You’re brand new

“I’m new to testing – where do I start?” I get asked the above questions A LOT. It’s a very common question for those who are brand new to testing, those who are shifting from another business function and those who are returning to testing after many years away. I repeat roughly the same answers

Getting Hired – At Conferences

One of the things that I have observed from a number of testing conferences is that none of them have any sustained focus on hiring or getting hired *. There have been one or two sessions about the topic of hiring but nothing sustained. The occasional tracks that I have seen have been mostly focused

Career Paths And Testing

When you’re advancing your career in testing it’s easy to get sucked in to the lure of big titles like Test Manager, Programmer Manager etc, especially if your using some of the mainstream “career path” guidance tools. The offer of a test manager role might seem like an attractive offer compared to a “test engineer”

Communication and Testing

In yesterday’s test team meeting we did an interactive sessions around communication. Stickies, pens and a whiteboard were all we needed to have a fun session talking around communication. We started by brainstorming what communication is. Then what factors affect communication. We talked about feedback. And of course we talked about PAC – Purpose, Audience

Ha ha – told you so

Quite often I hear presentations and discussions from testers who talk about those moments when they feel it appropriate to say “Ha Ha, Told You So”. You know? Those moments when the testers advice was ignored and it all went pear shaped. Or the time a tester said the company should be testing earlier, only

What can you do with a brick?

Last week one of our team, Simon, ran a really fun session with the whole test team on our Exploratory Testing process. We started by discussing some of the thinking that we’ve identified happens when we plan exploratory testing sessions. We talked through a diagram we created a few years back, and although it’s pretty

Opposite Views

At EuroSTAR 2012 I got talking to someone who had polar opposite views to mine on Testing and Agile implementation. Despite his opposite views and the fact I could counter almost anything he said from my own experience I knew deep down inside that he knew he was right. His solution, albeit not something I

We are all on a journey

At some time or another we all lose sight of the fact that each and every single one of us is on a journey. Life is a journey. Your careers and jobs are just one part of that bigger journey.     Some people take more control of this journey than others. Some people have

Are certifications relevant?

I know many readers of my blog would suggest I’m a hater of certifications for Testers. That’s simply not true. Despite my ardent fight against them I am pragmatic enough to realise that getting a job often requires getting a certification. And putting a roof over your head often trumps principles and ideals. I also