Posted inSoftware development Testing

The Jurassic Park Problem & Software Development (Part 3)

How you can (should?) use them to guide your work In the previous parts one and two we covered the basics of what possible, ethical and legal looks like in software development and looked at 4 challenging scenarios. To finish up, in this part we will try to wrap everything up by giving some suggestions for how you can work on getting “is it legal to build this” and “should we build this” to be…
Posted inTesting

Visual Models: cheat code for your memory

Once upon a time there was a test lead who didn’t believe in agile. She used to nod politely when teams talked about reducing waste, sprints and small deliveries. Then she turned around and did it The Right Way. Which, to her defense, worked. Her projects were typically on time, upheld a great quality standard and the launches usually were calm and fearless affairs.  Then one day, she hit the wall. A “simple” migration project…
Posted inTesting

The power of three

Background Yesterday, Christoffer Bennet invited me to a round table discussion on the topic of "How to get the best out of Engineers while they work remotely". It was a lovely discussion (I'll add the link to the recording once it is up) but what does it have to do with this blog post, you might ask. Well. In one question, around handling conflicts, I mentioned one of my favourite "exercises" when it comes to…
Posted inPair-blog Testing

Onboarding remotely during a pandemic – Pair-blog #4

Background In case you haven't read about my pair-blogging idea before, a short summary from the first post: A while back I asked on Twitter for people who would be up for pair-blogging. The idea was that we agree on a topic and a date and then we each write a post about that topic. We publish on the same date and promote each other’s posts.  Next up I get to pair with Lisa Crispin…
Posted inTesting

”Testers don’t break software!”

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Introduction I believe most of us have heard the statement "Testers don't break software, we break the illusion of it working". For a while, something has bothered me with that statement and I felt a need to get my thoughts onto "paper" to sort them out. I understand why the view of "testers break software" is hurtful and why people feel strongly about this. A lot of testers have gotten heat from…
Posted inTesting

Testing is like…

Background Again, Twitter comes to my "what should I write about next?"-rescue! Heather Reid shared a challenge from the Bloggers Club on the Ministry of Testing. The challenge is to write a blog post about the topic “Testing is like…” Testing is like... Photo by David Traña on Unsplash Testing is like fireworks.Lighting up my brain with ideas neverending. Challenging my thinking with endless possibilities. Testing is like a mosquito.An annoying buzzing keeping me awake at night. Always present, never close enough…
Posted inPair-blog Software development Testing

Reacting to change – Pair-blogg #2

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash Background In case you haven't read about my pair-bloging idea before, a short summary from the first post: A while back I asked on Twitter for people who would be up for pair-blogging. The idea was that we agree on a topic and a date and then we each write a post about that topic. We publish on the same date and promote each other’s posts.  I approached Arlene Andrews to pair…
Posted inLeadership Pair-blog Testing

Testing skills I use in management – pair-blog # 1

Background A while back I asked on Twitter for people who would be up for pair-blogging. The idea was that we agree on a topic and a date and then we each write a post about that topic. We publish on the same date and promote each other’s posts.  My reason behind this was both to get to see different views on things, learn some writing skills to improve my own writing and perhaps above…
Posted inTesting

Listen beyond the pass and fail – a story of looking at the bigger picture

Note: This was originally published as a guest blog post for DevTestOps Community. I started a new job a few years back, with one of my responsibilities stated as “Move the existing automation to the next level”. The company already had a lot of automated tests in place and had worked really hard on making automation a part of the normal team delivery. Great! I´ve worked with a lot of problematic automation and I know…
Posted inTesting

How to deal with criticism with being a tester

A while back, I had the pleasure of doing an online interview with Viv Richards and Graham Ellis around my contribution to the book "Around the world with 80 testers". My contribution is based on a talk called "My journey from dev to tester" and it is about my experience and learnings from that career switch. It was a lovely chat, even if we got some zoom bombers, and a great opportunity to further explore…