Top 10 Tips for Test Managers from STP Online Summit

I had the pleasure of hosting the another Online Summit, delivered by Software Test Professionals: Test Management: Bridging the Gap Between Tests and Stakeholders.  The online summit format consists of 3 sessions each for 3 consecutive days.  The sessions for this summit were:

• Invigorating Your Test Team – Anne-Marie Charrett
• Talking to Triangles – Dawn Haynes
• Mentoring Testers: Leading from the Inside Out – Brian Osman
• Getting Your Testing MBA – Catherine Powell
• Whiteboard Test Team Management – Paul Holland
• Test Management for COTS Applications – Virginia Reynolds
• Motivating and Managing Distributed Testers – Karen Johnson
• The “Testing Bubble”:  Motivating, Insulating, and Protecting Tester – Ben Yaroch
• Top Tips from the Summit – Scott Barber
• Speaker Panel – Scott Barber, Karen Johnson & Ben Yaroch

One of my duties as host was to try to summarize the most valuable nuggets of information from across all of the presentations into a "top tips" list.  This is what I came up with:

Scott's Top 10 Tips for Test Managers from:

Desperately Seeking "Performance Unit Testing" Examples

I've been talking about what I term "Performance Unit Testing" in classes and training courses for a long time. I've been teaching (more inspiring with hints toward implementation) client development teams about it for almost as long. Problem is, all I've got is stories that I can't attribute (NDAs and such) and that simply doesn't cut it when trying to make a point to someone who doesn't (or doesn't want to) get it.

So I'm looking for attributable samples, examples, stories, and/or case studies related to "Performance Unit Testing" that I can use (clearly, with attribution) in talks, training classes, maybe even blogs & articles. If you have something, please email me.

If you're not sure if you've got what I'm looking for, lemme share some desired attributes of what I'm looking for:

Agile Sprint Sanctity Valued at Over $13M?!?

During STPCon last week (which, BTW, was fabulous, but more on that in another post, 'cause I've got to get this off my chest) I was a panelist for The Hard Stuff: Questions About Agile. During the course of the discussion, someone asked a question that I heard as the following:

"... but what should I do about our sprints getting messed up when [executive] comes in and tells us to stop what we're doing and add [feature X] before the end of the following week so s/he can finalize the $13 Million deal with [new client Y, but only if the feature X is implemented by then]..."

Let's Test 2012

The first (as far as anyone I know is aware) Context-Driven conference in Europe is quickly approaching. On May 7-9, 2012 in Stockholm, Sweden, Let's Test "A European conference on context-driven testing - for testers, by testers" will take place.

This is a CAST inspired conference, meaning that it focuses on in-depth exploration of topics, includes facilitated discussion as part of every talk (i.e. speakers don't get to "run out of time" as soon as they hear that "hard question") and conferring only increases between and after sessions. It's a fabulous format! If you haven't experienced it, and you are passionate about testing, you really want to -- it will change your perspective on conferences forever.

I am proud to say that I will not only be attending Let's Test 2012, but that I am honored to be on the program with some first-run content that I'm very excited about:

A Full Day Tutorial: Context Appropriate Performance Testing, from Simple to Rocket Science
A Keynote: Testing Missions in Context From Checking to Assessment
 

Software Quality Assurance Engineer... Happiest job?!?

If you haven't seen this article, you want to read it:

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/secrets-toyour-success/happiest-jobs-america-173044519.html

About half way down it says:

The happiest job of all isn't kindergarten teacher or dentist. It's software quality assurance engineer. Professionals with this job title are typically involved in the entire software development process to ensure the quality of the final product. This can include processes such as requirements gathering and documentation, source code control, code review, change management, configuration management, release management, and the actual testing of the software, explains Matt Miller, chief technology officer at CareerBliss.

With an index score of 4.24, software quality assurance engineers said they are more than satisfied with the people they work with and the company they work for. They're also fairly content with their daily tasks and bosses.

These professionals "typically make between $85,000 and $100,000 a year in salary and are the gatekeepers for releasing high quality software products," Miller says. Organizations generally will not allow software to be released until it has been fully tested and approved by their software quality assurance group, he adds.

So I have a bunch of comments:

1. I guess I don't know what a "Software Quality Assurance Engineer" is -- or this Matt Miler guy doesn't. 
2. *If* anyone "ensures the quality of the final product" in software, it's a PM or higher.
3. I don't think I've met anyone with that title who smiled and told me how much they love their job.
4. I'm certain I've never met someone with that title that makes that much money. 
5. I think I'd rather shoot myself in the head than have those tasks... even at such a generous salary.

I could go on, but I'll stop.  I want to see these questions, & I want to know the demographics of the people surveyed, & I want to see the titles actually reported by respondents that got rolled up under "Software Quality Assurance Engineer." I'd also like to have a word or 73 with this Matt Miller dude... CTO to CTO, 'cause lets face it, we all know that testers wouldn't be caught dead bragging about how *happy* their job makes them, or how *satisfying* it is. Testers tend to love the act of testing, but not their jobs, or their bosses, or their companies -- and if this ain't referring to testers, I wanna know why these process people are apparently so happy about being forced to do the actual testing on top of their "real" job.


Feel free to share your thoughts, but this strikes me as "not *even* wrong" to a degree that I can't seem to even reverse-engineer a single measurement dysfunction that could account for all the ways in which this article strikes me as "just not right".

 
--
Scott Barber
Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
Director, Computer Measurement Group
About.me

Co-Author, Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
Author, Web Load Testing for Dummies
Contributing Author, Beautiful Testing, and How To Reduce the Cost of Testing

"If you can see it in your mind...
     you will find it in your life."