Sunday, March 30, 2008

All you wanted to know about “Tester Tested”….

Sometime back, i had been introduced to Mr. Pradeep Soundararajan. He is one person I know who is intensely passionate about his profession i.e. Software testing and this is pretty much evident by just having a look at his blog on Software testing. It is quite easily one of the successful blogs on Software testing and each and every paragraph of his posts will give an idea on how much he loves his profession. To add to this having a look at his 2007 achievements , one will get a fair idea about his intensity and single-mindedness to achieve what he has set for himself.
In one of my email conversations with him, i asked him to share his handwriting with me. My purpose of asking him about the same was to gain more insights into personality of a person who is so passionate about his profession and as a part of larger objective it was to help me in my interest to understand the correlation between Software Testing and the science of handwriting analysis. He gracefully agreed to share with me and then started my yet another journey to deep dive and understand his personality by the stokes of his pen.
I had shared my analysis with Pradeep and he seemed to agree with all the findings. In this post though, i would like to share those aspects of his personality that has helped him be so good at testing. Here are a few snippets from his overall analysis. (Please remember that the text that follows is only on the basis of Pradeep's handwriting and its not diluted with anything that i know of him by little interaction I had with him over email)

Analytical and Investigative Thinker:
Pradeep is having analytical thinking pattern in his personality. Being analytical has nothing to do with speed at which one processes information- Instead being analytical deals with how one processes information. He interprets all the facts by separating them, breaking them down, and organizing them from a critical point of view. He has a strong reasoning ability. He also has the tendency to be investigative in his thinking approach.
Such a thinking pattern is ideal for Software testing as it helps the tester to think about all the facts and possibility and then get to an informed decision about a defect or any other work situation and can further help in effectively troubleshooting issues on own. Being Investigative helps a tester to carry out the Exploratory testing effectively.

Fluidity of thoughts:
Pradeep possess a great deal of Fluidity of thoughts. Fluidity of thoughts denotes the ability of a person to move from one thought to other or from one thought pattern to another with ease. With the help of this trait, he has the ability to write or express your ideas with graceful fluidity. This in turn helps him take people along with him when he conveys something- a sure-shot sign of a good speaker and writer.
Being effectively able to communicate what is intended is one of the key requirements of being an good tester. One can imagine a situation of a tester who is very good at finding bugs but when it comes to communicating bugs, he/she fumbles. Such a person will have a huge difficulty in advocating the bug. With the fluidity of thoughts comes effective communication, which distinguishes an average tester from a great one.

Planning:
Pradeep is practical person whose goals are planned. He has the need to see end of the project at the beginning (before the start).Everything is mapped out- the entire route he is going to take- even if he is just going across town. He plans everything in advance and finds joy in anticipation.
Effective testers are good a planning and organizing things. Imagine a state of tester who starts his/her day or a project without any goal in mind. It is definite that such a person is going to lose his way in between. Effective testers begin with the end in mind and have a great clarity of what is expected of them.

Perfectionism:
Pradeep has a lot of structure. He spends a lot of time putting everything in place and reviews work trying to make it more precise.
Effective testers do believe in the precept- "Doing the things right the first time, every time". Testers are employed to find mistakes that developers make or the ones that happen at the early stages of project life cycle and in doing so if tester again makes a mistake- it costs organization a lot and put questions on the need of Software testing. Therefore, Perfectionism is indeed a desirable trait for Software testing profession.

Concentration:
Pradeep has a tremendous ability to concentrate and focus on project/any task that he takes. If he is concentrating and focusing very hard on some project then he tends to forget everything else around him. He has the ability to eliminate all outside noises, thoughts, interference, and ability to concentrate fully on one subject.
It goes without saying- who will be an effective tester, the one whose mind wanders and keeps jumping from one focus area to other or the one who focuses intensely on task at hand ?
As I talked briefly about the strong co-relation between the science of handwriting analysis and Software profession in one of my previous posts , this analysis goes a step further in proving the same.
Thanks very much Pradeep for helping me out with this activity.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Anuj,

Pradeep has helped me a lot too; in fact he is still helping me...

Many a times I keep pestering him with my replies, seeking for a comment/answer/discussion with him.

Though he is busy, he still takes time to read my views and comment on it appropriately. It just speaks of the person who wants to encourage testing.

The day I had coffee with Pradeep changed a lot in me, and my approach to testing. I am starting a blog as well, and it’s fantastic to see so many Indian testing bloggers coming together and encouraging each other.

Pradeep Soundararajan said...

Thanks for the analysis Anuj. Here are my thoughts on your analysis and why I believe most of it:

He has the need to see end of the project at the beginning (before the start).

I ask for the mission and need to know what mission I am working on. As a tester it helps me to think about things that can help me achieve the mission.

Pradeep has a lot of structure. He spends a lot of time putting everything in place and reviews work trying to make it more precise.

I am also aware that I or any of my ideas are fallible but as I practice I ensure I do things that works for most of my clients and I am able to do that as I analyze the context to the best of skills.

Pradeep possess a great deal of Fluidity of thoughts. Fluidity of thoughts denotes the ability of a person to move from one thought to other or from one thought pattern to another with ease.

I am certainly conscious that I shift between ideas and I try create and collect a ton of them. This is particularly important as I mentioned above that doing things that the context demands me to do to achieve the mission I have.

Concentration:
Pradeep has a tremendous ability to concentrate and focus on project/any task that he takes. If he is concentrating and focusing very hard on some project then he tends to forget everything else around him. He has the ability to eliminate all outside noises, thoughts, interference, and ability to concentrate fully on one subject.


When James Bach was starting to coach me, I was financially bankrupt and had no job in hand but I didn't let those things affect me and I kept focusing on the great training I was receiving. Wow! Today someone wanted to analyze my handwriting thinking me as a successful tester. The focus helped me to grow.

However I recognize that focusing and de-focusing is important to being a better tester. I focus to focus and focus to de-focus.

Pradeep is having analytical thinking pattern in his personality. Being analytical has nothing to do with speed at which one processes information- Instead being analytical deals with how one processes information. He interprets all the facts by separating them, breaking them down, and organizing them from a critical point of view. He has a strong reasoning ability. He also has the tendency to be investigative in his thinking approach.

Questioning is of great help to me in breaking down things and questioning also helps in investigation.

he has the ability to write or express your ideas with graceful fluidity. This in turn helps him take people along with him when he conveys something- a sure-shot sign of a good speaker and writer.
Being effectively able to communicate what is intended is one of the key requirements of being an good tester. One can imagine a situation of a tester who is very good at finding bugs but when it comes to communicating bugs, he/she fumbles.


I learned to write better as I wrote more. I wish people who started to read my blog recently read some of my old posts and laugh at the way I used to write.

Michael Bolton and James pushed me hard enough in getting there. I admire Michael Bolton's presentation style and that has a great influence on my presentation skills. I liked that you mentioned "takes people along with him when he communicates" and I'd like to share my recent experience of presenting at Asia Pacific Software Testing Conference in Malaysia. My presentation took people along and influenced other presenters to such an extent that they had to skip a few "best practices" slides they were planning to present. The audience had been educated about those who were fooling around with "best practices" and I think it made no sense to other presenters to say anything by showing the "best practices" slides.

Of course, I enjoy my own writing and I hope many others have liked it, too.

It goes without saying- who will be an effective tester, the one whose mind wanders and keeps jumping from one focus area to other or the one who focuses intensely on task at hand ?

I want to help your readers understand what I think you mean by this: Effective testing involves shifting ideas because there is no "The working idea" but at a higher level one can't be effective when working on multiple missions at the same time.

Thanks Anuj for your time and effort. I value that.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anuj,

You did a greatjob:)

Can I have my handwriting analysis?

Anonymous said...

Your analysis told all positive things which evey established software person has, you have to tell both negatives and postives but you said one side of a coin, its been commmon that people always praises someone and no body ignores and say no i am not a perfectionist, no i dont have any concentration, no i dont plan, no i dont have any analytical thinking, no i dont have any process oriented thinking.

Please dont tell only positive things which everybody can tell by seeing his blog and passion for testing. If you are real analyser i will send my friends handwriting dont worry i will send an email to u,u can tell abt them.

Its 2008 and please tell something that is beliveable.Tell something -ve abt the person you analyse, all +ve will be always accepted

Anuj Magazine said...

Thanks Pradeep. As usual, your response was precise and sharing your experiences with each point makes it even interesting read.
Regarding the comment below, in addition to what you have mentioned, here is my further explaination-
It goes without saying- who will be an effective tester, the one whose mind wanders and keeps jumping from one focus area to other or the one who focuses intensely on task at hand ?
Yes, it is helpful to think about several possibilies while a tester is actually thinking and doing the testing job but when the mind wanders a person thinks of a things beyond the task at hand.Thats the absolute sitiation of lack of concentration and some people are actually habituated to it. And if this happens consistently, would definitely result in loss of attention and eventually productivity.

Anuj Magazine said...

Thanks "Anonymous" for your comments. You have raised some interesting points that some of the people reading this post would have thought. Let me try and explain-

Regarding your comment-
Your analysis told all positive things which evey established software person has, you have to tell both negatives and postives but you said one side of a coin-

Before analysis, in my post i made a mention of the following-
“In this post though, i would like to share those aspects of his personality that has helped him be so good at testing. “
So, the intention of this post was to being forth the soft skills that makes a person a good tester. There was no question of me talking about anything additional here as that’s absolutely not the focus here.
Regarding your comment-
Please dont tell only positive things which everybody can tell by seeing his blog and passion for testing. If you are real analyser i will send my friends handwriting dont worry i will send an email to u,u can tell abt them.
Its 2008 and please tell something that is beliveable.Tell something -ve abt the person you analyse, all +ve will be always accepted.


Handwriting reveals hundreds of the person's personality traits which include glimpses into the subconscious mind, emotional responsiveness, energy, fears and defenses, motivations, imagination etc. Being a Handwriting analyst, of many things that i have learnt- one of the most important things is not to be judgmental. I do specify the traits as they are and my experience states that each trait can be good or bad depending upon a particular context or situation. A trait that can be good for one profession may not be good for others e.g. an Introvert person can be great at dealing with computers related jobs (less social interaction) whereas the same Introvert person would struggle if in Sales profession where he/she might have to constantly go out of his comfort zone to deal with people. There can be numerous such examples.
Coming to this post, what you see listed here is only may be 25% of what i had actually sent Pradeep about his personality based on his handwriting. But mentioning everything here would have diluted the purpose of this post.
Well, if you don’t believe what i said and wrote, it’s your choice. I cannot really influence that. Probably, i would not want to impulsively take challenges to prove my skills and worth.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anuj,

Thanks for posting the comment and replying me, thanks for your response.I believe in the people faith and i never wanted to hurt anyone.What i thought is you usually tell only one side of a coin, but later from your reply understood u have told another side of a coin :-).

Thanks
Your friend.

Usually i am bold enough to put my name in comment, but these comments may or may not hurt pradeep and i dont want to spoil the friendship between us.

Pradeep Soundararajan said...

@Anonymous Friend of Pradeep,

Usually i am bold enough to put my name in comment, but these comments may or may not hurt pradeep and i dont want to spoil the friendship between us.

If you are my good friend you would figure out that saying such things wont hurt Pradeep. Also if you really want to know the negatives of Pradeep, here is how you can know it: mail him and ask him, I am sure he'd be glad to let you or the world know about it.

Shrini Kulkarni said...

Hi Anuj,

It is nice to see a link between graphalogy/hand writing analysis and Testing. I am glad that you could establish this linkage.

Do write more posts to about this linkage and let your readers benefit from your expertise

All the best

Shrini Kulkarni
http://shrinik.blogspot.com

Anuj Magazine said...

Thanks Shrini for your kind words.This coorelation has infact helped me in Software testing profession in many ways in the last few years- primarily in figuring out what kind of personality traits makes a person a better tester, in being better prepared in dealing with people in many work situations.

I had presented this corelation in QAI's testing conference in the year 2004.
http://amagazine.googlepages.com/SoftwareTestingandGraphology-thecomp.pdf

I have been regular reader of your blog and find your contributions quite meaningful and relevant.

Regards,
Anuj

Nagabhushan said...

Hi Anuj,

Thanks for taking interest in starting such a interesting blog. What a coincidence, by profession Iam software test engineer and more interestingly I completed my basic level of handwriting analysis course at Handwriting Institute India, Bangalore and now into certification course.
I have seen many videos of Mr.Pradeep Soundarajan, Cem Karner and many more. Handwriting analysis is accurate from what I understand from the videos of Mr.Pradeep Soundarajan. He is very clear in explaination and has great knowledge.

Once again a heartly thanks and Happy days.

Thanks and Regards,
Nagabhushan
s.nagabhushan.email@gmail.com
http://sites.google.com/site/mindmylanguage/

Anuj Magazine said...

Thank you for your comments, Nagabhushan.

Regards,
Anuj