I mentioned this at TestBash a few weeks ago (and on a yet-unreleased ABTesting podcast) – and probably on twitter too, but my third “secret” project in a row at Microsoft (following Xbox One and the science project to make Android apps run on Windows Phone) was finally announced to the world on November 2nd….
Short story is that TestBash may be my new favorite testing conference. Great venue (no, fantastic venue), well-organized, and excellent variety and diversity across the different presentations. I was reflecting while walking the streets of Philadelphia this morning and realized that almost every talk was experiential – filled with stories of problem solving and discovery. For those who…
The fine folks at the Ministry of Testing keep promoting my blog posts, so the least I can do is give them a link and a shout out. I’m looking forward to talking about “Testing without Testers” at Test Bash Philadelphia (preview here) and about my role on the team. This morning, I passively listened…
It’s been a heck of a year. I joined a new team at MS fourteen months ago, and it’s been the busiest fourteen months of my career. To be fair, I worked more hours during my stint in Xbox One, but the role I’m in now has even more responsibility (more on what that means…
Chris McMahon, who has always impressed me with his words and his wit called me out in his blog. Specifically: Apropos of my criticism of “Context Driven Approach to Automation in Testing” (I reviewed version 1.04), I ask you to join me in condemning publicly both the tone and the substance of that paper. Almost…
There’s a light at the end of the oh-my-work-is-so-crazy train, and I look forward to ranting more often both here and on twitter. But first, a few minor anniversaries to acknowledge. Monday was my 21-year anniversary at Microsoft. It’s not a nice even number like 20, but it’s weird to think that people born on…
I’m at no loss for blog material, but have been short on time (that’s not going to change, so I’ll need to tweak priorities). But…I wanted to write something a bit different from normal in case anyone else ever needs to solve this specific problem (or if anyone else knows that this problem already has…
I was thinking about this on the way to work today, and thought I’d try to spit out a quick blog post before I got side-tracked again. I’ve been very fortunate to have had success with organizational change with teams at Microsoft. Whether it’s getting programmers to run integration tests before check-in, or helping a…
I decided that in the rare occurrences where I post non-software articles, that I’d use a blog on Medium and post my attempts at story-telling along with the rest of the world. My first post is here.
I have an after-work event tonight, and rather than leave my car in the garage overnight, I ran to work. Since I’ve moved to downtown Bellevue, I’ve done this a few times – and given that I’m running another half-marathon in 10 days, it was a great opportunity for a long training run before I…
It’s early January, but I think I’ve already read at least a half dozen web articles on how testers need to be creative and use their brains, etc.. The articles are exactly on point in some sense, but most give me the feeling that the authors think that software testing is (one of) the only…
I had a twitter conversation this week about roles this week. I’ll recap it – and expand on my views; but first I’ll tell a story. Very early on in the Windows 98 project, I was performing some exploratory testing on the explorer shell and found an interesting (and slightly weird bug). At the end…
As I approach the half-century mark of existence, I’ve been reflecting on how I’ve ended up where I am…so excuse me while I ramble out loud. Seriously, how did a music major end up as a high level software engineer at a company like Microsoft? I have interviewed hundreds of people for Microsoft, who, on…
A lot of people want to see changes happen. Some of those want to make change happen. Whether it’s introducing a new tool to a software team, changing a process, or shifting a culture, many people have tried to make changes happen. And many of those have failed. I’ve known “Jeff” for nearly 20 years….
I posted slides from my Eurostar Mobile Deep Dive presentation on slideshare. I had a great time, and hope you find them useful. Let me know if you have questions.
Last night I dreamt about the worst presentation ever. Sometimes I was presenting, sometimes I was watching, but it was frighteningly bad. Fortunately, my keynote this morning went well – and now that it has, I’ll share what happened (including some conscious editing to make sure I cover all of the bases). It begins… Moderator:…
I’ve watched a lot of teams try to be more agile or more adaptive, or just move to faster shipping cadence. It has taken me a while, but I think I see a pattern, and the hard stuff boils down to two things. Scope and Silos Scope Scope, in this context, is everything that goes…
This post is completely inspired by Trish Khoo’s post on Preparing for Your Presentation. I was going to add a comment, but it got too long, so it’s becoming a blog post. Go ahead and read that first – it covers way more than I’m covering here, and it’s a well written article. Trish suggests…
I gave a talk at a meetup hosted by GoDaddy last Friday. I had a good time, and the comments afterwards were positive. More than one of the folks I talked with after the event asked why I don’t blog anymore. I have been a bit sparse in my blogging over the last few years,…
I feel like today’s a good day to share a few stories about my first few months at Microsoft, and the (very) small part I played in shipping Windows 95. My start at Microsoft is a story on its own, and probably worth recapping here in an abbreviated form. I started at Microsoft in January…