“Thinking in Systems: Primer” is a great resource that can help you whether you are beginning, or have already started your systems thinking journey. Meadows helps us understand what a system is. “A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organised in a way that achieves something”[1]. “Once we see the relationship …
Category Archives: Testing
Quality comes first – A review of “Deming’s Road to Continual Improvement” by William W. Scherkenbach
William Sherkenbach was Corporate Director of Total Quality Planning and Statistical Methods at Ford Motors and Group Director Process Improvement at General Motors. He wrote that “both of these great companies are better because their journey included Dr. W. Edwards Deming”[1]. In this book, Sherkenbach explains “how to operationalize the Deming philosophy in business, government …
Collaborative customer-focused systems thinking – a review of Sys-Tao: Western Logic – Eastern Flow by Bob Browne
In this book, Bob Browne recounts how he drew on ideas from both the East and the West, including the philosophies of W. Edwards Deming and Eli Goldratt, to make the Great Plains Coca-Cola Bottling Company a success. In 1980, Bob Browne, with the help of a few others, acquired the Great Plains Coca-Cola Bottling …
We can learn so much from how AI got here – A review of Rebels of Reason by John Willis with Derek Lewis
Much like the aliens in the sci-fi movie Arrival, AI has now arrived. Rebels of Reason tells us how AI arrived, and in doing so, provides us with a deeper understanding of AI. “We learn how foundational ideas have been refined over time, informing the rapid technological advances of our era”[1]. AI has been developed …
Is the job market for testers over a century out of date?
Testers are building their careers in a job market that many experience as difficult. Our ancestors from the early years of the twentieth century would have recognised today’s job market. One of my relatives has researched the family tree. He found that when he researched individuals, they had different jobs each time they appeared in …
Continue reading “Is the job market for testers over a century out of date?”
Learning from winners
When we are testing it helps to be aware of the perspectives of people who work in other fields within IT. I attended an audience with the 2024 British Computer Society Lovelace and Society Medal winners. It was great to hear talks from the medal winners and to network at the event. Listening to the …
Dear Software Testing
This weekend, I saw a play that showed a manager driving out fear to lead his team to success. The play was ‘Dear England’ and dramatised Gareth Southgate’s term as manager of the England men’s soccer team. The play shows Southgate using psychology. He hired the psychologist Dr Pippa Grange to be Head of People …
Exploring Systems Thinking
Systems thinking is an important part of a tester’s skill set. I really enjoyed discussing systems thinking on the Ministry of Testing’s Testing Planet with Simon Tomes, Sarah Byng and Rachel Kibler. It was great to learn from everyone on the broadcast. Thank you, Ministry of Testing, for inviting me to talk on Testing Planet …
Thank you software testing.
I have been a software testing professional since 1998 and am now changing my employment type on LinkedIn to “Mostly retired”. I saw that Dot Graham had set her employment type to “Mostly retired”, and it feels appropriate for me, too. I have retired, mostly. Software testing has been my second career. It has been …
We need cooperation between testers and developers
Sometimes there can be competition between testers and developers. Cooperation between testers and developers is better for the company and the customer. “A system must have an aim”[1]. A company is a system and so has an aim. Testers and developers are components of the company’s system and so share the company’s aim. “The obligations …
Continue reading “We need cooperation between testers and developers”
There are advantages to using the API to tear down automated end-to-end tests
When I automate a test I create a clean starting position for each test so that the automated tests can run concurrently. “The establishment of a known-good starting position for the test before it is run, and its re-establishment at its conclusion, is vital to avoid cross-test dependencies”[1]. Re-establishing the start position of the test …
Continue reading “There are advantages to using the API to tear down automated end-to-end tests”
Testers should not be defensive – A review of “Teaching Smart People How to Learn” by Chris Argyris
Testers often make suggestions about preventing bugs and sometimes find that these suggestions are rejected. Defensive reasoning can be a cause of their suggestions being rejected. Chris Argyris explains how defensive reasoning can prevent a company from learning and then explains how a company can overcome its defensiveness. I discovered Chris Argyris’s work through the …
Should we add new features or improve the usability and discoverability of existing features?
Some years ago, there was a disagreement within the company where I was working. The Test Manager and Customer Support Manager wanted to focus on learning about customers’ problems and solving them by improving the discoverability and usability of features. In contrast, the Product Owner wanted to engage customers by creating new features. I was …
Regular expressions can help you to do more with your automated tests
“A regular expression defines a set of one or more strings of characters” [1]. Regular expressions (regex) can be used when developing automated tests, for example, by passing a regular expression as a parameter. If you have not used a regular expression before the MDN Web docs are a good place to start learning about …
Continue reading “Regular expressions can help you to do more with your automated tests”
How do testers assist organisational learning?
“Most organisations focus on the acquisition, processing of data and information….but data, information and knowledge are not all that can be learned, there is also understanding and wisdom”[1] Testers contribute to each of these types of learning. “These five types of mental content form a hierarchy of value; data have the least value, wisdom the …
Continue reading “How do testers assist organisational learning?”
TestAndAnalysis 