In the last few weeks, I’ve received several questions about how to assess the productivity and effectiveness of testers. I’m concerned about this, because a tester’s effectiveness doesn’t just depend on the quality of the tester’s work, it depends on the quality of the work product the tester tests (as well as the schedule
A Project Manager Described his Recent Agile Project in this Way: Agile practices helped us know where we were the whole way through the project, but we had a side benefit I hadn’t anticipated. The testers drove the project. In every other project I’ve managed, the testers were downtrodden, always complaining about the time they
In a comment on my last post, Roy asked if I could elaborate on what I mean when a candidate runs the interview. Here’s what happened to me at one interview years ago: I arrive on time for the interview, wearing a suit (hey, it was the early 80’s, that’s what we wore). The interviewer
I recommend against panel interviews. As a candidate in my session at the AYE conference said, “I love panel interviews. I get to run the interview. I only have to be “on” for a couple of hours, I get to decide what to say, and I can manipulate the interview so that it serves my
Last week at the AYE conference, Naomi Karten and I facilitated a writing workshop. We ask people to write for five minutes and then for ten minutes. We find that people who are stuck on their writing make significant progress in five or ten minutes. However, we need to set our expectations low — very
Ron, Laurent, Dale, Willem, Esther and I are all together at AYE – we’re having a blogging BOF. We discussed things that stood out for us at the AYE conference: facilitating a panel, the presentation workshop, working with Jean McLendon, how difficult electronic room keys are to keep track of… Laurent: thanks to Johanna for
I was a reference for a senior manager the other day. A lovely HR person called and asked me a bunch of generic questions about the senior manager. Unfortunately, she didn’t ask me any of the important questions. It sounded as if her reference check was a standard set of questions, usable for anyone in
I’m at the AYE conference this week, and a bunch of fellow bloggers are here: Laurent Bossavit, Esther Derby, Steve Smith, Ron Pihlgren, Willem van den Ende, Dale Emery. I hope I haven’t forgotten anyone. Laurent suggested a blogging BOF (Birds of a Feather), so if we’re not too exhausted, we’ll sit around one of
With a little common sense and some dependable metrics, you can banish the “bug bucket” and keep the dreaded rework monster under control by creating a reasonable prediction of your project’s end. A reader recently asked me, “When planning a project phase, how do you account for the bugs that you know will be created?
I’m at the STAR West conference this week. I presented a tutorial, “Becoming a Great Test Manager,” and keynoted this morning, “Managing the Management Balancing Act.” Esther and I are facilitating two dialogues sessions, so the week is full. I hope to post more late this week or over the weekend.