{"id":203,"date":"2010-09-23T20:10:16","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T03:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/?p=203"},"modified":"2010-09-23T20:10:16","modified_gmt":"2010-09-24T03:10:16","slug":"trust-and-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/trust-and-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Trust and Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

I threw out a few trust-based tweets<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

\n

I’m a big fan of #trust in the workplace – hire smart people, coach & guide them, but give them plenty of freedom to do the right things<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) involve everyone in decisions. But build trust by sharing why and how you make decisions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about trust lately \u2013 specifically trust in the workplace and how much it benefits an organization. Organizational trust is a popular concept (assuming you know where to look). The Management Innovation Exchange<\/a> (I\u2019m a huge fan); there\u2019s The Management Trust<\/a>, and Management by Trust<\/a>. Stephen Covey (no \u2013 not that <\/em>Stephen Covey, his son) wrote a book on trust<\/a>, and it\u2019s in HBR frequently<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But too many leaders \u2013 no wait, they can\u2019t be leaders if they ask this way. Too many people<\/em> fail at trust. I\u2019ve probably seen fifty tweets and blogs complaining about management keeping a thumb on workers by counting test cases, bugs, and time-on-task. My simple response to these people is to just quit (or find some less dramatic way to find a new boss if possible) \u2013 life\u2019s too short to wallow in an organization without trust (Ideally, you should find a new job first, and I know that\u2019s not as easy as it sounds these days, but still\u2026).<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I work in an organization where trust is a huge<\/u> part of the way we operate. We expect people to work hard and do what they think is right. Doing the right thing \u2013 and having the freedom to explore is critical in testing (and in software engineering). I\u2019m a fan<\/em> of metrics, and think when they\u2019re used right, they are extremely valuable and help immensely in decision making (conversely, I know of people so freaked out by metrics misuse that they won\u2019t use them at all \u2013 which is nearly as stupid as using them poorly).There is so much more to software testing than functional tests \u2013 I just don\u2019t understand how there\u2019s a chance in hell for testers to do what they\u2019re supposed to do if they don\u2019t have the freedom to change course when they need to without fear of repercussion (or missing their quota). <\/p>\n

I know there are some people who actually prefer<\/em> to have very explicit instructions on what to do \u2013 they work better if they are told what to do (and when to do it). I don\u2019t fault these people \u2013 I hope they all find jobs with the managers who insist on giving explicit directions and hovering over their employees while they follow those directions. <\/p>\n

Of course, \u201ctrust\u201d doesn\u2019t mean \u201cdo whatever you want, even if it\u2019s useless\u201d \u2013 you still need to show value, and you need to be able to explain what you did and why you did it \u2013 but hopefully that\u2019s a better alternative than mindlessly running test cases all day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I threw out a few trust-based tweets this week. I’m a big fan of #trust in the workplace – hire smart people, coach & guide them, but give them plenty of freedom to do the right things You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) involve everyone in decisions. But build trust by sharing why and how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}