Was It Something I Said? - Martin Hynie & Paul Holland

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Martin Hynie's profile
Martin Hynie

Human in Software

Paul Holland's profile
Paul Holland

Was It Something I Said? - Martin Hynie & Paul Holland image
Talk Description

Testers naturally love the challenge of breaking down a system to uncover the secrets it may hide. We do so by learning to use a great variety of tools that enable us to build models, to exploit behaviours, and to describe whatever intended and unintended behaviours we might discover. All of this is performed in order to help others make timely and informed decisions about the product. We are partners with all members of software development teams. We work together, solving great riddles and building evolving solutions to some of life's newest and greatest challenges.

So why do we so often find ourselves at testing conferences complaining about not being understood? We gather together and describe our struggles:

  • How do we report accurately on exploratory testing efforts?
  • Why does it seem so hard at times to get clear direction on where we should focus our time?
  • Why must we spend so much time proving that we are performing valuable work?
  • How do I answer that magic question: “When will testing be done?”

 

It certainly would be helpful to just have a “tester translator” available on every team to help us with these communication problems, but this seems unlikely. Perhaps it is time for us to look at this from the perspective of a tester exploring a system. How do we begin using our skills and tools to discover dependable heuristics on how to better communicate with our teammates?

Paul and Martin offer some interesting (and contrasting) approaches that might provide some clues on how to use some of your existing testing skills and talents to help solve this riddle within your own teams.

What you’ll learn

By the end of this talk, you'll be able to:

  • TBA
Martin Hynie's profile'

Martin Hynie

Human in Software

With over fifteen years of specialization in software testing and development, Martin Hynie’s attention has gradually focused towards embracing uncertainty, and redefining testing as a critical research activity. The greatest gains in quality can be found when we emphasize communication, team development, business alignment and organizational learning.

A self-confessed conference junkie, Martin travels the world incorporating ideas introduced by various sources of inspiration (including Cynefin, complexity theory, context-driven testing, the Satir Model, Pragmatic Marketing, trading zones, agile principles, and progressive movement training) to help teams iteratively learn, to embrace failures as opportunities and to simply enjoy working together.

Paul Holland's profile'

Paul Holland

Paul Holland is a Senior Director of Test Engineering at Medidata Solutions, Inc. in New York City. Paul has over 20 years experience in software testing. Prior to joining Medidata in August 2016 he was Head of Testing at a small New York based consultancy for 2 years. Previously he spent 2 years as the principal consultant and owner at TestingThoughts, and 17 years in testing at Alcatel-Lucent.

Paul specialises in adapting testing methodologies to reduce waste, and be more effective and efficient; finding ways to document only that which needs to be documented; modifying reporting of test activities to provide actionable information to stakeholders; and reduce/eliminate potentially harmful metrics. Paul is one of four instructors of the Rapid Software Testing course, developed by James Bach and Michael Bolton.

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Tags

  • communication
  • influence
  • test-reporting