MoodleMoot in Oklahoma City

Today and tomorrow I'm at the Oklahoma City MoodleMoot. "What's a MoodleMoot?", you ask. Well, it's a conference for people who use the Moodle open-source learning management system (LMS) for e-Learning.

I've been a Moodle user/administrator now for over 3 years as this is the LMS we use for all of the e-learning courses at Rice Consulting Services.

Why is it called Moodle? The idea is that you learn by exploring. So, instead of a forced order of learning, you can experience a variety of topics.

So, why am I here instead of doing something billable? There are many reasons:

1) I am practicing what I preach about building personal skills.

2) This is not a software testing conference, so I get to meet all kinds of new people.

3) It's local to me. What a great opportunity!

4) I have a goal for my e-learning offerings to be the very best available in the field of software testing.This is a place I can learn new ideas to incorporate in my e-learning courses for software testing and software quality.

5) My wife likes me to get out of the house once in a awhile! :-)


A few observations from today:

• A great majority of the people here are educators from the academic community - colleges, high schools, technical schools, etc.I'm one of the minority using Moodle in the corporate world. Some have never used Moodle before and some are experienced Moodle administrators.
  
• I'm learning that I've been doing a lot of things right in the design and delivery of my e-learning courses.By the way, the average evaluation overall score is over 8 on a scale of 10 for RCS e-learning courses. (We get rave reviews from people worldwide who have found my e-learning courses to be an effective way to balance work time and training time.) My courses are designed in a modular way to start with, so when I developed the online versions, the flow was easy for students to understand and follow. In my courses, people aren't over whelmed with choices, assignments and other distractions.
  
• There is a very robust and deep community around Moodle. That helps a lot when dealing with open source software.In fact, I wish some of the commercial products I use had the level of support that Moodle does.
  
• I've picked up all kinds on cool ideas to enhance what we are currently doing with e-learning at RCS. Things, such as closed captioning for videos, building online communities, etc.
  
• There are security risks in e-learning, just like in any other application. I knew that already, but sometimes you need to see the uniqueness of the threats.

This is a very "how-to" event. There are many people with notebook computers, like myself, taking notes,trying things, googling, etc.

Now, the BIG chalenge will be to implement all the great ideas!

Have you tried e-learning for software testing? If so, what did you like or not like about it?

If you haven't done so already, drop by my e-learning site and experience a demo. (Just login as a guest.)

One Way to Show the Value of Software Testing Training

I'm in London, ON this week presenting my Agile and Exploratory Testing class. London is a cool place. Today, it was literally cool! One of the things I enjoy doing here is browsing through the used bookstores. For some reason, there are several close to each other in the downtown area.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I had a great Father's day. I visited my dad and my sons and family were with me. All was good. What a blessing.

I was having lunch with a friend and client recently. He told me an interesting story that I want to share. Last August I designed and held a special public course that about 30 people from this one organization attended. There were developers, testers, subject matter experts, plus (most importantly) their managers all in one class for two days.

My friend said that the release they were working on at that time had to go through two cycles of beta testing, each costing about $20,000. The second cycle was due to the extra rework of excessive defects.

Their most recent release had significantly higher quality, which allowed the release to be issued with only one cycle of beta testing - roughly a savings of $20,000 over the last release.

So, I asked my friend, "Do you think the training was part of that improvement." He answered, "I really do. Mainly because the developers and their manager saw the need for better unit testing and learned ways to perform it."

As you look for ways to measure the value of training in software testing, this is an example of one way to do that. Of course, there were other factors. However, I also think the training was a platform to allow the team to do a better job.

I assure you that the savings exceeded the cost of the event!

If you would like to see similar results, contact me. I would love to discuss the possibilities with you.

Catching Up

I've been back from Rome over a week now and I am still trying to catch up with things.

I didn't have a problem with the jet lag. My trick is to get as much sleep as possible going over and not sleep at all until nighttime. Then, coming home, I try to stay awake as long as possible and not sleep until my normal bed time. It worked fine this time.

I've been busy:

1) Preparing for presenting my Agile and Exploratory Testing course this week in London, ON.

2) Getting my ISTQB online course, Foundation Level Course in Software Testing, narration updated. (We were accredited officially last week!)

3) Finishing the writing for the 2nd edition of Surviving the Top Ten Challenges of Software Testing.

4) Conducting a webinar for the EuroStar conference. It was a real pleasure to be on the call with James Whittaker! I'll have the link for you this week to hear the replay.

5) Tons of misc things - e-mail, etc.

I went to my high school reunion Saturday night. I was in the class of 74 at Chickasha High School, but it was a multi-class reunion, which is a great idea (73 - 78). It was great to see many people from my past, including some of the faculty. It reminded me once again how much these teachers contributed to who I am today. I learned how to communicate and got into radio and video production because of John Foster. I learned about the art and craft of writing by being a slacker in Betty Glasscock's English class. I programmed one of my first computers in Mrs. Wallace's Math Analysis class. It was interesting that when I told people what I do today, many said they weren't surprised.

To complete the journey back in time, I also checked out the open house for the old Washita Theatre in Chickasha where I worked one summer between radio jobs. I also saw many movies there, such as Blazing Saddles, many 007 flicks and Deliverance (about 30 times when I was a doorman). Funny thing - everything looked smaller! It was cool to see it again.

By the way, this is an older picture of the theatre, before renovation.

I hope to have a series of posts this week that are more testing oriented!

Have a great week!

Randy

Greetings from Rome!

Greetings from Rome where I am preparing to teach two courses this week: Structured User Acceptance Testing and SOA Testing.

I always like to arrive 2 or 3 days in advance of training overseas just to get adjusted to the time before I start teaching. Plus, in Rome there's always a lot to see and do.

Today (Monday) is a bank holiday here so I'll be exploring around one more day. The past two days I have been walking quite a bit. My plan was to get a 48-hour ticket on one of the open busses that travel around the city. I figured that I could stay awake and yet not get too tired.

Saturday was great. I arrived Rome about 8 a.m., got into the hotel by about 10 a.m. and hopped on the bus at 2:00 p.m. The great thing about these busses is that you can hop on and hop off at key stops and you have access for 48 hours. There's also a recorded narration that is about 30 seconds behind the thing you just passed.

Sunday was not great in terms of the bus service, or lack thereof. It was a classic load issue. Too many people, too few busses. One might think that a useful strategy would be once you get a seat - keep it. However, at various stops they made everyone get off the bus. Then, to get back on the bus was nearly impossible. Unless, of course, they made everyone get off the bus. Mama mia!

So, I took a leisurely stroll from the Termini station to the Circus Maximus (complete with Roman soldiers. I'm not sure what that was all about, but I felt like I was in a time warp.). That took about an hour.

Along the way I saw all kinds of cool things, like the Colosseum and the Forum. It's warm and humid here - a lot like Oklahoma except without the tornadoes. So, I was ready for ANY ride to get me close to the hotel.

I finally got on a bus, but not on the open part. I didn't care. You might say I enjoyed as much as I could stand!

There actually is a point to this story. In teaching about test scripts, I often say they are like bus tours. You go where the bus goes, whether you want to or not. I thought about this analogy a few times the past couple of days. However, one thing that caused me to think about test scripts in a new way is what happens when you have to get back on the bus (script) and can't get back on.

That happens in testing using scripts sometimes. Unless your scripting is well constructed and organized, you may have trouble getting back to the point of getting a reliable test. In other words, it may be hard to test what you have intended to test.

And, sometimes you test so much using scripts you just want to get out and walk. That's what I did on this trip to see the Trevi Fountain. Also, that's where my trouble started, but I'm still glad I took the option to hop off the bus.

When testing software, you may also see the need to hop off the bus to explore things. That's fine as long as hopping off the script doesn't mess up other related tests. I often note the things I want to explore and come back a little later to test them.

Well, it's off for another day of exploring Rome!

StarEast - Update for Wed/Thursday

OK, so I didn't get the Wednesday post written on Wednesday. I forgot how the evenings get busy here, too.

So, here goes. I liked James Whittaker's opening keynote session on Wednesday. It was a different topic than in the brochure, but that's cool.

He made a very important point that our future will involve a lot more code than it does today - and it's going to control even more critical functions than today. Therefore, it needs to work right all the time. I thought the session had some major implications:

1) He's talking about defect-free computing (not just software, but hardware, data and everything else involved in getting correct results.). History has shown this has been an elusive, if not impossible, effort to achieve - largely due to the complexity of the code. Does that mean we should give up? By no means. But, zero defects requires some very rigorous methods and ways to build-in quality, not test it in, which was one of James' points.


2) He said testers need to be less like Lewis and Clark in terms of their test approach. OK, I buy that. Lewis and Clark were explorers. I take that to mean that exploratory testing has some limitations and we need a better way to test. It's interesting, though, that exploratory testing is a very popular test approach and has gained a notable following. Is this a blow to exploratory testing - or simply an admonition that other methods are needed? I think it's the latter, but I find the remark very, very, interesting.


3) James said that testers need more insight into the code. Black box testing is inherently inefficient because you do a lot of poking around. I agree. So, the question is how do we get the development tools to the point that they also contain great diagnostics?


4) Software should be so good that testing is no longer needed. I only wish. I doubt that will ever happen due to the human aspect of software development and usage. About 20 years ago, the folks at SEI didn't include testing in the CMM because they felt if you had a good enough process, the software should be defect-free (or close to it). That never happened and I doubt it will in the future, either. So if you are a tester I wouldn't worry about your job security, at least as a profession. By the way, 20 years ago, people were predicting that coders would not be writing code in the future. While a great deal of code is generated by tools such as Microsoft's Visual Studio, there is still a whole lot of manual coding going on!


I don't know if we'll see the digital future James portrayed in his talk, but I do agree more and more things will be software-driven and the criticality of the applications will also be higher. Think of the cars that will be driving themselves. Heck, there have been cases already where Volvos have quit at highway speeds due to software failures. Along with the cool technology comes problems that aren't so cool.


I liked his session a lot and hope it resonates as a call to testers and developers to take software quality to a higher level.


The second keynote address was by Elizabeth Hendrickson, who spoke about her experiences as a tester on an Extreme Programming team. It was a great talk as well and gave people a good perspective of what an agile tester's work day is like. She addressed issues like requirements in agile, which I thought was great.


Throughout the day, there were a wide variety of track sessions which were well attended. Not every session had a great speaker, but sometimes the content is great so you stay. Sometimes the session as a whole just doesn't do it for you, so you can move to another one.


I spoke at 3:00 on the topic "Testing Disasters and Turnarounds". Thanks to everyone one who attended. I have posted my updated slides here:

http://www.riceconsulting.com/public_pdf/testing-disasters-and-turnarounds-v2.pdf

The products and services expo was good - very well attended. However, it seems like the numbers of tool vendors was smaller this year.


To top the day off, there was a casino night with several really cool prizes, none of which I won.



Thursday



Bahrat Mediratta and Antoine Picard of Google gave an encore presentation of their keynote from StarWest called, Testing in the Toilets. It's a neat story about how a simple act of posting articles they write about testing in the one place everyone goes - the restroom. The results were interesting and it's a great story about how they changed the culture at Google in terms of test awareness.



I had a book signing and other duties today, so I only got to attend two track sessions. I thought the one by Gerard Meszaros (author of "X Unit Patterns) was very interesting on building record/playback automation into your applications. It's an interesting alternative to commercial tools and opens some doors on some creative test automation that solves many of the problems seen in traditional test automation.

Finally, I went to John Fodeh's keynote session, "Are We Ready to Ship?", which was a nice treatment of the topic of release metrics for software. I came away with a lot of good ideas.

So, that's it. I'm heading back home early in the morning, so this is my last StarEast post this trip. I felt it was a good conference. I got to see many good friends from all over the world and that always is a good thing!

StarEast 2008 - Tuesday Update

Hi from Orlando!

The weather is great and the StarEast software testing conference is going well.

So far, all I can speak to are my own sessions. However, tomorrow I'll be in other sessions and giving some reports to those not able to attend.

In my "Becoming an Influential Test Team Leader" tutorial, we had a great time. Our biggest problem was that during the experiences, we got rather loud. I thought we might get in trouble!

However, I also had people tell me they were not bored at all and totally engaged because of the experiences.

This tutorial is one of my favorite parts of Star for one simple reason. It's an opportunity to engage with test team leaders and managers who want to make a positive difference in their organizations. The great majority of the people that attend this tutorial are savvy people looking for solutions. I hope I am able to provide hope and few solution strategies.

One of the interesting things I've started doing lately is having people submit cards that contain something they have achieved recently. We recognize the person as the larger group and although it sounds a little cheezy, it's a warm experience. Unfortunately, we don't do enough of that kind of thing in the trenches back home, but I hope people carry this idea back with them.

Everyone needs recognition and it is one way to add value to your team. That's because a person that feels appreciated will rise to the occasion at other times as well.

Today I spoke on pairwise testing applied to use cases. I like combining techniques to get a synergistic effect, and this is one of those times when two great techniques make a third more powerful one. I have some new things I plan to add the next time I present this session.

I had a good group and it's always cool to explain this concept to people. I remember the first time I saw the value of pairwise. It's a cool thing. Not the only technique by any means, but a powerful one when used intelligently.

I proctor one of the ASTQB exams this afternoon, and that will be today's work.

I think the format of more tutorials, with many of them being half-day tutorials is great. It "feels" good. I think it opens up more options for people to learn in some in-depth ways.

It's also been great to catch up with good friends like Lloyd Roden and Julie Gardiner from Grove Consultants in the U.K. Friends like this make the conference circuit an enjoyable experience!

See you tomorrow!

Randy

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!