daily post

Developing change agents in an org transformation is crucial.

Few important things to consider when doing this:

1. Competency:
Change agents should be competent / an expert in the relevant field. This might seem obvious, you’d be surprised how many times I’ve seen this being violated

2. Drive:
– It’s not uncommon to have resentment and a very pessimistic view about the change.
– Your change agents need to be positive and energetic personalities. (BTW Most people with the right motivation can cultivate this)

3. Clarity:
– The goals and vision should be clearly ‘demonstrated’ to them, not just explained in slides.
– Living, breathing, practicing management demonstrating the change gives clarity

Any kind of transformation is not easy, but if any entity does not adapt / change, will die out eventually.

#RedefiningSoftwareQuality #QualityTransformation #Transformation

Situation for many businesses is becoming desperate

In such times, it’s very important to stay positive:

1. Try not to feed on doom and gloom news and look on the bright side
2. All of us might have things we have been putting off to do, which can be done now
3. Be compassionate to others. It’s a stressful time for all

This will end eventually and things will get back to normal.

Tough times don’t last, but tough teams do…

Avoid taking decisions which will impact you far after things go back to normal !

While teaching a Java class yesterday I realized something:

Years ago, we didn’t have a lot of platforms to help develop code quickly.

People learning to code back then had to understand fundamental concepts in detail to develop an application

As things have advanced, platforms have emerged which a lot of heavy lifting for you.

That makes writing code quick and easy, however I feel students then lack fundamental concepts

This creates challenges when they have to debug programs

Some programming concepts might not seem like important to write code, but help a lot with developing and debugging programs.

#RedefiningSoftwareQuality #Automation #Training #LearningToCode

BDD workshop is the first course in the automation training I put together,

Here are few of the important points I try to drum in:

1. BDD is NOT just cucumber. I always ask how many people know cucumber, depending I spend time on them ‘unlearning’ that first.

2. How come people end up having different understanding of what is to be implemented

3. How does the three-amigo session help bridge this gap

4. How to do example mapping and difference between rules and examples

5. A quick brief on feature slicing

6. The best way to specify something is to describe how to test it

We do a few group exercises to instill the message across the 2.5 – 3 hour workshop, these are just some of the points.

#RedefiningSoftwareQuality #BehaviorDrivenDevelopment #BDD #Testing

‘Sometimes we are the problem, and need to change ourselves’ – This should be the corner stone of every transformation

Transformation projects usually are more focused around technology and ways of working

While that’s important, the willingness to change, especially at the management layer is vital

Black death of childbed case in point, for decades doctors refused they were the cause of deaths and kept on looking for other reasons (more in linked video)

Transformation starts at the top, and results will trickle down.

Will be speaking about IT transformation at #AgileTestingDays-US in June

#RedefiningSoftwareQuality #Transformation #Leadership

Few important things I stressed on while delivering a BDD / Three Amigo session workshop today:

Cycle of BDD
1. Collaboration to clarify system behavior
2. Formulation of behavior in business terminology
3. AT THE END, Automate documented behavior – WHERE POSSIBLE!

BDD != Cucumber !!

Write stories in the format: As a if I do , I should see

Slice your stories vertically, each story should have an action and corresponding behavior

Write stories, rules & examples clearly, so someone can understand it even 6 months later

#RSQ #BDD #ThreeAmigoSession #Agile #TestAutomation

It might seem common wisdom for every software product should be able to deliver at a daily / weekly cadence,

However the Gartern’s Pace layered application strategy would beg to differ.

Some products require a lot of experimentation and rapid adaptation according to the changing surroundings.

However for other products being precise and efficient are far more important.

And that’s in a nutshell what the PACE layered strategy talks about, and divides software products in three types:
– Systems of innovation (revolutionary product)
– System of differentiation (improved product)
– Systems of records (efficient & legacy product)

#RSQ #ProductStrategy #DevOps

http://quality-spectrum.com/intro-to-pace-layered-application-strategy/

Engineers usually dislike talking about KPIs and stats, you hardly see any useful ones

Managers mostly want to talk about just stats and KPIs, and feel they are all valuable..

IMHO KPIs & stats are required to take decisions based on objective data, so they are needed

However understanding that stats don’t give you the whole story is vital

To engineers I say: better you come up with a stat, or someone with no clue of what you do will come up with one

To management I say, use KPIs & stats, but do factor in qualitative measures and listen to your engineers, not everything can fit on a spreadsheet.

#RSQ #RedefiningSoftwareQuality #KPIs #Transformation

The summary of Automation learning paths I designed over the past few months.

API Learning path – Beginner level:

> Testing fundamentals
– BDD
– Risk based testing
– Test strategy fundamentals

> Programming
– Basic Java

> Technical knowledge
– How do APIs work
– JSON & XML structures
– Swagger fundamentals

> How and why of automation
– How to do automation the right way

> Automation tools
– Rest Assured
– Basic API framework

Each course has online content or a workshop designed along with assessment material.

#RSQ #Automation #Training

If your in IT, you have to be open to learning ALL THE TIME.

Was reminded of this while developing an app in PowerApps today,

For a massive training program, was trying to figure out a more intuitive way to do registrations,

After few days of searching couldn’t find anything in-house I could use, had three options:

1) Use whatever mechanism we have even if it’s shitty, 2) wait on some one to get free and do it or 3) do it myself.

Ended up learning PowerApps and building a crude version of the app in a day

Could have easily said, we don’t have a solution, let’s just call it quits

Instead I learned something new, enjoyed it, and made others life easier to get the training

Bottom line, if your in IT, always be ready to learn and work hands on.

#QsDaily #Learning #Coding