Software Testing Blog

After we re-launched our brand in May, we decided that the uTest blog needed to be more than just uTest employees talking about uTest events, uTest awards and the uTest community (see how repetitive that gets?).

Writing witty, thought-provoking content is really hard.  And we’re pretty lazy, but fortunately we know some extremely smart & funny people.  So we invented the Testing The Limits series, in which we interview leaders from the worlds of testing, software, entrepreneurship and crowdsourcing.

We’re immensely grateful to these talented, busy people, and we have much more planned for the Testing The Limits series in 2010.  But before we flip the calendar, these posts from this year are worth another look:

June: James Whittaker – Author, Professor and Testing Evangelist at Google

July: Rosie Sherry — Founder of the UK-based Software Testing Club

August: Andrew Muns — President of Software Test & Performance

September: Jack Margo — SVP of Internet Operations of Developer Shed

October: Jon Winsor — Author, Crowdsourcing Expert, and Founder of Victors & Spoils

November: Matt Heusser — Software Testing Author, Professor and Testing Manager

December: James Bach — Software Testing Author, Teacher and Speaker

We have some great guests and ideas lined up for 2010, including software execs, QA thought leaders, and famous journalists & authors.  As always, the goal of Testing The Limits will be to inform, to entertain, and above all else, to help our readers get to know these thought leaders who are worth following and listening to.

Have a suggestion for a future Testing The Limits guest?  Drop us a note or tell us in the comments section.

Today, we finish up our “Testing The Limits” interview with Matt Heusser.  Be sure to check out part 1 of this interview.  In this installation, we’ll discuss which mobile app testing, his OS of choice, and the testing blogs and sites Matt reads.

What other blogs, sites or message boards do you read to stay on the leading edge of all things testing?
MH: I’ve got a bit of a bias there, as I write a monthly column for Software Test and Performance Magazine. You can get the PDF version for free every month. I also subscribe to Better Software Magazine. For communities, I like softwaretestingclub.com and the agile-testing discussion list. For blogs, well, there’s James Bach, Cem Kaner, and Michael Bolton. Adam Goucher has been doing a lot of writing lately, including editing the new book, Beautiful Testing, which I contributed a chapter to. And I spent a fair amount of time working on my own blog, “Testing At The Edge of Chaos.”

Recently I’ve been getting to know people by working on projects with them; my friend Chris McMahon started a Google Group on Writing About Testing which I found to be a blast. Through that group (and the Miagi-Do School) I’ve met quite a few new bloggers: Markus Gaertner, Lanette Creamer, Marlena Compton, and Ajay Balamurugadas come immediately to mind.

What OS are you running right now? What’s your browser of choice? Anti-virus? Inquiring minds would like to know.
MH: Max OS X, and I have to support all of them, so I run all browsers. Anti-Virus? Dude, I told you, I use a mac, and I try to avoid the questionable websites that host the viruses. What have you been browsing lately, Mr. Johnston?  (Ed. Note: I’ll ask the questions around here.)

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In this month’s installment of “Testing The Limits”, we sit down with Matt Heusser (@mheusser) — prolific blogger for STPCollaborative, thought leader and testing extraordinaire.  We’ll discuss the state of software testing, SpeedGeeking, the role of chaos in testing software, and the lack of fistfights at STPCon 2009

uTest:  We loved the SpeedGeeking session you led at STPCon, so we’re going to flip it on you – If you had just five minutes to teach, motivate or inspire the uTest audience about software testing, what would you say?
MH: Well, I’d start by asking the audience what they are doing today – what’s the greatest point or opportunity they feel – and asking what options they see to improve. Most of the time, I hear that testing is “too slow” or “the bottleneck” or something like that.

So I suggest taking two weeks and actually measuring how the team is spending its time. Oh, not for reporting – it is very important the team stop the time tracking after two weeks and not hand individual metrics into management for evaluation. Instead, we want to use the numbers for improvement. For example, many of the people I talk to can spend 80% of their time or more in meetings, working on documentation, working on compliance activities, doing email, and so on. That only leaves 20% of the time to test! Just pushing those numbers from 80/20 to 60/40 will double the amount of time the team spends actually doing testing.

Another thing to look at is the amount of time spent trying to reproduce defects, document defects, file bug reports, “verify” fixes, and so on. We think of these activities as testing, and they can take a substantial chunk of that 20% – but they are really accidental. That’s not a testing bottleneck – it is a development bottleneck. If test can work with development to improve the quality of the software prior to code complete, that will improve the speed of the whole system. Realizing this, and having a little bit of data to “prove” it, can help the entire system improve.

So if I had five minutes, I would say start with measuring how you track your time, and ask yourself if this is the best use of your time and what can change. Sometimes, the big boss will say “no, we absolutely need you to fill out all seven pages of documentation per test run”, and you can say “ok.”  Six months from now, when someone asks why the big project is late, you can point out that the business made an explicit decision to pay the full price of defined process. You presented options and those were not accepted.

That won’t save this project — but it might save the next.  It also turns out that actually testing tends to be much more fulfilling than documentation and compliance activities. Who could have guessed?

Lots of contrasting opinions at last month’s STP Conference. While there were no fist fights (that we heard about anyway), what did you see as the most contentious issue? And where do you fall on this issue?

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Earlier this week, several members of the uTest team took in the opening reception of Software Test & Performance’s STPCon event.  We overheard some great conversations, and even jumped into the fray a few times ourselves.  It was a lively crowd and a great venue (the Hyatt Regency) right along the Charles River.  The event continues today, but even if you’re not attending you can still follow along, check out the STPCon Twitter stream here.

This event gave us a chance to reconnect with our friends from STP Collaborative, as well as sit in on sessions from top-shelf testing thinkers like James Bach, Jon Bach, Michael Bolton and Matt Heusser.  We also got to connect with about a half dozen local uTesters who took us up on our invitation to attend the reception.

We had a few people from uTest in attendance on Thursday and they gave the presenters high marks overall.  The two that I heard the most comments on, however, were from James Bach and Michael Bolton.  Bach tackled the provocative subject of “How to Fake a Test Project.”  Bolton took on the topic of “Rapid Software Testing.”  We’ll see if we can get either of their presentations and share them here. Also of great interest was Friday morning’s SpeedGeeking session with Matt Heusser, which put the speakers on the spot, giving them only five minutes to get right to their point. Talk about fighting your natural instincts!

For anyone who attended, chime in and share your most or least favorite moments from STPCon?  What surprised you, frightened you, entertained you or just generally pissed you off? Sound off in the comments or drop us a line.

Meanwhile, the uTest paparazzi was present and ready to capture some of the scenes from the evening.

Matt Heusser and James Bach take a timeout from their testing debate for a quick photo

Matt Johnston and James Bach deep in discussion about the art & science of testing (and the difference between the two)

Jennifer Moebius and STP chief, Andy Muns take a break from the exhibits to pose for a pic

In the latest installment of our “Testing the Limits” series, we sat down with Andrew Muns (@amuns) the President of Software Test & Performance (of STP Magazine and STPCon fame), to discuss how testers are perceived by execs and developers, the future of media companies, and the changes that are underway at STP.  This is the first half of our chat; check back Thursday for part two.

uTest:  STPCon is being held this October in Cambridge, MA… what do you have in store for the attendees this year?

Andrew: This is the first conference that will have been planned start to finish by Redwood Collaborative Media and was designed according to our very simple philosophy: “ask your audience what they want and give it to them.”  The show’s program was designed largely  based on a survey in which we asked two things, what topics are most important to you and who do you want to hear from.

The most requested topics among our readers were Test Automation, Performance Testing, Test Management and Agile.  We’ve built a five track program with specialized training and workshops for each of these four areas, plus a track we call “FutureTest.”  The concept of FutureTest is to take a look ahead to emerging tools, technologies and practices – to help our members stay on the cutting edge of the testing industry.

We’ve got only all-stars here (check out the full roster) plus a keynote by a NASA astronaut, Mike Mullane, who will talk about leadership and the organizational culture that led to one of the most tragic QA mistakes in history: the O-ring of the space shuttle Challenger.  Michael Bolton, will then use this story as a launching point (pardon the pun) to talk about test leadership.  It’s going to be a phenomenal event.

uTest:  You recently launched STPCollaborative.com. Tell us the purpose of this site and what’s so different about it.

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