Friday 3 December 2010

Carnival of Testers #16

November was cold, much colder than normal - but there is no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing (there are several test analogies there!), so whilst deciding on the right clothes I read and have been entertained by several blog posts...

  • First up this month was Michael Kelly with a reminder that sometimes it's necessary to "just say no!"
  • Ever get the feeling that explaining any test-related thinking to a non-techie is tricky and full of traps? If so, then you'll recognise something in this cartoon from Andy Glover.
So, have you recognised anything so far?
  • On an aspect of recognition Albert Gareev wrote about a typical trap that testers can occasionally fall into, inattentional blindness. Recognising it, and understanding it helps your learning.
  • Related to traps, bias and fallacies then black swans have been known to surface. Have a look at this 'humble' story from Pradeep Soundararajan and his sources of learning.
  • Of course, sometimes nothing will disrupt you and your testing. Then, maybe you're in the zone, as Joel Montvelisky encourages us to recognise and learn about the contributing factors.
  • A short note from Peter Haworth-Langford on his first year of blogging. Happy blogging birthday!
  • The guys at the test eye produced a two-page sheet of aspects for consideration when testing a product. It's partly based on earlier work by others, but take a look and see what you recognise and if there's anything new to you. 
  • Communication, communication, communication. Take a look a Pete Walen's post on some communication aspects related to documentation.
  • A nice example of the availability heuristic in Gerald Weinberg's account of The Sauerkraut Syndrome. Recognose it?
  • A view on testing debt and some tips to counteract it came from Martin Jansson.
  • Weekend Testing landed in the Americas during November. Here are some thoughts from one of the organisers, Michael Larsen.
  • Bob Marshall raises some pertinent questions about the state of Agile - thinking way outside the tester's box. Recognise anything?
  • Some more interesting questions raised by Mark Crowther on burndown. You must reconise something here.

I'm sure there was something there that all would recognise, and maybe something new.

Until the next time...

4 comments:

  1. Aha, thanks for the mention - I almost forgot I'd made that rant :)

    Linkyness:

    http://cyreath.blogspot.com/2010/11/burndown-are-we-tracking-right-things.html

    Good list as always!

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  2. @Mark
    Good catch!

    Now updated, thanks!

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  3. Hi Simon,

    With regards to the Bounded Awareness and my follow up post on it that you picked for this carnival (thank you! :) ), I'd like to mention also Change Blindness, and Focalism sub-types. Michael Kelly made a great write up on the latter: http://www.michaeldkelly.com/archives/542

    Thanks,
    Albert

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  4. Thanks for mentioning my article on testing debt.

    Working on a new one on debt, but from a different angle. Hope it will be valuable for testers and developers.

    ReplyDelete