Category: Humanising work
Things are even worse…
June 10, 2010
Read MorePresstimates
January 6, 2010
Presstimate: The number you give to get a manager off your back when you’re being hassled to give an estimate; Your best guess of what estimate of effort management will accept, not how long the work will actually take.
Employee IP rights in Australia
November 19, 2009
I’ve had past conversations with others on the topic of intellectual property rights of employees in Australia, and had always been under the belief that pretty much anything I did in a creative capacity would belong to my employer. Today I was pointed to this article, which suggests that’s not really the case. Of course, […]
Test automation models, dehumanising testers and Agile dysfunctions
June 23, 2009
This tweet was forwarded to me yesterday: martinfowler: Manual scripted testing should be a human rights violation It bothered me on a few levels. Firstly, the simplicity of phrasing around manual and scripted testing. Secondly, that agile developers might view themselves as the saviour of oppressed testers everywhere, and the perpetuation of the concept of […]
Requirements and specifications: What's the difference and what's it to you?
September 16, 2008
There have been a number of threads I have followed in a few different forums recently where people have discussed requirements, what it means for requirements to be ‘good’, and what it might mean for requirements to be unambiguous. What usually follows is a long-winded back and forth, with no resolution. At the heart of […]
A first step toward saying what we mean when we say "Automated testing"
July 27, 2008
“In the universe, nothing can be said to be automatic, as nothing can be said to be without design. An imperfect parallel may be found in human inventions; springs may move springs, and wheels, indexes; but the motion and the regulation must be derived from the artist;” From Elements of Chemical Philosophy Part 1, Vol.1 […]
Software testing, art and productivity
June 10, 2008
In the Yahoo software-testing list, Shrini Kulkarni stated “…productvity as a term is “bad” for creative work like “testing” or “art”. That makes me to feel that I am a low skilled labour on a manufacturing assembly line (not that – it is a bad profession but that does not represent the kind of job […]
Planning to make use of learning – Incremental vs Iterative
January 25, 2008
During coffee with Agile-coach and all-round excellent guy Shane Clauson, in sympathy with yet another of my what’s-wrong-with-agile rants, he pointed me to this blog post from Jeff Patton: Don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it While my opinions diverge on some of what he says must be true, I […]
Rapid testing, risk catalogues and checklists – Windows testing ideas
January 17, 2008
Many moons ago, when I was a young tester, I worked on the first third party game for Microsoft (Please don’t look for it, it’s terrible). But there was some good to come out of the experience. Windows ’95 was new shiny, and fraught with danger. To help address some of this, I began collecting […]
Attention, attention…
September 10, 2007
The concept of inattentional blindness has been, if you’ll excuse the unintended pun, brought to the testing world’s attention lately by Cem Kaner and James Bach. Sajjadul Hakim has written recently on an exploratory testing experience in which he attributed failure to observe a bug to inattentional blindness. While this may have been the cause, […]