Tag Archives: Training

Jul 07

What Software Testing Training Should I do?

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What software testing training should I do? It’s a question I’ve been asked many times. My answer? It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. What your goals are. This wasn’t always my answer. My answer used to be a list of highly recommended (by me), challenging, practical, hands-on training courses designed to take you to the next level. But not anymore.

So why’d I change my answer? Well, for a few reasons. For one, not everybody gets super charged up hearing that type of thing, it can be intimidating. Some may immediately believe that they don’t have that type of time or energy on top of work, life, family, and other commitments to take on training courses of this nature. Others may be pressured to obtain a particular type of certification. So I went back and thought about it and revised my answer.

So what’s my answer? It depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Sometimes companies, management, influential stakeholders in the company start rewarding or preferring certain types of software trainings like certifications. Somebody in this situation may need to take a training to keep their job, or to continue evolving in the company because those with influence are looking for a certain paper that says a person is qualified to do a job (even though they may not be). For this person, there’s a certain goal attached to the type of software training they are looking at completing.

However, if you’re looking for a software training course to make you a better software tester and to build up your skills, I recommend highly participatory, practical training courses that require you to work on solving problems and doing actual work related to the training, over those coures built on theory alone. This is how people learn, by applying what they’re learning to different contexts, including their own. I’ve seen way too many software testers who’ve taken theory based courses, have passed multiple choice exams, and who have certifications, not being able to apply what they’ve learned to real world software situations. The theory based courses have taught them one way, and one way only of how a concept applies – a best case, perfect scenario. Real world situations are far from perfect and differ in so many different ways. So even having one or two variables changed in the real world situation will stump these testers. They’ll try to apply something that turns out to irrelevant because they haven’t really learned how to use the concept.

If you’re looking at software testing training courses to make you a better tester, to evolve your skills, and take you to the next level, look for practical courses that teach you and require you to do the work and use the concepts, strategies, and techniques as part of the course. There are a few I can recommend that I won’t list here, but you can contact me and I’d be glad to refer them to you.

Remember, the more skills you have, the further you’ll be able to go, and the more valuable you’ll be.

Dec 20

Be The Driving Force

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It’s been two years since I’ve last written. That’s a long time! Time flies as they say. Things are good, both on the personal end of things and the professional end of things too. I’ve been busy producing great work, living, exploring, learning, enjoying time with the family. Spending time the way it should be spent.

The lack of posts definitely doesn’t mean I don’t have lots of share and write about – because I do. I’ve been keeping notes about topics I want to write about, so I will post about those topics sometime. Maybe even sometime soon.

In the beautiful world of software, I see a lot of people be placed in charge of huge projects and initiatives and I see so many of them not have the impact they should have had. They lack the fuel, the passion, the fire. The person heading up the initiative just doesn’t have the driving force to produce the fuel, the passion, the fire that these initiatives deeply need. They’re in it, but they’re not. You may recognize what I mean by this. They’re in it, but they don’t want to get their hands too dirty – maybe just a little bit. They kind of want to get things started and rolling, but then might expect other people tasked to help on the initiative to get their hands dirty, while their’s are clean. People are smart (not everybody, but we should give credit where it’s due). They pick up on these things.

Initiatives work and have powerful impact when the person heading up the initiative is not just willing, but is actually getting their hands dirty. Is out there getting things rolling, being involved, and getting things done well. People can sense that. They see it. They feel it. It serves as a great motivator for everybody tasked on the initiative. It sets an example. It sets the tone.

If you want an initiative that you’re in charge of to be great, to have a real impact, to have life and soul, and make a difference, first and foremost you have to be the driving force behind it. I’ve seen these things fail many times. I’ve seen them realize great success other times. There are many reasons behind the end result. One of them is how much of a driving force the person in charge of the initiative is. Obviously there are many facets around being a productive and influential driving force – but that’s not what I’m covering in this post.

There are often huge budgets set out for these initiatives. They’re needed business-wise for many different reasons. If you find yourself put in charge of something like this, bring your A game. You’ll be remembered for it. Do something great and leave your footprint behind. Be the driving force.

Jan 31

Team Workshops

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During the past few years, I’ve organized, held, and participated in quite a few test team workshops to help build and evolve test skills and practices with the different teams I’ve been a part of.

When putting together a workshop, I like to consider my audience, their familiarity is on the topic, how I’ll present the topic, how I’ll engage the participants, how it can help them, and what I’d like the team to take away from the workshop. Taking the aforementioned into consideration, I’ll start putting the workshop together.

I am an advocate of highly participatory workshops where everybody is actively involved and where we all learn from each other. I believe it’s people’s interest, curiously, and their own test and project situations that often brings forth the most intriguing questions, thoughts, and comments – all which fuel the energy in the room.

Learning

I believe there’s a lot of learning that can be had listening to presentations and talks from some people. Some of these people deliver information so well, you’re often at the edge of your seat. The things you can learn from listening to a talk can go a long way.

I also believe that a great way to learn test skills in a workshop setting is by actually applying and practicing the skill as part of the workshop, with the rest of the team and participating. It’s a great way to learn, to brainstorm with others, to practice, to put your ideas into your work and then build on them while learning from others. In short, we’re learning by actually doing.

Sharing

I also enjoy having everybody, or every team share the results of their respective tasks during the workshop. It gives everybody a chance to show what they’ve done, how, what thought process they used and for them to explain it and allow their peers to ask questions. It enables their peers to learn alternative ways, or additional ways a task could have been approached, and build on what they’ve put together.

Enjoying

What’s the point of taking time away during a busy work day to attend a team workshop if you’re not going to learn and enjoy it? I find workshops are usually as great as the participants make it – especially in an open, active environment where everybody participates and learns together. Generally speaking, when people are invited to workshops and they get to actively learn, get involved, present, brainstorm and work on tasks together – they enjoy the experience, use some of the skills from the workshop in the context of their own projects, and want to attend more workshops!