For some reason, I have a lot of friends from the UK (could be soccer, could be Microsoft – I don’t know). I hang around them enough to know not to look down when someone says “Pants”, and that “sixes and sevens” have nothing to do with math. Learning the subtleties took time, and I…
I ran into a former colleague yesterday – she mentioned that she had read several of my recent blog posts and that it seemed that I had something else to say – that I was hinting at something that I never quite said. I wasn’t aware of anything I had said (or not said), but…
I had a burst of traffic on my blog last week when 10’s of eager internet users stumbled across my little rant fest. I try to avoid traffic for traffic’s sake (past experiences tell me that I could merely comment half-heartedly on any of the sacred subjects of the testing world and generate a significant…
I’ve been working on integrating a set of code scanning tools into our build system. Test code needs to be trustworthy – when test code fails, it should indicate a product failure. More importantly, when tests pass, they better indicate that the functionality under test works. One part of increasing quality is getting rid of…
I think a true passion for learning is one of the things that makes testers great. The best testers I know are always looking for concepts or viewpoints they haven’t heard before and looking for opportunities to learn anytime they can.But it’s usually not enough to just to want to learn – you need some…
I’ve been in my new office for nearly a month, so I thought I’d share a tour. For the most part, it’s a typical Microsoft office – about 100 square feet with a window, desk, door and …stuff. Here’s what you see when you walk in the door. I have three computers. A HP Z400…
Today was my 14th (business) day on the communicator team. I’m into sort of a groove and having a good time. My job today is so drastically different than what I was doing just a few months ago that I thought I’d share a few things so everyone would know what I’m up to. I’ve…
One thing I’ve learned in my testing career is that where there are bugs, there are more bugs. Some of my colleague Nachi’s research shows that components with a high number of pre-release bugs has a corresponding share of the post-release bugs. The heuristic works well on a smaller scale too – if I find…
I’ve come to realize that my answers to life and the universe may vary from others. Sometimes I fall in love with my answers, but I’m nearly always quite open to ideas that differ from mine. In fact, I love the conflict in thought because it makes me re-think the original problem. One such example…
I’ve been talking about meetings recently at work (I’m still giddy that have far fewer meetings to attend these days). I’ve had discussions about meetings for at least a decade, and they’re all about the same.People grumble about ineffective meetings, while others grumble about too many meetings. Some grumble about who should be in the…
Yesterday, a colleague asked me where I find the time to blog, twitter, etc. This is something I get asked often, but the only answer I have is that I just make time. I put blogging, presentations, sasqag work, and other community stuff right alongside my core work on my todo list. I’m heavily driven…
My family moved into a new house about 16 months ago. There’s an office on the ground floor where I set up my pc, my music stiff and a bunch of boxes (mostly filled with books and CDs). I never quite figured out what furniture to buy for the room, but in the end, it…
I mentioned a week ago that I was giving a talk on career tips called “Ride the Gravy Train”. I gave the talk today (which had a remarkably large turnout), and think it’s a talk I’ll deliver again (with some tweaks). Without going into details, here are the tips: do the right thing try different…
Originally, I was supposed to join the Communicator team today, but a cancelled day of vacation pushed my start date up to yesterday…but there was a meeting I wanted to attend on Monday, so I’ve basically been out of building 21 (EE land) and in or near my new office since Monday afternoon. So, let…
Since announcing my pending job change, several people have asked me, “why did you choose the Office Communicator group for your next position?” The answer is also part of the internal talk I’m giving this week on career tips, so I thought I’d share it here. One of my favorite things about Microsoft is the…
As you know, I’m getting ready to change teams at Microsoft. My current manager gave me the ok to spend a bit of time during my transition ramping up on my new team. It looks like I’m not going to get much of a chance to ramp up, but I think I will be able…
I’m heading up to the Vancouver for the Olympics this weekend and hoping to catch up on some reading on the trip. I’ve built up a bit of a backlog of books I want to read or re-read and I’m going to try to make a big dent in the list during the train ride…
I give presentations to teams at Microsoft often. Some teams want a talk on a specific topic, and other teams just ask me what I want to talk about. It’s a good opportunity for me to try out different ideas and see if they have merit. I imagine only 10-20% of these talks would have…
I came across a post this weekend about different types of knowledge It’s a well written post that calls out one of my favorite topics – you don’t know what you don’t know. I think the Five Orders of Ignorance (or my tribute to the five orders here) are brilliant, and the author nails…
I’m a fan of The Pragmatic Programmer, and often use the parable of boiled frogs (which I first read in that book) when talking about organizational change. The concept is simple enough – rather than put the frogs (people) in boiling water (changing everything at once), put the frogs (people) in cool water; then slowly…