Jeff Perkins is the Chief Marketing Officer QASymphony. Prior to that, he’s spent time in senior marketing and sales roles at PGi and AutoTrader.com, and previously worked on some of the biggest brands in the world Volvo, HBO, Sirius Satellite Radio, Michelin, Office Depot and Hasbro. We had a great time talking HERE about the testing tool market, what clients want out of testing, developing your own personal brand, and what’s behind some of those unverifiable vendor claims! Enjoy!
Karen Johnson has had a fantastic career working, consulting, and speaking all over the globe about software testing and quality. I always enjoy speaking with her whenever I get the chance and then trying (and failing) to mimic her calm, reasoned approach to deal with problems through storytelling. Listen in HERE as Karen flips the script and asks me some questions as well as discusses the state of the testing business, management consulting, storytelling, her new role at Jamf and what really pisses her off! Enjoy!
The Afghan tech revolution is being led by Roya Mahboob and her Digital Citizen Fund, and this year she helped an all-girl robotics team from Herat compete in the First Global Challenge . The team had an incredible experience in Washington D.C. at the competition, and now the incredible people at Agile Testing Days have agreed to let the team present their project, participate in the conference, and network with technologist from all over the world.
So now we need your help!
We are raising the funds to send and host the team and coaches in Potsdam, Germany for the conference. As well, any additional funds will be donated to education fund of Team Afghanistan Captain, Fatemah, whose father recently passed away in an attack in Herat. This is a great opportunity to directly impact an important program, diversity in technology, and send a message of love and support to the global technology community.
Donations are being accepted through GoFundMe HERE. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
Enjoy this recap of the Romanian Testing Conference – I had such a great time and it was such a lovely conference. I hope to be back soon! Cheers!
I don’t normally put personal stuff here, but I wanted to let folks know why I might seem a little slow to respond or distracted lately. Last year my wife got me a rescue kitten as a positive distraction from all the other stuff going on in my life. Needless to say, it worked wonders and Edith and I connected and formed a tight bond. Sadly, a couple months ago she succumbed to what our vet thinks was acute renal failure and passed away. I know in the grand scheme of things, people have much larger problems and I’m extremely lucky to be where I am today. I just miss my cat.
Here’s my contribution to Ben Kelly‘s great new book on interviewing, “Standout: A career guide to gainful employment as a skilled software tester”. You can read and purchase your own copy HERE…enjoy!
“These days I conduct mostly “management” interviews, so I am looking for potential and cultural fit into our team. Principles I value are honesty, integrity and accountability, so those lines of questions are often meandering and my conclusions are more “gut feel” than straight forward. I like to talk to people about their hobbies and what they do with their down time, as that can tell me a lot about their personality, dedication, and work ethic. Discussing what books people are reading (or not) is another great way to get insight into people. I was once interviewing a candidate with someone on my management team, and I asked the question “what books are you reading right now”. My manager literally said, “what an awful question”, but after the nervous laughter settled down and we let the conversation flow, we learned a tremendous amount about the person – as they did about us! (We ended up hiring them!) One of the biggest mistakes I see candidates make is not being their authentic selves during an interview. What interests me is how you personally contributed to a project (don’t interchange “me” with “we”), what you learned, what mistakes you made, and what you want to know about me and our team. Feel free to laugh, say “I don’t know”, and talk about values and principles, because long after the technical qualifications have been met, those are the things that really matter.”
What more can I say about Jerry Weinberg than hasn’t already been said? He’s been consulting and writing for over 50 years, including seminal works like The Psychology of Computer Programming, Perfect Software, and The Secrets of Consulting. In the business of software testing, he has influenced ways of thinking about quality, value, and the role of testing in software development. Check out Jerry and me (and his ringing phone!) HERE discussing leadership, diversity, the state of software testing, and how to remain relevant after 60 years in the business. Enjoy!
Always enjoy catching up system performance guru, bon vivant, and one of the nicest guys in our business, Mark Tomlinson. Aside from discussing his responsibility for getting this “podcast” interview series started, we have an extending discussion on “thought leaders” and expertise, innovation, ethics, and whats with all those “boring” testing conferences! (FWIW I had to cut over 30 mins of laughing, joking, and cross talk at the beginning and end of this!) Enjoy!
Google v Microsoft? Ducks v Fish? Dungeons and Dragons? That means I could only be talking to one person – Trish Khoo! Listen in as we discuss making it as a tester in todays world, mental health, and what to do with all those extra ducks! Check out our chat on the latest QR Podcast! Enjoy!
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” Richard Feynman
I don’t believe in “thought leaders”. In my opinion based on my experience, too often the views of people biased towards very specific practices limited to certain contexts are given far too much weight. I believe you should research, question, and experiment in your own ways and means and draw your own conclusions based on that evidence. By all means draw on the practical experiences and advice of seasoned professionals, but don’t take what you hear as unquestionable fact.
There is a big difference between respecting a professional opinion and blind faith. People are the biggest contributor to any context, and people are messy, so find what works for you and your team and go with that.
In regards to “thought leaders” brow beating, bullying, discouraging, or otherwise using their position in the community to silence dissent or alternative views – knock it off. The title of “thought leader” is not a mantle to be claimed, it’s offered by a community and in my view carries with it the burden of modeling positive behavior. As well, if your ideas can’t suffer scrutiny or challenge, guess what, you were probably fully of shit and survivorship bias away…
Good luck and don’t stop questioning the “experts” in their own backyard…
So honored and excited to be giving this talk at Agile Testing Days this year with my pal, Ash Coleman! Hope to see you there!
Changing culture is hard. Organizational values that define culture are deeply rooted in hiring practices, incentive programs, and management frequently based on practices and not shared principles. As well, there is often the illusion that a workplace is an environment built on those principles, but is often framed by what you DON’T say, not necessarily by what you do say. Meaningful change can only come through a clear minded assessment of the state of your industry, business and culture, and begins with a hard look at your own participation in those communities.
Through this talk, Ash and Keith will explore the structural barriers to attracting “like-mindedness” and how the way you advertise your workplace signals the underpinning values of your business. We will talk about what these words are really saying about your business and how you can affect better outcomes. We will talk about ways the testing community can lead by example in “attracting the right fit” and how our language around culture and opportunities at our organizations can either impose discrete limits on our development or can foster an environment for growth and agility.
Hey everyone! I know you’ve been wondering, “when will there be ANOTHER software testing podcast” – well, the wait is finally over! I’m starting a new interview series hosted on the QR Podcast page and focusing on talking to interesting people in or around our business about stuff I want to know. Hope you enjoy my first episode with Damian Synadinos…cheers!
There’s not much more I can say about the quality of the Romanian Testing Conference, than to just point you in the direction of the speakers page. I have to hand to chair Rob Lambert and the team at RTC, they put on one hell of a conference. The venue was fantastic, the proceedings seamless, and as for attendees you couldn’t ask for much more. Having never been to Cluj, I didn’t know what to expect, but whatever those expectations might have been, they were far exceeded. The folks at the conference were engaged, critical, and after decent amount of antagonizing them in my workshop, even started to push back under my questioning!
Had a great time giving this keynote at QASymphony’s QualityJam in Atlanta last month. Check out the other videos HERE…enjoy!