Mike Harris' Testing and Quality Blog
I enjoy working in an organisation where we are learning from the work we do. An example of this would be using retrospectives to enable the team to learn from their work and taking this knowledge forward to help the team. Until recently I have called this approach continuous learning. It sounded right, as it …
Continue reading “Should we practice continuous learning?”
I want to improve my understanding of systems thinking as this will help my testing. My friend John Holmstrom recommended the work of Peter Senge and so I have just read “The Fifth Discipline” by Peter Senge. The book contains many useful insights about system thinking, learning and leadership. Some of the points about systems …
Continue reading “I am learning about systems thinking to help me test”
A tester’s job is to test, well that is what our job title says, however, we add value in a number of ways to features that we work on. We need to be able to communicate how we add value. Some time ago we had some new managers where I was working and I wanted …
Continue reading “How can we communicate what agile testers do?”
The Ministry of Testing Bloggers Club has asked bloggers to write a post that describes t three things that have helped them in their testing career. Many things have helped me in my testing career, and here are three of them: The Testing Community The Testing Community has helped me throughout my testing career. I …
Continue reading “Three Things That Have Helped Me in My Testing Career”
When I started as a tester I learned that test documentation, such as test plans, needed to gain approval from the Director and could be regarded as a project deliverable. I have learned that this is not helpful and that test documentation should support testing and the development. I remember that, before testing started, we …
Continue reading “I have changed my mind about…Test Plans and Test Documentation”
Engineering teams often keep metrics on their work, but are these metrics always helpful?. Metrics could be something that the manager or director has asked for or metrics something that the team has created to help the team. I have found that creating metrics on quality is something testers often do. Creating useful metrics is …
Continue reading “Are metrics always helpful? an example of a success and a failure”
There is always more testing that can be done on a feature but there are reducing returns on testing a feature over time. At some point you need to stop testing, and the question as to when to stop is sometimes a difficult call. Also, sometimes there is more than one feature to be tested. …
We all need to understand our customers and the teams we are members of. Customers need to be understood as they keep the business alive. The team(s) we are members of need to be understood so that we can work with them to improve quality. The best tool that I have found to understand customers …
Continue reading “Team Activities to Better Understand Your Customers and Team”
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