Rohn, etc.

I'm working on a project right now that requires about 5 or 6 mentors (seriously!) and I need each and every one of them.

About a month ago I came across a guy who had some great teaching on business, personal growth, and matters related to being the best. I bought his mp3 series and have listened to it several times. I also subscribed to his e-mail list for updates.

Yesterday, I received his "rant" (That's what he called it as well) and I was OK with the rant and even though I disagreed with some of his conclusions, I fully agree with his freedom to express them.

The thing that really put me off was the prolific use of the F-word, followed by his announcement that he would be leading his weekly study group at his church.

In that moment, he went from a 10 to a 6 in my level of esteem for him.

I can understand and forgive a "slip" of the tongue, but this caused me to ask some questions:

What does this tell me about his respect for his audience?
What does this tell me about his judgment in general?
Is this being consistent?
Is this the type of person I would like to emulate?

Then I thought about some of the other people I mentioned above - would they do this? I know 100% for sure they wouldn't.

I don't expect my mentors to be perfect, but I do expect them to be good role models. I also really try not to be judgmental, yet I do need to exercise discretion. Some of my biggest mistakes have occurred because I didn't listen to my own sense of discretion.

Here's my lesson learned/reinforced - Give a mentor relationship time so that you can learn about their character as well as knowledge. You may learn that they have great knowledge, but do not exhibit the type of behavior that you want to exhibit. By the way, the behaviors can be much worse than the use of profanity!

Before you put your mentor on a pedestal, be careful. People do fall off those things! (That's what Bing Crosby told Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas, except he was talking about knights on white horses.)

I like what Steve Brown of Key Life Ministries says, "When you pick a hero, pick a dead one. That way, they can't disappoint you!"

On the flip side, as a mentor to others, it causes me to be on my guard about how I act and the example I set for others. Once again, perfection isn't the issue, but intent and judgment are critical things to model. It's painful to hear from someone that you've done something to hurt a mentoring relationship. Although I would want to know about it if it did happen, I would prefer it not happen in the first place.

Have you ever had an experience where you were "put off" by a mentor? Let me know in the comments!

Have a great weekend,

Randy

Whoda Thunk It? A Tropical Storm Hits Oklahoma!

Normally when it comes to weather events in Oklahoma, we're 1) so dry the ground is like a brick 2) so hot it seems like we can fry eggs on the sidewalk, or 3) dodging tornadoes.

So, it was surprising even to me to see people being rescued from flood waters by helicopters, boats, jet skis, etc. You may have seen this on the national news this weekend.

Well, folks, that's not normal for us. I looked online to see where the rain was heading and I saw a perfectly formed tropical depression swirling just north of Oklahoma City. There was even an "eye"!

What I was seeing were the remnants of tropical storm Erin, which made landfall in Texas and moved north, even gaining strength along the way.

Some towns got 10 inches or more of rain. At my house we got about 6 inches in less than 24 hours. There were flash flood warnings, but hey, we've been getting those quite a bit this year.

The thing that made this event even more unique and devastating (at least 6 people have died) was that the ground is so saturated, the water ran off the ground very quickly.

All this got me thinking about the local forecasts for the weekend. I think we had a 40% chance of rain going into the weekend. Even during the event, I saw no urgent evacuation warnings on TV. To be fair, much of the rain fell in the early morning hours of Sunday. Things that everyone agree on were that 1) this was a really big and unusual weather event, 2) it was largely unexpected and 3) we were totally unprepared.

By the way, there was also a tornado verified during this event!

What does this have to do with testing?

I've been giving this presentation on the Risks of Risk-based Testing lately. My premise is that even though risk-based testing is a good way to test, it is possible to miss risks for a large number of reasons. At this point, my list is at 12 reasons, but I think I have #13 ("We ain't never seen this before!")

There are some risks that we simply don't realize because we have never seen them in our context before. This weather event was an example of that in a non-software context.

In the context of software, perhaps a software application may fail in a way you have never seen before, in a place you've never seen failures before. A big part of dealing with those situation is to be able to identify them quickly and react accordingly. This applies big-time in dealing with security threats, which there is sometimes the surprise of a totally new type of attack.

As you plan your tests, keep in mind that "You don't know what you don't know" and keep an eye out for things you never seen before. As some say "Expect the unexpected." Oh, and a good set of hip waders can come in handy at times also.

Are You Competent or Extraordinary?

I'm going to keep this posting short, since I'm busy putting final touches on a workshop I'm conducting next week in Norman, OK - Software Testing for Weather Applications. I've always been a weather "enthusiast" and being in Oklahoma we get our share of wild weather for sure!

I was watching a program on CNBC the other evening in which a panel of millionaires were giving insight into their motivations for becoming rich. The thing that really stuck with me and I think applies to anyone that wants to be successful (regardless of how much money you make) is that really successful people go way beyond just being competent in what they do. They work hard to become the best. They are exceptional in what they do.

I've taught for many years that testers need to build "core competencies". I'm thinking I need to start teaching that is just the starting point. Just being able to write a test plan isn't good enough anymore. How can you show your value in other ways?

In fact, in my workshop, "Becoming an Influential Test Team Leader" (which I'll be presenting in September in Indianapolis and October at StarWest) I describe seven ways you can add value and it doesn't require any money. It does require dedication and motivation, though.

This also requires that you work on yourself. The reason I know this is because that's what I've been doing the last 20 years. What I mean is that you have to become a person of character, trust, and integrity. You will be tested!

It means reading the right books - inspiring ones, not comics, listening to the right teaching to get a solid philosophy of life.

To be extraordinary doesn't mean you won't make mistakes. The panel of millionaires also agreed that they've all made plenty of mistakes. The key is to learn from them and not to be derailed by them.

Helping people become extraordinary is what I do. That's why I train all over the world and give stuff away on the web site (www.riceconsulting.com). If I can help you, just let me know.

Enjoy the journey!

Randy

Please...No More Eight Hour Training Days!

I'm sorry to be so remiss in my postings. If you think this is bad, you should see my personal journal! I promise to do better. (I say that in my journal, too!)

When I started this blog, I promised not to use it as a platform for rants. Today I would like to suspend my rule for one day.

I've been training testers, business analysts, and other professionals for over 18 years. However, I do not consider myself to be primarily a "professional" trainer. I'm a software quality professional that has learned to be a good trainer. I guess I've succeeded because people keep asking me to come back and train more people.

I do, however, pay a lot of attention to learning methods and how people learn. That's what brings me to my point.

I got an e-mail today asking if I had a 5-day course on a certain testing topic, with each day of training being 8 hours. This alone would not have bothered me much. But a couple of months ago I responded to a Federal Government proposal that assumed 8 hours in each training day. So, it seems to be on my mind more.

I'm thinking, "Are the organizers trying to punish people?" I might could handle sitting though a one-day course for 8 hours, but two days or more and I would be less than enthusiastic.

My standard is a 6.5 hour training day, not including breaks and lunches. I give the class breaks every hour or so because the human mind can only stay on topic that long. Actually, the experts say the average attention span is more like 15 minutes before some type of different activity is needed. I think the length of the day is also important. People can only retain so much information in one day.

I know that some people might be thinking they want to get their money's worth in training, but I've learned that the greater cost in training isn't the cost of the trainer, but the cost of the people being trained and being away from work. I have found that giving people the freedom to leave a little early and tie up loose ends of the day - e-mail, voice mail, etc., is very much appreciated by the people. (Actually, one of the great benefits of e-learning is being able to learn at your own pace in little segments during the week.)

When people are having a good time, they are more relaxed and retain more information. That doesn't happen on marathon training days. I suppose one exception to this are the true "boot camps" that are really hard core. But in those at least you know what you're getting in to when you sign up.

By the way, I have taught classes that were specified to be 8 hours long, but around 4:00 (hour 7), I get no argument from anyone, including the sponsor of the class, about ending "early".

So, if you are ever in the position of specifying the times and lengths of training, please...don't make it punishment. Keep the times around 6 or 7 hours and your team (and the trainer) will really appreciate it. You'll find that the overall impact of the training will also be much greater.

Thanks for reading!

Randy

Greetings From EuroStar 2006!

I'm in Manchester, U.K. this week presenting at and attending EuroStar 2006. The key theme of the week has been "wet"!

I guess I should have expected that. I'm glad I brought an extra pair of shoes. That allowed me to have one "wet pair" and one "dry pair!" Although the weather has been a little dreary, the conference has been good.

Seriously, the theme this week for the conference has been "Building the Dream Team" and the focus has been on the human aspects of software testing. Scott Barber, one of three or four us here from the USA, gave a very good keynote talk on Wednesday on "Special Teams" in testing. His focus being performance testing, Scott did a great job in comparing how the critical functions, such as Configuration Management, Performance Testing, Security Testing, etc., are like the special teams on a football team (US version). You can win and lose games based on the performance of the kicking team, punt return team, etc. Good analogy!

I attended a session that discussed the feasibility of trying to define a Body of Knowledge for software testing. There certainly are many issues and challenges in doing that, but I could see some value, especially if it were an open contribution, such as wikipedia. More to come on that.

I also attended a great session today about testing the accessibility of software by people with disabilities. I came away with an increased awareness of the importance of this type of testing and some good ways to perform it, so look for some of those ideas to be developed into an upcoming article in my newsletter.

It's been great to see friends here again. The folks at Grove Consultants are always a joy to be around. I must find a way to keep Lloyd Roden from buying all my meals. Thanks Dot, Lloyd, Mark, Clive and Julie for your hospitality! Thanks to Graham Freeburn for being a great track host and for the use of a cell phone while here! Thanks to all the people at QualTech for 1) inviting me to speak and 2) for being great hosts as well.

It's been a challenge to find Wi-fi from my hotel, so I resort to trying various places. So, I must sign off now. I'm back to the USA tomorrow (Friday) and will post again soon.

Thanks for reading!

Randy

Losing Credibility in a Moment

I spoke last Friday (11/17/06) at QAI's Testing Conference on the topic of how to build and keep your credibility. The main idea is that if people don't find you credible, they won't believe your findings. I also made the point that it takes a long time to build credibility, but it can be lost in a moment.

Well, little did I know that very evening Michael Richards (aka "Kramer") would validate that point by going on a racial tirade that lasted a few minutes but may have destroyed his career. (The video is at TMZ.com)

Richards doesn't have credibility at stake as much as he has reputation and marketablility. Both took a pretty big hit on Friday evening at the Laugh Factory.

There is also the issue of damage by association. This was really bad timing for Jerry Seinfeld since the 7th season DVD is soon to be released. Some think that sales will take a hit. We'll have to wait and see on that one.

The thing that amazes me is how long it takes to build a career and reputation and quickly it can be damaged or lost.

Want to view and listen to the presentation on credibility? Just go to the presentations page on my web site and register as a free member.

Your Tax Dollars at Work

I'm here at QAI's testing conference where I'll present a keynote address on Friday about Credibility.

Surfing today's top stories, I came across this jewel at msnbc.com:

Pentagon money-saving travel site - doesn't

Half-billion dollar system hardly being used

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15746788/

Synopsis: "The Pentagon that gave taxpayers a $434 hammer and a $600 toilet seat cover now has a half-billion-dollar travel booking system that is bypassed by more than eight in 10 users.

Senate investigators found the Pentagon's Web-based product - despite its high price tag - fails to find the cheapest airfares, offers an incomplete list of flights and hotels and won't recognize travel categories used by the National Guard and Reserves."

My view is that this kind of thing is all too common. After all, wasn't the whole point of SEI's CMM and other work supposed to help prevent these kinds of things?

After seeing a lot of these types of projects up-close, I'm convinced that the contracting processes are beyond broken. The contract was awarded in 1998 to a company that is now part of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems. So, this has been in process for about 8 years.

Has anyone there heard of Orbitz, Travelocity, etc? I'm sure there are "reasons" why a simple solution like that would not be feasible (special government rates and all), but I bet they go back to contracting rules and regulations - the same framework that spends half a million dollars on a system that people won't use. In fact, I have asked for government rates at hotels before only to learn that the rate I got on the Internet was actually cheaper!

My friends that work for the government are also very frustrated by the way these types of projects are initiated and performed. So, my beef is not with them, it's with the system that rewards the "beltway bandits."

This is just one more example of what I often tell my students that "The best defect you can find is the system that shouldn't be built." The average cost per defect on that one is in the millions of dollars range!

Just something to remember next April 15th!