Creative Tester

Key professional lessons learned from the last over of Wankhede test (INDvsWI)

2011-11-29T05:36:00.006+05:30

Last weekend, i got to witness a thrilling Cricket Test match between India and West Indies. After first four days of rather dull Cricket, the match seemed like headed towards a Darw. The result seemed a distant possibility only to see things reverse on the fifth day. The wicket started assisting the bowlers and West Indies who scored runs in excess of 590 in the first innings, got bowled out for a mere 134 in their second innings. That meant that Team India had to score 243 to win the Test match in little more than 2 session of batting. At the start of the dramatic run chase, India seemed to be going steady being something like 100/1 or so and then they lost their way somewhere in the middle and finally managed to make the score of 242 for 9, which made it a last ball draw. There were many exciting moments on the final day of the match but most dramatic were the last few overs and the last over to be very specific. Here is the account of what happened in that last over-

- India needing 3 runs to win and 2 to level scores. Ravichandran Ashwin and Varun Aaron (both playing their first series, Varun his first match) were batting at 13 and 1 respectively).
- West Indies needed 2 Wickets to win.
Ball 1: Varun Aaron tried to hit the ball to off side. Misses the fast ball by Fidel Edwards.
Ball 2: Edwards, just before delivering the ball saw Ashwin short of crease. He could have run Ashwin out within the rules but chose not to in the right Spirit of Cricket. Edwards finally bowls and Varun manages to connect the ball but it does directly to fielder.
Ball 3: Varun plays a wild swing off the third ball and misses.
Ball 4: Varun connects the ball and with some mis-fielding and good fortune, makes much required 1 run. This makes it 2 runs needed off 2 balls to win for India, 2 Wickets off 2 balls to win for West Indies.
Ball 5: Ashwin does not go for his shot and defends the ball and this rules out the possibility of West Indies winning.
Ball 6: Ashwin hits the ball hard to mid-on. The ball goes fast, Ashwin runs the first run hard and seeing the throw on top of his head, does not show much interest in running the second one hard and is run-out. The result: a level scoring draw, something that has happened only once in 120+ years history of the game.

The video for that eventful last over is below-

I could gather some meaningful lessons from this last over and match in general that could be applied in our normal (and work) lives. They are as follows-

Lesson#1: Sometimes the bias towards Action is necessary:
In his book- "The Habit of winning", Prakash Iyer mentions about the aspect of "Action bias", he says-

I came across a research by a team of scholars in Israel. To understand the goalkeeper's mind-set, the team studied 286 penalty kicks from major league football games from around the world. As you probably know, a penalty kick is taken from a distance of just 11 meters from the goal. The goalkeeper gets about 0.1 seconds to react- a window so tiny that goalkeeper must guess which way the ball will go, and commit themselves to a dive- left or right.
The research team tracked the direction of the kick (left, right and center) and tabulated the statistics. And he is what it found: a goalkeeper's best chance of stopping a penalty kick is if he doesn’t dive and stays put in the center!
That’s not all. Though the probability of stopping a kick is the highest when the goalkeeper did not move, the team found that in 92% of the cases, the goalkeeper committed himself to a dive to the either side. Why then do they dive, when standing still would give them their best chance of success!

One way to explain as Prakash Iyer does in his book is because most of the Sportsperson or even High achievers have something called as an "Action bias" i.e. desperate tendency to act in most situations. If say goalkeeper does not commit himself to a dive in a penalty of a World cup final, most of the people would tend to ridicule him stating "He didn’t even try". If he dives and fails to collect the ball, people would probably think- "Atleast he tried (his best!)".

If you now compare Ashwin's situation in Ball 6. He completed one run quite quickly and then seeing the throw going over his head, he didn’t commit himself to the second run fast enough. Later he said, there was no way second run could be done as throw had already almost reached wicket-keeper. Though that lack of immediate action could be debated saying that wicket-keeper "could" have missed the ball and he "could" have got some extra time to make the run. He had to face quite a deal of criticism for not taking that run quickly but more important thing to note is how fast do the people notice the lack of action. That is quite true when the stakes are high.

This is an interesting situation to what Prakash Iyer calls High achievers having bias for action. In this case, Ashwin deliberately didnt act quickly because in his mind he knew his fate was sealed. This is a classic case of people expecting him to act though the result in 99% of times would have been same as what is now (how often do we see Wicket-keepers fumbling straight-forward chances?)

In some circumstances, the "Action" may be unnecessary like in the earlier example of goalkeeper but there are many situations in the our work lives and otherwise in life, when the very notion of "Action" gives indication that things are alive and kicking. For example, if your boss or team is in a different country than you are you, you ought to make sure to keep him/her updating on the various aspects of work. If not, some communication may go amiss. Sometimes, the action is necessary just to instil the belief in the people that you gave your 100%. Here is a simple thing that i learned- If you can act in a situation while still maintaining your genuineness of intent and not sounding artificial, the action (whatever it may be) is worth an attempt. After all who can forgive a goalkeeper just standing still if the football whizzes past from his side.

Lesson#2: Dont forget the Fair play even when the going is tough

If you remember what Edwards did in the Ball-2 of the last over, he actually held the spirit of the game high by not dismissing Ashwin on his run-up. The laws of the game state that the batsman should be in his crease when the bowler is taking a stride to bowl but the spirit of the game suggests that you ought to warn the batsman atleast once before attempting to running out in this situation. The latter is what Edwards did. Had he plainly followed the rules, Ashwin would have been run-out and West Indies could have been within a sniffing distance of victory.
There is a great stuff to be learned from this. In work and even in our lives, never forget to act ethically irrespective of the situation you are in. Following your profession ethically is not an easiest thing to do especially when the stakes are high like it was the case in this match but doing so is always the right in the larger context. You may lose a million by following stuff ethically but can save your organization a billion by avoiding the dangerous law-suites.

Lesson#3: When in trouble, first thing to do is break the monster task into small pieces

Varun struggled to score a single run the first three balls of the last over. Its not as if he didn’t try, he tried hard but somehow fell short. One more thing to note is that he was trying quite hard during this phase. To me it occurred that he made situation quite complex in his mind (naturally for a person playing his first match) and what would have helped in this case is to somehow simplify the situation.
The lesson to learn here is that whenever a problem of huge proportions trouble us, the first thing should be to break that problem in manageable parts and not get overly bogged down by it. Often the problem does not appear as big once we put effort to simplify the same and separately deal with its various parts. Once we have dealt with parts, suddenly we start seeing the light at the end of tunnel.
Try this for your "complex" problem for today, you will certainly achieve more in a day!

Lesson#4: Demonstrating Innovation in crisis is much harder than when things are rosy

Varun did the best he could during the first three balls of this over, considering it was his first match. For sure, he was facing a high pressure situation. Its quite funny how we, as humans, sometimes act in such crisis situations. We usually get tied to a single action and keep trying the same thing. Something Varun kept doing, playing the similar looking shot or within his limitations as a batsman. The lesser related example from our daily lives could be when the TV remote stops functioning, we start bashing it, hitting it against our palms continuously till we realize the problem is with battery. Such a thing is usually called as Blind Persistence meaning we are persistent towards something but keep trying the same thing again and again whereas the need of the hour could well be to innovate a bit while in crisis. Again, this is easier said than done but i do feel the ability of an individual or an organization to innovate when faced with survival crisis always rates high while innovating when you are provided with all the resources. Innovating in crisis requires that extra bit of mental strength and maintaining positivity while in a grave crisis. Not many possess this ability naturally but this quite something that could be developed for sure.

Lesson#5: Leaving too much for too late

In this post, i focused mainly on the last over the match where the situation was already tense and tight. Spare one thought about how we actually reached that situation. It was primarily because most of the batsmen in the top order did not take the responsibility of batting right-through the end and India kept losing wickets.
One of the important lesson here is that one should not keep too much towards the end of the project. This holds good even for the way one plans for a day. Do the most difficult tasks at the start of the day as the more complex ones usually take more time and it would often hold you up from reaching home on time. Afterall, you got to Eat that frog (Ugly task), the first thing in the day.

What did you learn today ?

Key professional lessons from a Long distance run- Part-2

2011-11-15T23:04:00.004+05:30

I wrote about the Part-1 of this blogpost may be 2-3 years back. I got reminded to update this while i participated in
Ultra run at Bangalore on 13th-Nov. For starters, Ultra Marathon is any sporting event involving running longer than a traditional marathon length of 42.195 km (as defined by Wikipedia). I participated in 25 Km run event, which incidentally was less than actual marathon but was quite challenging for me. I had run long distances and even cycled longer distances before but not at a high scale event like Ultra, which had close to 900 participants running in different categories up to 100 Km run. Yes, you heard it right- 100 Km run!

I did manage to finish the run and was quite happy in doing so. While i ran at the event, several thoughts ran through my mind and i realized some of these i had not written about in my previous blog on this topic. These are essentially the lessons that i could take back to my life- both work and personal. These are as jotted below-

Life starts where the Comfort zone ends:
This run was a substantial challenge for me personally as i had not attempted such a long run in a public event before this (discounting the numerous practice runs). Moreover, the race day and track had something peculiar about it. The race day was scorching hot- may be in excess of 35 degree Celsius and the race track was uneven and full of dirt. It was so uneven that i almost felt misbalanced on momentarily lapse of concentration while not watching what lies on the ground. Long distance runs especially the Ultra runs does push you beyond your limits, both physically and mentally.

While running one thing that i realized that when your limits get stretched, the challenge takes an altogether different dimension. The challenge no longer remains- "How can i excel in my endeavour ?" it more becomes- "How can i survive somehow ?".
And when it comes to survival, one starts to look at things in a much different perspective than usual situations. Let me share a real life story at this instance-
Once i interviewed one of the General Manager (popularly Known as "TV" because of his name initials) from my past organization (while i was an Editor of In-house magazine). TV shared a very interesting experience about his stay in Antartica for about 16 months. Some excerpts from his website-

I was a member of theÂ XIII Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica (ISEA) and XI Winter-Over Team (WOT) and stayed at Indian Scientific Station at Antarctica, Maitri, between Dec 1993 and Mar 1995 (almost 16 months). I was the youngest Indian scientist at that time to do what is known as ‘wintering’ (i.e., spend 16 months in the icy continent away from comforts of home and hot food). I was also the Post Master of Maitri Post Office, the philatelic post office of Indian Post Department (they still owe me an honararium of Rs. 16 for my services, one rupee per month). Among other things, I worked on HF radio based Data Communication between Antarctica and India.

One of thoughts that TV shared regarding his experience in Antarctica that has stayed with me all through these years was that living away from the comforts of normal city and staying far away at remotely cut off place for long time gave him a unique perspective towards life and dealing with problems. Most of the problems that we face in our day-to-day life are almost trivial when you compare the same with experience one has had in staying in such tough conditions in a place like Antarctica (in a time when probably only way to get connected to your family was through snail mail and you get to probably eat same stuff every day, not to forget dealing with sub zero temperature without Sun for 16 long months). Thats a very valuable insight, something similar (probably in less proportions) that i got to experience while running that long distance run.

Similar to this, I remember to have read one quote regarding dealing with Stress in one of the HBR forums something like- "You dont know what the real stress is unless you are required to walk 10 km everyday to fetch water and food for your thirsty, hungry and mal-nutritioned kids". Like most problems we face, managing stress is often about looking at your situation with a right lens i.e. with a right perspective.

What i eventually learned was that once you overcome something substantial physically and mentally, it gives you a confidence that you can face other difficulties with greater poise. In our usual lives we are so far away from the notion of Survival that we often give much more importance to seemingly trivial issues at work and in normal lives.

Dont let your Survival instincts die, routinely push yourself beyond that cushy comfort zone.

Mixing Risk with caution:
While i was running, may be somewhere around 15 Km mark i started feeling a bout of cramps. I had to think and strategize my run because i still had a good number of kilometres to do. I Stopped, took a stock of things and started gradually running dropping my speed. The fact that i entered this run without an ideal practice was a risk in itself but keeping the overall scheme of things in mind, i had to add some bit of caution to the overall risk i had taken.

It often helps at work and in life to sometimes Stop and Introspect. This is especially true in the fast paced urban life which undervalues the importance and fun of doing things slowly at a pace comfortable to self without worrying about what the world is thinking.

So what i learned was-
Take Risks, Move fast- All that is fine but it helps sometimes to add that "Slowness" to our lives that makes us feel more human.

What did you learn today ?

Key professional lessons learned from the bicycle shop

2011-11-01T23:30:00.004+05:30

There is this real incident that took place sometime back and which i recently recollected.
This one instance is about the time i went to service my bicycle. I landed in the shop and started to look for someone who could talk to me. I noticed one person sitting on the chair behind a table talking to a customer. I moved ahead and stood next to the other guy who he was speaking to. I patiently waited for a while for him to atleast acknowledge my presence when he was talking to other guy. Sensing him not do it, i barged in politely and mentioned to him that i had come for the servicing my bicycle. Without looking at me, this person calls his assistant and rather impatiently asks him to attend to me. The assistant addressed my questions and by this time the guy on chair also got free but kept looking at both of us. I negotiated a price and conditions for Servicing and was about to leave when it occurred to me to ask the assistant for his number so that i could call back before coming. Listening to this, the guy still sitting in chair, remarked with a rather superior and rude voice- "Take my number, he is just a mechanic. You will be talking to me."

Thinking over what happened at the bicycle shop makes me feel like going back to the basics of dealing with humans. Was the guy sitting on chair right in all that he did ? Well, if you ask me as his customer, i wont answer in affirmative. Lets delve a bit deeper-

When i stood by his side for a while, as a customer i subconsciously expected him to atleast acknowledge my presence atleast (if not smile and greet me). Thats where he failed to make a connection and that elusive first impression on the customer.
I do feel in our day-to-day chores of work, at a very basic level we as employees seek this seemingly simple thing called "Respect from others". It is the instances like the one narrated above that gives you a perception whether you are being respected or not. i.e. a mere act of not acknowledging the presence of a colleague or failing to say a simple "hello" routinely has more damaging impact than what we perceive generally. This is something that eventually causes the disconnect between people.

Again going back to the story, the way the guy in chair addressed his colleague rather rudely as a mechanic in front of a customer was rather uncalled for. As a customer, it gave me an impression of an autocrat managing the shop. Just like i as a customer demanded this Shopkeeper's attention and respect, the mechanic too had the similar needs. Apparently in this case, was badly shot down.

Some of the thoughts that got reinforced again for me after this incident-
- No matter what the situation, irrespective of your stress levels, "Treat people with Respect".
- If you work with people, Make efforts to acknowledge their presence, Always.
- Be conscious of the way people around you perceive you. Bad perceptions once created are hard to overcome.
- Autocratic Leadership is needed in certain situations but most of the workplace situations can be handled in a democratic way.
- Delegation is a fine art. Empowering people while making them accountable for the deliverables works wonders in most situations.

What did you learn today ?

Attending Conferences and making most of it

2011-10-06T10:21:00.003+05:30

The last couple of months have been exciting for me as i got to attend and participate in quite a few Conferences involved in both Attending and Presenting at various forums. I think Conferences are an important means to connect with like-minded professionals, network and learn from them.

I wanted to share some of my learnings around attending and participating in the conferences. Before that, please take some time to go through one of the lessons (Lesson# 251) in the book- Lessons Learned in Software Testing. The lesson is titled- Conferences are for conferring

When you attend a conference on software testing or software development, don’t just sit in the sessions and listen to the speakers. Do a lot (or at least some) of that. But spend a lot of time meeting with other people at the conference to discuss what was presented or what is happening in the field.
If you don’t know many people at the conference, meet some. When you go to lunch, sit with people you don’t know, listen and identify people who are interesting and knowledgeable. Take opportunities to identify interesting people. When you meet them, ask them about what they do and about sessions that they’ve been to. What have they found interesting ? Over time (it takes more than one conference), you’ll make a group of friends whom you meet mainly at conferences, whom you keep up-to-date with via Net, whom you attend sessions with, and maybe whom you’ll write papers and present panels with. This is how three of us met (authors of this book).
Not everyone gets sent to conferences by their company. Tell your manager well before the conference that you want to attend a specific conference. Better notice will increase your chance of attending. After you have attended a conference or two, apply to be a speaker. If you’re accepted, your company will me more likely to send you, and (assuming you do a good job) you’ll gain respect and goodwill within and outside your company.

I have taken the liberty to remove a couple of lines which were not suitable for the purpose of this post but nevertheless the above sums up what you could look forward to when attending any Conference.
Some more of my thoughts below-

• More often we go to conferences thinking of it as similar to a series of training sessions that would give us a sort of silver bullet that would help us solve the current problems that we face at work.
So, first of the things is that not to go into conference believing it would provide the best solution (though it may). In all, there are always multiple different ways to solve a given problem. Interacting with people in conferences may just provide a perspective you may be lacking in your current knowledge. So, always keep your eyes and ears to gain that elusive perspective. It is not that you would become expert in the conference theme immediately after the conference ends but that would certainly make you richer in the topic.

• Secondly, as stated in the excerpt above, I have found in my experience as well that real value of conference comes in not necessarily from the sessions but how well do we take care of time in between sessions. The breaks are usually called “Networking breaks” literally for a reason. From the time I participated in my first conference till now, the external relationships developed during the conferences has helped quite a bit shape my current knowledge and perspective. So, its advisable to hang around with participants, speakers asking questions, sharing your knowledge. Its not easy first time and may require you to go beyond the comfort zone to network with professionals around, but believe me its worth it.

• Thirdly, if the topic you are undergoing is completely new to you, learn as much as possible. If you are already aware of the topic then its best to go with the blank mind (without your knowledge bias) and gather as much as possible and then evaluate. The practices and processes shared are usually context dependent (may work for them but not us depending on the situation) but its important to develop that reasoning that can help sort these contextual differences.

Would really love to hear your experiences on "How to attend the conferences?" and also on "How not to attend the conferences?"

Presented a Workshop on Software Globalization Testing

2011-09-20T16:17:00.006+05:30

On 14th-Sept, I got to present in the STeP-IN Forum's event in Hyderabad. The event was Software Testing Conference. It was primarily a 2 day conference, in which the first day on 14th-Sept was the Pre-Conference Tutorials.

Tutorials were different than the sessions on the normal conference day as these went in-depth into the topic and were more or less like a Workshop of about half-a-day. I had a good experience overall as i presented on the topic of Demystifying Globalization Testing .

I could cover the different aspects of Globalization testing both via presentation and live demonstration, which apparently was decently received (though i am still expecting a formal feedback update from the Organizers).

The content about Globalization Testing that i have written in this blog purely from my experience was always as helpful in conducting the session of this magnitude.
The best part that i liked was that the session eventually turned out to be quite interactive and there were lots of discussions and meaningful interactions with the audience during the entire session.

Will upload the presentation soon.

************************Update on 23rd-Sept-2011************************
I have uploaded the Presentation i delivered at this session here

"An Attempt to define Personal Excellence..."- Presentation at BWST-3

2011-08-18T16:26:00.019+05:30

I had an interesting experience being a part of Bangalore Workshop on Software Testing-3 . While i will write about my experience on being a part of this Workshop separately, i intended to first share a summary on my presentation in this Workshop.

The theme of this workshop as unique in many sense. It was Personal excellence & skill development . Being a part of quite a few conferences in the past, this was arguably the first workshop (or a conference) dedicated to this so relevant topic. That was exactly one of my first thoughts when i got to know about Speaking opportunity here i.e. Personal Excellence is so very important but most of the external conferences are so focused on rather external skills (Some call them Technical Skills, Some Hard skills, Some Job skills...).

In short, i knew i had to contribute to this opportunity and i chose a topic quite related and close to my experience. My topic was-
An Attempt to define Personal Excellence- Some Snippets from my experience
I have uploaded the presentation here .

This session was quite close to my heart as i chose to spoke on some experiences that i have been through in the past, which has largely helped me to shape my mind and thinking. While i need to get better at video recording my sessions but till the time i do so, i wanted to Summarize the key points of my talk here. Before you proceed, just to mention, what follows are just my thoughts on Personal Excellence, which may differs from yours. So do share your perspective.

Some Key points i presented:

- This presentation is just “An attempt to define Personal Excellence…” rather than a definite guide to Personal Excellence as i am no definite authority on Personal Excellence.

Essence of Personal Excellence: This dialog from the movie
3 Idiots define the essence of Personal Excellence for me
Kisi Mahapurush ne kaha hai, success ke pichhe mat bhago. Excellence! Excellence ka pichha karo. Kamyabi jhakkh mar ke tumhare pichhe aayegi. (Some wise soul has told that, don’t run after success. Excellence! Follow and conquer Excellence! Post which success will just come running at your door steps.)

I believe most of the answers regarding Personal Excellence reside inside us rather than outside.

Reading shapes your mind One of the quotes that i found Inspirational is-
If you read for just half an hour everyday, you could finish a 250 page book in just two weeks' time. That's twenty six books a year. A hundred books in next four years.
To learn and grow, make reading (books that make you better) your religion. Just think, what difference would that make to the quality of your mind, your career, your life ?

Habit of reading in itself cannot change you unless you have the necessary will: One of my learnings have been that Reading books or Reading quotes in itself cannot Change you. These acts or habits are powerless in a way as in the mere act of reading alone cannot change you. At the most what it can do is to Inspire you. Unless one matches that Inspiration with will and Inspiration to bring you that positive change you wanted, the whole act of Reading may not be that fruitful in the end.

- With the advent of Globalization and the adoption of
Employees first culture, More than ever in the history of human kind, there is now an unrelenting focus on people and Individual Excellence and Organizations are beginning to understand the same.

Personal Excellence=Excellence in various Life situations: I find Personal Excellence very closely associated with how one deals with different situations you find yourself in. Most of us generally gets to deal with myriad of situations when executing our professions. Some can be easy, Some will be tough for sure. Its actually how one gets to handle the different situations defines the level of success one enjoys. You can either be faced with a tough boss or tough colleague, or with a situation of people around you being fired, or even the situation of having to convey a bad news (as a testers we are often) or even the situation of having promoted, there can be numerous such situations.
Shane Warne once said-
Never worry about the situation you are in because that is already upon you. Instead ask yourself how can you win from here.

An uncluttered mind and an ability to think on feet are important when dealing with situations specific to Conveying the bad news (last minute bugs, not so pleasant news about Product Quality etc.) as there can be a lot of unexpected conversations during these situations. Preparing for worse is a wise move but keeping your mind clouded with worse happening doesnt help. As Michael Fox once said- "Never think too much about the worse for it may never happens. If you keep thinking about the worse and Even if it happens by chance, you would have lived it twice.".

Handling Disappointments: The Unexpected conversations in the above situations can also lead to disappointments. Handling disappointments successfully is as important as handling the successes in one's career.
I found Don Shula's twenty-four hour rule quite relevant in managing disappointments at workplace. As Don Shula says-
I had a twenty-four hour rule. I allowed myself, my coaches, and our players a maximum of twenty-four hours after football game to celebrate a victory or bemoan a defeat. During that time, everyone was encouraged to experience the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat as deeply as possible, while learning as much as we could from that same experience. Once the twenty-four hour deadline had passed, we put it behind us and focused our energies on preparing for next opponent.

Difference between "Commitment" and "Interest"
For managing multiple tasks and passions at work and in life in general, it is important to be able to distinguish between the tasks you are merely interested in as against the tasks you are truly committed for. As Ken Blanchard says in his book "The Heart of a Leader"
I learned from author and consultant Art Turock that we need to make a distinction between being interested and being committed. When you are "interested" in doing something, you only do it when its convenient, but when you are "committed", you follow through no matter what, no excuse."

Managing time and priorities Another aspect that i find quite relevant in managing multiple tasks and passions is Effective time management and effort prioritization. I have learned that managing time well is more about managing yourself well so that you can make most of the time.
Subroto Bagchi in his book- “The Professional” mentions-
It is probably more effective to watch and learn from people who actually seem to manage their time well, and who feel productive and satisfied. My experience of meeting many such people and working with them tells me the primary quality they all have is self-discipline. If someone does not have basic self-discipline, you will soon find that poor time management is just one of their many problems.
On Prioritization-
The issue some people face is not the absence of a goal, whether big or small. The issue is their multiplicity. For people with resources, it is the lack of prioritization that becomes a big problem . It is important to prioritize one’s life. Ask what is really important to you. Also ask why this thing is so important and are you willing to commit yourself completely to it.
The prioritization of work is more often as simple as having discipline to put down all your tasks on a paper or document and number them in order of execution. Simple. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Setting your own benchmarks: Most people benchmark their progress with the number of promotions one gets and after how long. This may be a right benchmark depending upon your goals and aspirations but more often this is typically done to keep up with rather false societal norms. It is important to set own benchmarks for self and work towards having a body of work that you can be proud of and remembered for. Getting promoted alone may not be the best benchmark for one's career. It is not always a true measure of excellence in job.

The need to Initiate, Getting Started: In our work places, how many ideas (initiated by others or self) do we reject everyday either by saying or within our minds thinking they are worthless? How many times we get scared to ask a question in a large gathering thinking that people will ridicule even a single slip of tongue? How many times our own self stops us from trying something new just because that very something new will break the routine way of doing things ? I salute you if you answer "None" to any or all of these questions. But the fact of matter is that in most of the situations, without realizing, we fail to initiate. Many ideas die a silent death just because they are not allowed to come out, Just because we don’t get started. As Seth Godin says in his book- "Poke the Box"
The essence of human is to get started
So for a change raise your hand to take up an initiative you have no knowledge about. That very act will make you better than those who have knowledge but no will to get started. Any Knowledge and Skill can be attained much faster than you can imagine, it is often the willingness to get started that separates Achievers from Average employees, from Dispensable to indispensable employees.

How well do we ask for feedback often separates how much better do we get ? Paul Arden in his book- Whatever you think, think the opposite says-
Ask for a Slap in the face.
Let me explain- if you ask someone your piece of work and you ask them “What do you think ?”, they will probably say its ok because they don’t want to offend you. Next time, instead of asking what is right, ask for What is wrong in this piece of work ? This question usually changes the equation a bit. They may not say what you want to hear but the chances are that they will give you a truthful criticism. Truth hurts but in a long run it is better than a pat on the back.

What’s your definition of "Done" and how Religiously do you follow it ?
When someone says I have Done something, how would you know that something is really Done.
As Subroto Bagchi says beautifully in his book “The Professional”-
"The quality to do what you have said you will do, in the time you have committed to must be applied to the smallest of tasks in your life. Without it, you not only disrespect others, you disrespect yourself."

- The Final point i made in the presentation was that The very idea of Personal Excellence goes beyond self. This may sound contradictory to what i mentioned in the beginning but i believe that the whole notion of Personal Excellence can sometimes (and often) make ourselves very Selfish. After all, by its very nature, Personal Excellence is close to you. I was reading this interesting story of Mirake Couriers . They are a Courier company with a difference in the sense that they employ only deaf people in their organization. The whole act of delivering a courier does not ideally require the delivery man speaking. Its just Packed, Delivered and Sealed. What a beautiful company!
How much of Software Testing can we do by not being able to speak ? Can deaf people make good testers ? The more i think about it, the more i tend to believe that if we as a professionals, in order entire careers can guide and mentor the differently-abled people and help them shine, it will transition our profession from a Wonderful one to a Beautiful one.
That’s why i say the whole idea of Personal Excellence should eventually move beyond self. After one has achieved excellence, help spread it!

Signing off this blog post on this note. Do send your feedback! (Sorry for such a long post. I couldnt help but write)

Presented a Corporate Techtalk on Globalization Testing

2011-07-29T13:55:00.002+05:30

Earlier in the month of July, i was involved in presenting a TechTalk at Aditi Technologies in Bangalore. The TechTalk was on the topic- "Uncovering myths around Globalization Testing".
This talk was as a result of Invitation by one of the Testing community members Ravisuriya . Thank you Ravisuriya.

The presentation for this talk can be found here .

The overall Presentation setup was good and there were quite a few questions in the end about the topic discussed. One of the questions that caught my attention was-
"Is it possible to eliminate Globalization testing altogether?”
Although as a passionate professional, i may be biased in my views and opinions around this but this one is good to think further and investigate. I did respond with a "No" with some reasons around external dependencies and Product architecture and lot of other variable factors but this one certainly deserves a little bit more thought.
There was one more good question on what is the right ratio of Globalization testing vs English Testing.
I would write about my perspective to these questions sometime soon.

One Effective way to learn about Software Globalization Engineering

2011-07-24T19:32:00.006+05:30

If you want to Learn about Software Globalization Engineering, one of the practical tools that i have come across is "World Ready Software Example", which can be found here .

Originally designed to support only Windows 2000 and Windows XP, this tool actually works on Windows 7 to a good extent. You can actually try out several features of a fully Globalized application.

What can you do with this tool ?
- You can check the Local formats like Date, Time, Currency, Calendar, Numbers from the loads of different locales.
- You can input any Unicode characters and see how a truly Globalized application processes the characters,\.
- You can check the Multilingual User Interface feature and change the current language to any listed language at the run-time.
- You can simulate Pseudo Translation.
- You can simulate Pseudo Mirroring. Mirroring is the process of simulating the RTL (Right-to-Left languages like Arabic etc.).
- And much more.

How does this tool look like ?

Presented at the SofTec 2011 Software Testing Conference

2011-07-03T10:08:00.010+05:30

I am back and on the time that i promised. Breaks are always good and this one was no different.

I got the invitation to present at Silicon India's SofTec 2011 Software Testing Conference and completed my presentation yesterday. The stage was not new for me having presented in 2010 edition as well(on the same stage). When i got the call to present at the conference, i had in mind to speak about Cloud phenomenon for some reasons-
- In 2010, i presented on "Globalization Testing- Getting your Software World Ready". This year it had to be different.
- Cloud is more of an in-phenomenon and more relevant to talk about in the Conference.
- I had developed a fascination for the similar topic earlier this year and thought i could build upon that.

Summary of my talk:
So my Topic for SofTec 2011 was- "The Emergence of Cloud Computing and Software Testing- A Perspective". I primarily talked broadly on the following areas-
- Importance of Learning by Association.
- Associating the origin of Cloud computing with the Advent of Electricity.
- Basics of Cloud computing including Grid and Utility computing.
- Covering the business models around Cloud Computing- including IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.
- The inter-relation between Cloud Computing and Software Testing.
- What are the different ways Testing could be moved on to the cloud- Public cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid clouds.
- Explaining the Fundamental shift from the testers owning Physical machines to test Software applications traditionally to now testers owning raw computing power. All this made possible with Virtualization.
- How could Cloud's elasticity be used effectively in Software testing ?
- How does cloud amount to Green Software Testing ?
- How can Snapshot features help the Software Testing ?
- How is the Virtual lab automation make Software Testing effective ?
- Then i discussed some Live examples primarily featuring-
- Test Management on the Cloud.
- Test data generation on the Cloud.
- On demand usability testing using Cloud.
- Mobile handset testing
- Blogging
- Followed by presentation around the Security and Availability concerns around Cloud and some perspectives around that.

Question and Answers:
Overall it went good and flawless to an extent. Post presentation there were quite a few offline questions. One of the Intriguing questions from a participant was- "When i use Virtual test environment, i am not seeing some of issues that my customers are seeing on the Physical hardware". Upon Investigation, it appeared that the code base of application under test was more than a decade old and that might have some dependency on the results that were seen/not seen. However, i will be exploring this question in a bit more detail and would like to blog about the same in the near future.

Other Interesting Sessions:
I liked the Panel talk involving Quality heads of Companies such as Tata Global Beverages, BIOCON, Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles, and moderated by T.Ashok from STAG Software. This was one of the unique session in which people from Non-Software fields discussed their experiences around Testing as it relates to their Industries. I am surprised (having attended many conferences) nobody thought of engaging such a panel in the past. The discussions were enriching and most of the non-software people agreed to the fact that there is much more focus on prevention than defect detection as is the case with most of Software Testing. Also, there was stringent focus on Design and testing the Design itself. Reliability testing takes altogether a new dimension as the representative from Reva Electric car rightly said- "Software can afford to crash and hang but cars cant"
I quite liked the session "Software Fault Patterns – A Narrative from the Operation Theatre " by Dr. Sukanta Bhatt. His presentation style is unique and hilarious. Again, he stressed the importance of Accuracy, UI design, and understanding the perspective of On field Doctors. He really made audience laugh and drove home the point that Software Testing career cannot be considered complete unless one has a real life experience of testing a Medical Software. Period.

Overall a great experience. Time permitting, i really wish to record the video of the presentation and put in on Youtube sometime.

I will be back

2011-05-16T10:42:00.004+05:30

I started blogging more than 3 and half years back. Since the time i wrote up that first post of mine, it’s been a constant endeavour from my side to come up with a quality post for my readers sharing my experiences and insights in Software Testing primarily, Management, Life skills and much more. I can assure you that each of the post that i wrote went through a lot of creative cycles and eventually got submitted. Some turned out good, some average and some bad. Some had a lot of comments, some few and some none. It’s actually a part of being a blogger and a writer. Bottom line is that i have been passionate about Software Testing and Writing and that’s what has been naturally driving this blog.

More than three years is a long time and with mind always looking to churn out some remarkable content to write, it can get challenging. I have decided to take a little break from blogging. I always believe that taking downtime is Important in life, be it your work life or even including anything that you love so much doing. This blog and my other interests comes almost as a second nature to me, So it’s quite hard not contributing here, even though briefly. In my experience, sometimes taking a step back often works wonders in your journey forward in a long run.

So Please don’t be disheartened if you don’t see a new content in this blog for a while. In all fairness to my readers, i should be back by or before end of July 2011.

I would be encouraged to see what you feel/think about this blog and also what do you want me to write on. Please do share your thoughts around these.

Of being a Self starter, Receiving Feedback, Mentorship and Michelangelo

2011-04-29T21:31:00.006+05:30

I was recently reading thbe book- The Habit of Winning by Prakash Iyer and came across this story

The great painter and sculptor Michelangelo has several masterpieces to his credit. Perhaps at the top of that list is "David", his eighteen-foot-tall statue sculpted in marble in Florence, Italy. Now over 500 years old, this icon of Renaissance sculpture continues to attract- and fascinate- millions of visitors every year, from all over the world. Everyone who sees it goes back impressed by the genius of Michelangelo. But I am not sure if they all also take back the story behind the sculpting of this masterpiece.
The story goes that this mammoth eighteen-foot block of marble had been lying around for several years. In fact, it had been around long before Michelangelo was even born. Some great artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, were invited to create something from the slab of marble. They all looked at it and dismissed it as flawed and worthless. Nothing could come of it, they felt. Several years later, Michelangelo got to work on that 'flawed and worthless' piece of marble, and went on to create a magnificent work of art. Apparently, while he was working on David, a little boy went up to Michelangelo and asked him why he was banging away at the rock of marble, and hitting it so hard. 'Young man,' said Michelangelo. "There's an angel inside that rock. I am just setting him free.".

I did quite relate to this story as this tale is full of powerful lessons that we could apply in our Professional and Personal lives. Some of them below-

Power of Getting Started:
Before Michelangelo many renowned artists were called upon to give shape and life to this rough slab of marble but most of them dismissed the same as worthless even without thinking to try. Beyond all the artistic talent that Michelangelo had, he had a special quality i.e. the Power to initiate, that innate desire to start something.
In our work places, how many ideas (initiated by others or self) do we reject everyday either by saying or within our minds thinking they are worthless? How many times we get scared to ask a question in a large gathering thinking that people will ridicule even a single slip of tongue? How many times our own self stops us from trying something new just because that very something new will break the routine way of doing things ? I salute you if you answer "None" to any or all of these questions. But the fact of matter is that in most of the situations, without realizing, we fail to initiate. Many ideas die a silent death just because they are not allowed to come out, Just because we don’t get started.

I was reading this interesting article on How to measure Initiative ? . Found some great wisdom against which one can measure self on Initiative scale. It talks of following Stages-
1. Wait- People don’t initiate anything from self but keep waiting for Instructions.
2. Ask- Instead of Indefinitely waiting, you Ask your superior to involve you in something of meaning to you.
3. Recommend- This stage is more of not only "just" asking but also Recommending what interests you and the direction in which you would like to proceed.
4. Act Independently but Report Immediately- Think of an Action, Get convinced that it is right for business and take it immediately and report it back to Superior. This is mostly for areas you are delving into for the first time and building trust with your superior.
5. Act Independently and Report routinely- This is a stage when you are completely Independent and has been initiating lot of stuff from your side.
The story doesn’t tell whether Michelangelo had any boss but we certainly do have one. That’s why the above framework helps you know where you stand on an Initiative scale.

As Seth Godin says in his book Poke the Box , The challenge, it turns out, isn’t in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by. The challenge is getting into the habit of starting.
Start early, Start without someone prompting you- And become Michelangelo of your craft!

Mentorship:
When Michelangelo says those magical words- "There's an angel inside that rock ? I am just setting him free.", what is he actually doing to that rock. In some sense, he is acting as a Mentor to that Rock, chiselling it, correcting it and giving it a World class shape. Without googling for it, if i have to define a Mentor, he or she is someone who shapes your mind towards success in any undertaking. Mentor helps correct your flaws not even when going is rough but even stands to influence you even during normal conversations.
I always feel having a good mentor more important than being in the Influence of good books. It only helps to open up and look for mentor and create a stage for yourself to be a mentor to someone.

Receiving Feedback:
Another learning i gather from this story is that if the Rock was rigid, it would never have transformed into David. Likewise, if we as humans are rigid in receiving feedback, we would turn into a Rock that could never be moulded. Receiving feedback is as much as a skill as is relaying feedback. Hearing a negative feedback about self is sometimes as painful as Rock (if it was living) that Michelangelo chiselled. The ones who absorb this pain becomes better and eventually World class.

Do you have any more learnings from this Story ?

What does Twitter bios say about Software Testers ?

2011-04-04T20:37:00.002+05:30

This is meant to be just a fun post. If you are able to figure out any inferences (good or bad), i leave that entirely upto your own Interpretation.
I have included the Twitter bios of some of the people who are making some meaningful contributions to Software testing (except may be the last one in this list :-)). I am no authority to come up with the list of accomplished Software testers, so if you are reading and your name does not appear in the below list, Please feel free to think that i am at fault here.

Here we go, some Twitter Bios:

James Bach: @jamesmarcusbach
Author of Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar, high school dropout, unschooling parent, philosopher, neo-pyrrhonian skeptic, software tester

Arunkumar Khannur: @arun_khannur
Arunkumar Khannur, with 23+ years of IT career, is a Leading Advisor, Author, Speaker and Senior Faculty on Software Testing.

Praveen Singh: @vpsingh
Author'Real Startups' http://amzn.to/gqlImq Entrepreneur, Web Enthusiast, Blogger. Founder/CEO of 99tests.com

Michael Bolton: @michaelbolton
I solve testing problems that other people can't solve, and I teach people how they can do it too.

Ajay Balamurugadas: @ajay184f
Software tester passionate to learn to test any software

Jerry Weinberg: @JerryWeinberg
Author of more than 60 books, fiction & non-fiction, Consultant, Teacher

Shrini Kulkarni: @ShriniK
Software Testing Generalist, Systems thinker, Skeptic

Rahul Verma: @rahul_verma
Software Tester, Blogger, Python Enthusiast with special interest in performance testing, security testing and design of test automation frameworks

Vipul Kocher: @vipulkocher
Bhartiya, entrepreneur, Software Tester. Books, History, Movie, Food, ~Lover - TOO MANY INTERESTS, TOO FEW SKILLS

Narayan Raman: @narayanraman
Programmer, Wildlifer, Entrepreneur, CEO - Tyto Software, Author of Sahi (http://sahi.co.in)

Parimala Shankaraiah: @curioustester
Testing Junkie, Wife of a 30 yo kid, Mother of 3 yo kid, loves to read, enjoys long walks, foodie and a horrible cook!

Santosh Tuppad: @santhoshst
Passionate tester, blogger, testing enthusiast, friendly & fun loving. Director at Moolya Software Testing Private Limited.

Pradeep Soundararajan: @testertested
Known for creativity & moving software testing forward in India. Author Speaker Coach Consultant Director @ Moolya Software Testing Pvt Ltd http://moolya.com

Anuj Magazine: @anujmagazine
Passionate about Software Testing,ReadnWrite,Graphology,Running….Lives by- Life is beautiful because you can always do something that you have never done before

Some Inferences:
To me Twitter bio or any other bio for that matter is the manner in which the people want the public to view them. Sometimes, there is an intersection between how you view yourselves as against how you want the world to view you but such an intersection is rare. There is always some good deal of difference between the way the world views you as against who you really are. But lets forget this for sometime and go on and read the inferences i draw from all the above bios.

- For most of these people, they take pride in associating themselves to testing.
- Not for all though, the Testing is not the central theme of their bio as the word "Testing" does not appear in everyone's bio.
- For only a handful, the Years of experience in their respective field is important enough to deserve a mention in the bio.
- Most of these folks have multiple interests i.e. some prominent interests beyond Software Testing.
- For some, they associate themselves with an important event in their lives.
- Very few of these bios make a mention of their personal life in the bio. Most are inclined towards their professional achievements.
- Most of people like to highlight atleast one Achievement that differentiates them or makes them unique.
- Only a very few bios have some sort of numbers in their Bio. precisely, Years of experience, No. of books published and Age.
- While most indicated that they Love testing, very few were clear in their Bio on what type of testing they are keen on.

If you can think of any more inferences from these bios, Please add it to comments. Would love to hear your views.

Should the testers be responsible for pinponting the cause of Defects ?

2011-04-01T12:16:00.003+05:30

A tester works fabulously to find an important bug in an application and raises a bug report with lot of excitement and possibly all the details that he could include. The bug is 100% reproducible. After some days, the bug report gets assigned back to him stating that the Developer needs more information. Upon further analysis of the request, the tester figures out that Developer is actually requesting for assistance to help him "pinpoint" the problem in the code. Of course, the Developer is not asking the tester to go through the code but asking more intricate details that are beyond the scope of a bug report (as the bug is 100% reproducible). The tester is in confused state! He thinks that he provided all the information that was there to be provided and the bug is 100% reproducible, then why on earth would a developer need more Information. Let’s look at a perspective about this problem-

Is pinpointing problem a part of test group's job?
In my view, in an ideal world, in couple of words- It should be. Let me explain my perspective here.
Project teams develop Software to serve the customers. The test teams primarily exist to provide Specialized Services to the overall projects. The extent of Service include “what” and “how” of it and primarily depend upon the overall Testing mission we choose. Generally, one of the common views is to consider testing only as “Detection” and “Reporting” of issues. That certainly leaves out pinpointing activity. To simply put, pinpointing a problem is a activity that helps a developer figure out the buggy part of code.
It’s no wrong in treating testing more alongside the “Detection” and “Reporting” areas but when we talk about the notion of Service, one of the things that get associated with it is Value generation. In my view- In any Service related profession, more than anything else, the overall Value should always be upwardly mobile. Value from the testing group as such is perceived differently by different people who we work with and provide our Services.
Testing all that’s possible, Providing an Accurate flawless defect report, Providing accurate bug related information (metrics) that can help Management make crucial product decision, Helping support team giving crucial information on a customer problem etc. are some Value generating activities that goes beyond the idea of Detecting and Reporting. Of course, Pinpointing problems is another activity that helps add Value as a developer perceives it from the Test group. I know in some cases test teams even helped in fixing the bugs, so essentially it boils down to what “mission” do we commit to.
As Gerald Weinberg also states in his book Perfect Software: And Other Illusions about Testing
Testing (can be) for Discovery, pinpointing, Locating, determining significance, repairing, troubleshooting and testing to learn.

As I mentioned in the beginning, the above description represents and close to Ideal world situation.

Is it really possible to have the clear distinction between pinpointing and testing?
I think No, its not possible to create that distinction especially when we consider the product from a black-box perspective. If we do White-box testing, it is possible to have some sort of clear distinction. I think more or less every good bug report has some level of Troubleshooting done. But “some level of troubleshooting” is often not as accurate as “pinpointing”. Pinpointing just helps the developer to reach the faulty lines of code, identify the problem and fix it. Apparently, in a product with millions of lines of code reaching that faulty line of code is a very tedious job (sometimes a mystery!). If a tester helps a developer do that, then we have a delighted customer (i.e. if at all we treat him/her as a customer. In normal circumstances, we should). From test perspective, it is again the amount of cost we are willing to spend to reach this level of delight. Again, it leads to the eternal question- “what is our mission”.
In short, it is not possible to have that clear distinction between pinpointing and testing in our kind of test setup.

Does the time-limit heuristic usually work always ?
Gerald Weinberg also talks about Time-limit heuristic.
A heuristic that helps untangle who does what for how long states the concept simply:
Nobody on a project should carelessly waste the time of anyone on the project

According to this, the test team member sets a time limit and communicate to the Development team on how much time can they spend on the Development specific investigation. Beyond this time, the onus is on the Development team to figure out.
Since this is a heuristic and not a rule, its quite hard to define the time-limit. Only way it can work is if we make it as a rule i.e. Test team would not spend more than 1 man-day or whatever is the limit and track it accordingly. Doing so (without prior agreement) , will cause some grim repercussions including the relations with Development team.
Having said this, testers don’t have endless time at their disposal. So, till the time there are a formal guidelines around this, it's good to make the Development team (requesting the pinpointing Service) aware of the extent we can help without causing the Testing schedule in Jeopardy.

If the bug is reproducible, to what extent should the test team help the dev pinpoint the bug?
The greater degree of conflict (regarding pinpointing) between Dev and Test arises when the bug is reproducible 100% of time. Ideally, the Dev should Investigate, debug and figure out where the bug is in the code with some help from Test team.
If the bug is non-reproducible then there is even finer distinction between Bug detecting and bug pinpointing. I think Test team should lead the Investigation here whereas for Reproducible bugs the Dev team should lead the investigation.

Closing thoughts:
Considering the above points, I can think of the following points-
• Get in agreement with the Dev team on what level of pinpointing can the test team help with. It should be made clear at the start of project involvement.
• Have a Clear distinction on what Activities include Detection, Troubleshooting and Pinpointing. Possibly, include the same in the Test plan.
• Include Pinpointing activities as a part of Standard Test estimations. It won’t be too high a cost considering the entire span of release but it is worthwhile to consider it as a separate line-item.
• Be aware of impacts of frequent Task-switching for testers (which usually happens when testers switches to Bug investigation away from testing work). Not everyone can do it with an ease. This can be one area specific training can be designed/conducted for testers if there is a need.

Any thoughts ?

How well do your team members know each other ?

2011-03-29T16:07:00.004+05:30

Sometime back i wrote on the topic- How well do you know your team..." which had a prime focus on team work and why knowing the team is a prime tasks for any leader. In today's world, no matter how virtual we may become in conducting our work , the team bonding remains one of the foremost task for a leader. It’s not only important for a leader to know his or her team but it is also of great significance for the team members to know each other. This is especially true of a team in which people have been working together for a while, may be 2-3 years and beyond.

One can always argue that more the team members work with each other-the more time they spend together, the more they "know" each other. While this may be true to an extent, it is equally true that more time people spend working with each other, the more they start taking each other's strengths for granted. And they start considering their egos bigger than relationship and think more of shortcomings rather than positives. I don’t write this to say that this is necessarily right or wrong but this aspect is very human for sure.

It does become challenging to appreciate each other's strengths after a while so there is a constant need to remind each other of the value that each one brings in to the organization and to the team. How can one remind other team member of their Strengths ? He or She can openly appreciate the other person but in true sense this may sound as more artificial than anything else. There can be many ways to address this but i have found one exercise when done with the team quite useful to address this aspect.
Here are the details-

Required:
• blank sheets of paper (same as no. of team members)
• pens (same as no. of teamm members)
• Around 20-30 min in a team meeting
• Paricipants with Open unbiased mind

Procedure:
1. Participants sitting in a sort of round table setting.
2. Each participant gets one piece of paper and write their name on it.
3. As a next step, each participant passes on the paper (with their name) to the person sitting on right of him/her.
4. Each person now has a paper with someone else’s name on it.
5. As a next step, Each participant thinks for a while (1 minute or less) and writes something positive about the person who name appears on the sheet. The participant need not write his/her name with the comment. “Something positive” can be even some good instance, good experience that he/she would have shared with that person, or some personality trait he/she likes about him/her or even some professional achievement, skill about that person. Preferably write it in sentence form rather than a single word. The bottom line is that it should be something positive. If you need more to write, take it but try and be as honest as possible in the praise.
6. After the participant has completed writing, go to Step# 3 till 5 repeatedly till you get the paper with your name back.
7. After you receive the sheet with your name, each person tells any one interesting Positive thing someone has written about him/her.

Benefits:
• Helps people thinking something positive (beyond their egos) about the team members and reinforcing that belief.
• Help people reinforce the fact that irrespective of the personality differences, there is something positive to cherish about.
• The final sheet is something people can keep with them and refer to it anytime later. This can be referred especially when chips are down and looking at the positives helps one regain the confidence.
• Share some light moments within the team especially when everyone is communicating the Interesting Positive fact in a team setting.

Do you know of any other interesting ways ?

Myths about Globalization Testing

2011-03-16T13:58:00.002+05:30

I think i havent contributed to the Myths about Globalization Testing Series in a while. I do intend to write more about this and soon. In the meantime, i thought to just go back in time a little and list all myths that i have worked to uncover in the previous blogs. Here's the list-

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -1
Myth 1: G11n testing is not technical enough
Myth 2: G11n testing is majorly about testing the UI
Myth 3: G11n Testing can start only after the base product is translated

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -2
Myth 4: A person who doesn't know French cannot test the French version of the Software
Myth 5: A tester only needs to follow the test cases executed for Base language in order to thoroughly test the internationalized applications
Myth 6: There is no scope of exploratory testing while testing internationalized applications
Myth 7: The language verification of User Interface can be done by comparing the text on screen with translation outputs of any freely available Online translator.

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -3
Myth 8: If a test case works fine in French language, it will work fine in German language as well
Myth 9: If the Foreign text input in application text fields work fine by using the Soft keys, then it means the data input through respective Foreign language key board would also work fine.
Myth 10: Globalization testing doesn't require the same test setup as is required to do the Base language testing. Globalization testing can be done with a minimum test setup.

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -4
Myth 11: Localization - means Localized product on a localized Operating System, Internationalization- means Localized product on English Operating System

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- Demystifying MUI Packs
Myth 12: Testing International applications using "Microsoft's MUI Pack" or "Localized OS installation" means one and the same thing

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- Input validation testing 2
Myth 13- A tester can perform tests specific to text inputs for Localized applications using the similar approaches as the English language testing

Uncovering Myths...."Security Testing is from Mars and Globalization Testing is from Venus"
Myth 14- Security Testing is from Mars and Globalization testing is from Venus

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- English version on Localized setup
Myth 15: There is no use testing the English version of a product on Localized Operating systems

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- MUI Packs in Win XP and Win Vista
Myth 16: There is no difference between MUI technology being used in Win XP and Win Vista

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Reusing Test Automation
Myth 17: The test scripts meant for English language automated tests cannot be reused for Internationalization testing

Uncovering myths about Globalization testing- Context driven planning
Myth 18: There is one standard way of Test Planning the Globalization testing, which is applicable to all the contexts.

Uncovering Myths about Globalization Testing- Websites with localized addresses
Myth 19: There is no need to include localized web addresses as a part of your test data as Web addresses are always in English

Uncovering Myths about Globalization Testing- Knowledge of Native Language
Myth 20: If i dont know German at all, i can still effectively test a German application

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Finding Localization bugs before actual translation takes place
Myth 21: It is not possible to find the Localization bugs before actual translation takes place

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Testing MUI feature
Myth 22 : A tester testing Globalization features need not pay any special attention towards testing MUI feature.

Uncovering myths about Globalization testing- Approach to generate Localized test data
Myth 23: It is possibly the right strategy to randomly pick the test data specific to the localized language you are testing

Hope you enjoyed going over these again. Would appreciate your comments, suggestions!

Have you defined your Body of Work ?

2011-02-19T10:42:00.004+05:30

I tried searching for Software Testing Records, could not find anything. Why dont Software Testers have any records ?

This was one of the questions raised by one of the participant in an Open session of recently concluded Bug-De-Bug conference . Honestly, a part of me thought of dismissing it as one of those naive questions usually asked in the public forums/conferences. Luckily, another (and better) part persisted in giving this question a more thought in-depth.

During my early days in the profession, i often used to wonder- Why cannot Software Testing be as glamorous a profession as Cinema or Politics or may be like Soccer or Cricket ? What aren't Software Testers as popular and as famous as people involved in these fields ? As the time has passed and if i look back to find the answers to these questions, i see it in different ways listed below-

- Everything that is Glamorous and popular isn’t necessarily always great. We have had several example of High profile Politicians, Actors and even Sports personalities who are involved in larger than life scams thereby signifying a sort of ethical deficit. All that Glitters is certainly not Gold!

- With time and energy of people, Software Testing profession has evolved into a larger ecosystem, which is large enough to have its own Celebrities. It was not very long ago that Jerry Weinberg got chosen as a Testing Luminary by a democratic voting process. Is Jerry any short of a Testing Celebrity ? There are a lot of media coverage associated with Software Testing and its practitioners. And all this attention is well-deserved for a profession that is expected to have a market of $56 Billion by 2013. Yes, you heard that number right, its $ 56 Billion. The future of testing is going to see a lot of new Celebrities evolve and who knows it may become a sort of Glamorous profession (in literal sense) when someone comes up with a concept of Reality Show on Software Testing possibly having real time testers working in time-bound interval to test a challenging Software. Wow, the future looks exciting!

Thinking over both these questions again- there may be many reasons why dont we have records for Software Testing like there is no historian taking care of maintaining the record (like we have in various Sports, Politics), Nobody has attempted to apply in Guinness Book of World records or may be testers are not really fascinated by records or by being Glamorous and like to silently add value to the product.
Now, that raises a very Interesting question- What are Software Testers really fascinated by ? What defines the body of work for a Software Tester ? One of the Art blogs defined Body of Work as something that is comprised of multiple pieces that are cohesive in nature.

Robin Sharma in one of his books mentions this anecdote about the Body of Work-
Art Buchwald, the writer, who was around 80 and battling Kidney failure was once asked, "What is your idea of perfect happiness ?" "Being Healthy" was his reply. He was asked, "Which talent would you most like to have ?" "Living" was his reply. Then he was asked, "What is your most treasured possession ?" "All of my writing- my 32 books and all of my columns".
The point of wisdom that you and I can take away ? Greatness comes when you create something with your life that is not only bigger that you but outlasts you. Legitimacy and recognition and prestige and material things are all fine and are very human pursuits. But there is something far more important: Legacy. Making a difference. Having an impact. Creating something special. And meaningful.
What Body of Work will you create over your life so that the generations who follow will know that you've been here ? What will your "most treasured possession" look like ?

If you as a Software Tester are at the fag end of your career, what kind of things do you want to look back with pride ?
If you were to do a paragraph about your accomplishments in Software Testing, how would it look ?

Have you defined your Body of Work ?

Key Career Planning Lessons from Nokia's Slide

2011-02-13T21:55:00.007+05:30

One of the most talked about Tech News in past week or so has been Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's letter to the employees making people aware of current state of the Organization.

I am not sure how this letter got public but reading through this had me split into varying thoughts. One of the thought, i was feeling sympathy for the Nokia employees who received this. It must have been Earth shattering for a lot of them, after all who would feel comfortable in the organization when the CEO itself is describing the business to be a "burning platform". But at the same time, Other thought line is about the Learnings one can extract from the situation Nokia is in currently.
One of the aspects about Elop's email that catches immediate attention is his use of a burning platform metaphor to make people understand the extent of downfall of Company's business.

There is a pertinent story about a man who was working on an oil platform in the North Sea. He woke up one night from a loud explosion, which suddenly set his entire oil platform on fire. In mere moments, he was surrounded by flames. Through the smoke and heat, he barely made his way out of the chaos to the platform's edge. When he looked down over the edge, all he could see were the dark, cold, foreboding Atlantic waters.
As the fire approached him, the man had mere seconds to react. He could stand on the platform, and inevitably be consumed by the burning flames. Or, he could plunge 30 meters in to the freezing waters. The man was standing upon a "burning platform," and he needed to make a choice.
He decided to jump. It was unexpected. In ordinary circumstances, the man would never consider plunging into icy waters. But these were not ordinary times - his platform was on fire. The man survived the fall and the waters. After he was rescued, he noted that a "burning platform" caused a radical change in his behavior.

This immediately reminded me of Vineet Nayar's HCL transformation story in his book Employees First Customers Second . Vineet says One of the first Ingredient in making people onboard for any change initiative is by making them show the reality as is. People, quite naturally, have the habit to rest on Organization's past laurels and most often do not see the need to change. Mirror Mirror exercise is nothing but a metaphor to make sure that people view the reality as it exists as against seeing the reality in the rear view mirror (where they can see only positive results and laurels).

It is quite evident that getting large employee population aware of the need of change and getting them out of their comfort zones cannot be done in any soft manner. It requires a Strong communication by all possible means. That is where Elop's metaphor about burning platform helps him take charge of situation and people understand the heat of the situation.

Are there any learnings we can take from this saga in the way we plan our careers ? Some that came across my mind-

Do we often play the Mirror-Mirror exercise during our careers ?
i.e. Do we tend to get complacent (often without our own knowledge) and tend to rest on our past professional laurels ? Do we really take a real hard look at the way our careers are going and prepare ourselves for the Action how-so-ever risky (but with immense value potential) it may be.

Do we always wait for the platform to really burn before we accept that a change is needed in our careers ?
Here Change does not necessarily mean Changing the Jobs, most of the people in the IT industry (atleast in India, i know) are really good at that. The Change here mean Change in the way we perceive work, Change in the way we do the work, Change in the direction we wish to take our skill levels to. Are you really expert at initiating such change ? We often aim for expertise in our Subject area not in skills around Change Management and other Soft skills.

Are we really aware of how the ecosystem is taking shape around us ?
If you read Elop's email full length, you will realize how Nokia actually misread the way Mobile phones ecosystem was shaping up around. The massive popularity of Apple's design + Low cost manufacturers like Macromax, Karbon + growing dominance of Android platform almost consumed Nokia's business. And all this happened in no less than 2 years. The World Leader and a household name like Nokia came down almost tumbling within as less as 2 years. Astonishing!
The understanding of the way the industry is growing is not only important but also essential while planning for careers in today's time. Gone are the days when just knowing and mastering what you are supposed to do in your jobs was enough. Its isn’t clearly just enough. No doubt that one need to become expert at the very thing that defines our job but don’t just limit or narrow your thinking around that. Have a broad view of the job, the view that gives you a broad sense of way ecosystem is shaping up in the career of your choice.

Recession is a Reality. Do we make a mistake of blindfolding to the possibility of a Recession while planning for Career ?
Coming to my first point in this write-up when i mentioned that this email from Elop would have caught many employees by surprise. Why would such a situation be a surprise for employees ? Recession and Slow growth is a reality of today's times. I think the world will rarely see Hundred years old organizations anymore considering the rapidity of the change around us. Companies will come and go and Economies will go up and down following more or less irregular patterns. Do plan for 4-5 recessions in a career spanning 30-35 years. It is no rocket science but requires a bit of foresight and willingness to go beyond the comfort zones

Do not Quit when the chips are down.
Great careers are made when one learns how to deal with the crisis. There will many who would be planning for career shift from Nokia after reading Elop’s email. Most of those who choose the career move when they see crisis around are often looking for that elusive comfort shield . No doubt everyone has some personal/financial commitments w.r.t. the jobs they are in and in some cases Career move in crisis when chips are really down may be a good Option. But not always! Staying on and persisting often opens up the treasure of learning that one will never get in more relaxed, complacent Work environment.

Is your career on a burning platform ? Are you game for that elusive leap into unknown or stay on the platform that’s burning ?

Change Mindset,Not Jobs!

Please share your thoughts!

Google-Microsoft Saga: When Testers become Detectives ?

2011-02-04T16:16:00.003+05:30

2011 has certainly started with a bang (or a Bing!) Of the most talked about topic on the web in the recent history is Google accusing Microsoft of Copying its Search results. Refer this Google post for more details.

To give a brief background of this, am quoting the above blog-
It all started with tarsorrhaphy. Really. As it happens, tarsorrhaphy is a rare surgical procedure on eyelids. And in the summer of 2010, we were looking at the search results for an unusual misspelled query [torsorophy]. Google returned the correct spelling—tarsorrhaphy—along with results for the corrected query. At that time, Bing had no results for the misspelling. Later in the summer, Bing started returning our first result to their users without offering the spell correction (see screenshots below).

Once Google got a Sniff (Suspicion) of this, they started detailed investigation into this and even inserted some sort of Pseudo-results while Searching using some unusual parameters and to their surprise they found Bing results to be exactly the same. Now, that’s something! There are several thoughts and terms that comes to mind when talking about Investigation of this magnitude and its relation with Software Testing.

Is it similar to Competitor Analysis ?
In a typical Software Product Testing setup, when one organization is competing with other- Testing serves many additional purposes and one of which is Competitor Analysis. In this Analysis, a tester tests the product vis-à-vis the features in the Competitor’s products with a primary intent to figure out what we lack and what we are good at. For example- Comparing the how long it takes to access and use a certain feature (Performance Test) with Competitor product is a common practice. The data that we get after such analysis is very useful for the Product Management and even the Sales teams to help prove a point to the Customers.

Is it similar to Patent Infringement Test ?
Its well-known that Organizations reaps great rewards on the Employees who help Organization develop a Technology or an Innovation that could be Patented. One of the lesser known facts is that the same Organizations reaps even greater rewards if their Employees can help and find that their Patents or Patented Technology is being used by a Competitor. This is something that can help Organizations prove Patent Infringements, which not only gets hefty sums in winning Lawsuits but also help to pull down a reputation of customers. The Tests done to prove Patent Infringements require In-depth skills and Technical Orientation and it is usual that these are found accidently than in an Structured manner.

Is it similar to Hacking ?
Hacking may be an extreme term to describe Google-Microsoft Saga but the underlying principles of hacking remains the same i.e. You start Investigating with an Intention to prove something- it may be your Technical prowess, gain competitive advantage, damage reputation etc.

Whatever it may be, under each of these similarities and even more like these- there is one common theme- Investigation or in other words Detective Testing . Have you ever seen a Detective TV serial or a movie ? The way Detective goes about doing his or her job is by gathering the facts, gaining access to the Clues, finding the ways to establish the complex correlation between different events, form some hit and trial stories to solve the mystery and finally nailing the culprit.
The nature of testing that Google exhibited is nothing less than Detective Testing. Once they had a sniff of something fishy in Bing (Gaining access to the Clues), They formed a team of Detectives (20 Testers), Gave them laptop with IE8 installed with Bing toolbar, Created dummy test data, checked the results in the Bing (finding the ways to establish the complex correlation between different events), Tried more data (form some hit and trial stories) and then finally arrived at a conclusion.

This is an interesting correlation. Probably is true for situations when we test fully aware of what the end result we want to achieve. Suspicion may be thought of as a negative emotion in many a situations but when it comes to Testing such situations, it may prove to be a boon.

What’s your take on Testing based on Suspicion?

Bug debug- A Conference with a difference!

2011-02-01T22:34:00.005+05:30

I haven’t blogged in a while and there were quite a few topics doing rounds in my mind. During this creative tussle, I got to attend a conference in Chennai. The conference was Bug-De-Bug , certainly a catchy name. I got to talk on the topic- Emergence of Cloud Computing and Software Testing- A Perspective . I liked quite a few things about this conference-

- This was the first time the organizers the RIA-RUI Society and Chennai Software Testing Group organized a Conference of this magnitude. But what was most impressive was great exhibition of Organization skills by the team. The team work was pretty evident and everything just happened dot on time.

- I think Audience was participative and it was good initiative by the Organizers to reach out to the College Students. As a general trend that i have seen, the Conferences usually have only Industry representation. Having Students from the colleges attend is a good practice that can help to eventually bridge the Practical Education gap that we see when people fresh from college join the organizations. Another good aspect was the students stepping out of their comfort zones and asking questions. Certainly the way forward.

- Conference with a Cause. The Help Chandru campaign gained momentum. Was great to see it being a part of this conference. Wishing Chandru a speedy recovery.

- The topics chosen were relevant and each presented with unique style.

- It was good to see Software Testing Entrepreneurs on the same stage. Vipul Kocher (President, Indian Testing Board), Narayan Raman (CEO, Tyto Software), Praveen Singh (Founder, 99tests), Pradeep Soundararajan (Director, Moolya Testing). I have a feeling that this group is going to grow in positive direction in the time to come and it is a great news for Software Testing profession. We need Risk Takers.

Looking forward to more such conferences!

More on Bug-deBug conference in the BlogoSphere-
http://testingideas.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/bug-debug/
http://passionatetester.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/bug-debug-an-unforgettable-learning-journey/
http://shivakumar-mathivanan.blogspot.com/2011/01/why-testers-should-attend-software.html
http://balajiponnada.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/bug-debug-conference-chennai/
http://ticketnumber.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/bug-de-bug-the-testing-conference/

Do you want to be "Transformer" or a "Lost Soul" or a "Fence Sitter" this new year ?

2011-01-01T11:56:00.003+05:30

I had written about the topic of change earlier. No matter how much i feel i have mastered dealing with Change, something new always takes me by surprise. Irrespective of anyone's personal preference about Change, today's workplace reality is that in the end, there is not much choice but to embrace change. The choice is only if you want to do it Half-heartedly or completely with full devotion.

I had recently read Vineet Nayar's Employees First Customers Second for the second time in the month gone by. I would rate this book as epic in bringing about a positive change in the organization. It questions the traditional way of running an enterprise and shows how a management which is devoted and caring for its employees can bring about a change that’s not only makes employees happy but also increases the company's bottom lines. Some of facts that this book questions and provide a successful alternatives (proven on field) include-

- The greatest value for a Knowledge based organization is brought about by the employees who deal directly with Customer in the group and not by a CEO sitting in his fancy office. It is important for the organizations to have clarity on where the core Value Zone lies. It reminds me of one of the blog posts i wrote a while back on What is your Touch-Time as a Software Tester ?

- The traditional hierarchy followed in Organizations in which an Employee is accountable to his Manager is a farce as far as Knowledge economy is concerned. Every responsible soul in the Organization should be accountable to the value Zone in the Organization. In the current Knowledge economy, we have somehow taken the current Organization structures for granted. After all, How can Organizations achieve the profits of today by following the age-old hierarchical system

- One cannot reach Point B in Organization (or Life) without knowing where Point A is. Point A is of course the Status Quo and Point B is the vision. More often than not we fail to capture the Point A correctly. Having an unbiased picture of point A is important to succeed. People tend to get so much lost in past glory that they sometimes fail to find the opportunities to improve in the current situations. While we should respect the past glory, It is important to break that past image if we were to maintain our competitive advantage.

- Trust is an important element in driving any change. Employees will not completely trust you unless and until you, as a driver of the change, is transparent in your dealings. Transparency helps create that culture for change.

- A mention from the book- The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations . Most companies function like eight-legged spiders "Cut off one leg of the Spider, you have a Seven legged unstable Spider. Cut off the head, you have a dead Spider. But Cut off the arm of a Starfish and it will grow a new one. Not only that, but the severed arm can grow an entirely new body. Starfish can achieve this feat, because unlike spiders, they are decentralized; every major organ is replicated across each arm."

- Any small idea can create an ocean of change and enable a company to enter an entirely new performance zone, no matter what the current situation may be. These ideas, practices or people who originate them are called as blue ocean droplets after the book Blue Ocean Strategy .

- A change initiative can’t be termed as successful if affected people are not onboard. It is generally not possible to have everyone Onboard right from the day the change was introduced. When he first began to drive the changes in his organization, Vineer Nayar understood that not all people would come on board immediately and in fact there are three different groups of people depending largely on the way they embrace change-
Transformers: Transformers are the people who were just waiting for someone to initiate the change and they join the bandwagon almost immediately. They are the ones who are usually aware of shortcomings in the current environment but probably were not the influential enough to drive the change themselves earlier on. They are the people who not only embrace change but also are ready with suggestions, ideas and raise their hand to implement some to completion.

Lost Souls: They are the people who would never support any kind of change. They always have this negativity surrounding them and they somehow are never able to lift themselves from their hopeless state. They somehow believe that every new initiative is an eye wash from the management or the organization. Whenever the new idea is suggested they would simply go ahead and dismiss that not only in their minds but also knowingly and unknowingly try to spread their negativity by airing their views.

Fence sitters: These are the third bunch of people, who generally are reluctant to share their views, rarely would ask the questions and would rather play a wait and watch game. They may not openly criticize the change but won’t either embrace it with wholeheartedness. When asked their opinions, they are likely to say nice things rather than be upfront honest. They would closely watch "Transformers" and the "Lost Souls" and may even change their opinions in short time. In any change initiatives, such people are usually in the majority. They get easily influenced in either direction.

In my dealing with change, i find this classification just apt and it is very useful in understanding the dynamics and even the acceptance of change. One example from the past that comes to mind was around the time when the IT automation of Indian Railways was being introduced, that was indeed the massive way in which the Indian Railways operated. Being the largest employers in the world, driving any changes to work processes was never easy. I remember there were technocrats and visionaries who were favoring the idea, then there were employee unions who were fearing the attrition due to automation of Railway operations who were vocal about criticizing the initiative, they were the "Lost Souls". Then there were many people who were lured by potential benefits of new changes to the customers as well as the employees (Learning new job skills etc.) but at the same time distracted by Lost Souls. These were "Fence Sitters". It was good for the customers and eventually the country that such a change was made. And this change was possible because a lot of "Fence Sitters" and eventually "Lost Souls" joined the "Transformers".

So eventually with every defining change, over a period of time, "Transformers" becomes a majority with most of the "Fence-Sitters" going up the level and the "Lost Souls" either change their minds and embrace change or fade out completely from the scene.

What do you want to become this new year- "a Transform", "a Lost Soul" or "a Fence Sitter" ?
Wishing you a Transformational New Year 2011.

Do you commit to OAD while testing ?

2010-12-30T09:23:00.000+05:30

One of the concepts that Robin Sharma talks about in his book Greatness Guide is that of OAD. OAD is nothing but Obsessive Attention to Details . He uses this term in the context of Customer Service. He says-

leadership isn't about your position, it's about the way you show up each day, If your yard or home is well- organized, I'll bet your life is well-organized. If you are attentive to details like the birthdays of your friends and sending thank you notes after every meeting, my guess is that you are attentive to the details around your big projects and best opportunities. So pay attention to the details. Sweat the small stuff (like crazy). Commit to OAD: Obsessive Attention to Detail the best people and organizations do; Because the little things grow into the big things.

Customers are always the one paying great deal of detail in assessing the Service or the Product they are using. There is perceivably no limit to the level of details they can go and form an opinion about the offering. It only becomes imperative for the organizations to be exhibiting that level of detail in its operations.
Isn’t Attention to details a key trait when you are testing a Software product ? It sure is.

The degree of good testing a tester does often depends upon the level of details one’s mind can traverse through. Taking a leaf out from learnings out of Robin's words, "Just" Attention to details while testing is not enough. What is needed to stay competitive in today's world where Customer is like a god is to commit to "Obsessive" Attention to details. Someone once said- "God lies in details". In Software Testing context, isn’t it true that "Bugs lies in details" ?

The word "Obsessive" usually sound like negative in work context but i feel it is synonyms with the word "Passionate". A mind Passionate about Software Testing notices even the minor details, no bug escapes an alert mind. Unless a tester is obsessively detailed oriented, the bugs are bound to be migrated for customer to notice.

Be Fearless. Commit to Obsessive Attention to details!

Breaking the Shackles...Beat that "Thai Elephant" Syndrome in you

2010-12-25T00:35:00.000+05:30

While reading Project Management- A Comedy of errors by Prasanna Kumar, i came across the below story-

When a Thai Elephant is small, its trainer ties one end of the rope around the elephant's leg and the other end to a rigid pole. The baby elephant tries to sever this rope and set itself free, but the rope is too strong for a baby elephant. Eventually it gives up.
Even after Elephant becomes a three tonner, the mahout continues to use the same rope. The reason is, as a baby elephant it is conditioned to think that it cannot break the rope. The Elephant does not realize the awesome power it now has.

This story is not only true of Thai Elephants only but also has a striking resemblance with the way us humans think and act. I feel one of the reasons why people fail to take risk or choose to stay safe in life is because of the passive thinking that is strangled like the giant leg of Thai Elephant.

So, the next time your mind wanders and tells you that you are not capable to do something, just ask yourself- "Am i strangled from my past thoughts like the Thai Elephant ?"
Nothing is impossible! If you think you can, you can! Beat your fears, Insecurities and back yourself to do the new.
Just break-away from those imaginary shackles from the past.

Wish you a Merry Christmas!

Sense of Urgency- A Key skill in the Professional's toolkit

2010-12-02T22:22:00.001+05:30

The Story:
Vineet Nayar, the HCL CEO -in his book Employees First Customers Second , narrates one story of his encounter with a race car driver during one of his flights-

As we sipped a glass of wine before dinner, he told me about an incident from his past. It seems he had been in the middle of a race when his brakes failed. he asked if I ever had that experience. "No", I said, "What did you do?"
"What do you think my options were? " he asked.
I thought of a number of possibilities, but i really had no idea.
"Most drivers would do one of two things," he said "First, they try to get the brakes to work. Or ,second, they slow down. The first option distracts the driver and puts him at risk of a crash. The second option makes him a hazard to other drivers and also puts him at risk of a crash."
"So what should you do?" I asked.
"Speed up"," he said. "Accelerate past the other cars and then take whatever action is necessary."

Doesn’t this story sound like reminiscent of what we experience mostly at the workplaces ? After reading the first part of the story, my mind teleports to the days when every task that one handle is of highest priority and at the same time each task is unrelated, of completely different nature. Add to this, if you have some pressing things at home to attend to, then you have a cracker of a day at hand. To me, that for sure sounds like a case of driving a car whose brakes have failed and during such days you often wonder where is this car going to eventually end.
The second part of above story does suggests an rather out of box solution. Speeding up is usually the last thing to think of in that situation. The question that crossed my mind is - What prompts a human being for any action when in crisis or even when attending to Important things ? The more i think about it, the more my thinking gets skewed towards one trait called as "Sense of Urgency" in this situation.

What is Sense of Urgency ?
ehow.com defines Sense of Urgency as - "A sense of urgency is the attitude and process of treating key business or personal matters as if one's life depended on it. It is determination to stay focused on results and deadlines until the task or project is completed."
A Sense of Urgency is something that makes one work harder with the desired focus to work towards achieving your goals. People who imbibe Sense of Urgency gets things done faster and it is often a positive differentiator in life.

Does Inculcating Sense of Urgency help you work better ?
Employees who do not possess Sense of Urgency,
- Are perceived as having Casual Approach towards work.
- Often tend to miss deadlines.
- Miss the vital instructions that could help them do the tasks better.
- Often miss out on competition.
- Have their own ideas of work performance and are happy satisfying that.
- Are often at the receiving end of reminders to complete the tasks.
- Find it hard to understand/meet Work commitments.
- Tend to get easily satisfied with the Status Quo even if it is of average quality.
- Do not generally think beyond the obvious to complete the work.

Keeping the above points in mind, the answer to the question- "Does Inculcating Sense of Urgency help you test better ?" to me is, Why not ? For Example-Take a look at any successful Testing effort, you will find that it follows a well-defined mission. A mission is that end goal that is kept in mind and which is determinant of success for a test engineer. All along when a person is testing, he/she tend to utilize the various thinking patterns- System thinking, Creative thinking to come up with the consistent stream of test ideas. Testing outputs are often always time bound. It is a well-known fact that testing if done without consideration of risk can be an infinite activity. It is the Sense of Urgency that helps a test engineer maintain his focus, help prioritize the tests and do what is best for the moment. Testing is often done in Timeboxes. Unless a test possess required Sense of Urgency in addition to Testing skills, the testing would often tend to lose the foresight and will spill over the Timebox.

How can i inculcate Sense of Urgency ?
In the book The Road Ahead , Bill Gates said that a secret to Microsoft success is that the employees always think of themselves to be in the losing side, and this makes them strive to be number one everyday. This attitude creates a sense of urgency which makes them work hard to survive in the highly competitive environment of IT industry.

All along i have known one way to Inculcate Sense of Urgency and that is to consider the current task at hand as "THE MOST IMPORTANT" task as if your job is dependent on the successful completion of that. Try out, it works if done honestly.
So, go into the next work session as if it is the most important session in your professional career.

Is Sense of Urgency always a positive trait ?
Today i was reading one of the recent blogs from Vineet Nayar- Speed Kills. Slow is Fast. It presents quite a reasonable view on how in today's world, when the expectations are sky high, when decision needs to be made in split seconds, the age old notion of decision making by considering the balanced view (all possibilities) of any situation seems just that- age old. Surface thinkers are vastly gaining prominence. In this competitive world, what seems to be lacking is someone taking comprehensive view of any situation and come up with an appropriate views to handle stuff at hand. The point is that Sense of Urgency does help speed up things but in the mad race sometimes the very reason why something is being done a takes back seat. Do read this blog to gain that precious perspective.

What is your experience regarding the "Sense of Urgency" trait ? Do share your views and comments.

Help Chandru!

2010-12-01T23:01:00.000+05:30

If you have not already visited Pradeep Soundararajan's blogpost- Help Chandru live his testing dreams! , I would really request you to once go through the same and provide any help you can.

Chandru is a fellow tester from India who has been diagosed with Blood Cancer at a young age. From what i know from Pradeep, this guy is a fighter and is not going to give up anytime.
Would urge you, Dear reader to come forward provide any help you can. Afterall, it only proves how closeknit, responsible, sensitive and committed is the Testing community.

For more details visit the blog

How well do you know your team ?- Asking the questions that matter

2010-10-17T11:17:00.000+05:30

With most of the work in today's world getting more collaborative in nature, with the world around us getting flatter by the day, with the teams around us getting more and more diverse, the true success of the team's endeavors more often than not lies in the answer to this question- "How well do you know your team ?"

We live in a "Faceless" work era. Looking back, there are several instances where i have been involved in doing business with the people successfully over years without even having to see or meet them. This may have sounded very astonishing probably during the generation when my parents were working but now every other employee might have a same experience to share. But whatever it is- i am still amazed at the ability of human beings to work together and achieve success together without having to see each other and without understanding the underlying emotions, with just the strands of work sharing that common goal connecting them together. In this situation, the success could not be taken for granted and is not assured unless you know the team members better.

In the question- "How well do you know your team ?" the word "you" does not necessarily denote a leader, though people without effort tend to believe that it’s only the leader who has to know the team to ably get the work done. Well, it’s true for sure but the "You" (in that question) actually represents everyone in the team irrespective of their designations and roles people play in the team. It’s not only in the case of Self-managed teams that team members need to know each other but also the teams that function under autocratic setup where a Single leader takes majority of decisions. In such a setup, even though a Leader takes majority of decisions and setups up the strategy, the plans tend to remain as "Paper Plans" unless they are executed well. It is the team dynamics that is one of the important factor that decides how well the plan gets executed.

I have myself been in position of a "designated" Leader for quite a few projects and my experience suggests to me that understanding the team members is an important dimension to the leadership and without spending adequate efforts in this direction all the success as a leader is superficial to me. People are not machines, afterall. One thing i hate inherently is calling or referring to people as "Resources". People are the most important assets in a Knowledge economy. To me, "Resources" is the term best used to represent things such as Hardware, Software etc. that helps People in achieving overall mission. Referring to people as mere "Resources" is no less than being a derogatory phrase to me. I think for a leader one of the foremost task is to know the people who he works for (i.e. his team), and the people who help him achieve the overall objectives.

In this post and subsequent posts on this i would try and mention the attempts or techniques that i have employed in my experience to know the team members better. Hoping to start a meaningful dialog with readers to understand their views on this important but often neglected topic.

The Technique- "Asking the Questions that matter" :
The technique that i wanted to talk about in this blog is as simple as Asking the Questions that matter to the people you as a leader work for. I keep using the phrase "to the people you as a leader work for" while describing the work sphere of a leader because i firmly believe that gone are the days when the perception of leadership was that people work for you. We live in a age when people who you lead are often more smart than you are in many aspects and without their presence the existence of a leader is zilch.

As a part of "Asking the Questions that matter" technique, below is the excerpt of an email that i usually send to people who i have started to work with as a leader or even to those who i have been working for some time. I learned this technique in one of my trainings at Stephen Covey long back, though i have actually customized some parts to my needs-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi (Name of the Person),
As we work together, I’d like to know more about you so I can help you to grow and develop and make your highest and best contribution. Please take a few minutes to respond to the following questions.

• What kind of work have you always loved doing?
• Is there anything about your job that you dislike ?
• What job-related opportunities are you passionate about and are looking forward to?
• What do you feel (skills etc.) you are really good at?
• What are the areas you think you need to grow and develop further ? What opportunities do you foresee for growth and development here?
• Is there a way you think your work environment can be further improved?
• What significant contribution do you strive to make in your current role?

I would like you to treat this conversation as confidential and respond as much as you honestly know and after I get your responses, I’d like to sit down together and discuss this further.

Please let me know if you can send me your responses by (Whatever is the deadline) or sooner. If you need more time, let me know.

Regards,
Anuj

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How do people generally respond to this ?
In my experience, the people who receive this email, can respond in one of the four ways-
1. Sensing an opportunity to let the leader know his or her aspirations, the person does best to respond with the correct information to the best of his or her knowledge.
2. People generally will be defensive and would not write anything controversial that is completely out of the norm and give superficial replies.
3. People vent out their frustrations and write stern remarks.
4. People do not respond at all.

How do you interpret the response ?
An experienced leader will easily recognize under which of the above four categories do the people's response falls under and for others, it might take a bit of application of common sense to figure out the category of the response.

In my assessment, whatever the team member respond, it’s a winning situation for a leader. Below are my interpretations of the above responses-

1. Of course, this is the best response. It gives a crucial insights for a leader into his team's liking and dislikes, aspirations etc. The responses form an ideal platform for further meaningful discussions and help in effectively marrying the work priorities with team member's greatest strengths and aspirations.

2. The second response will be easier to figure out and the effective leader will align the follow-up discussion and dig deeper into the real issues. It will require asking more focused questions face-to-face. But generally the good responses from such discussions come only after the required trust has been established between the leader and the team. It might be good for the leader to judge and figure out the exact reasons why the team member was not open to him in first place and work to rectify any problems.

3. The third response is an obvious indicator for the leader that something is seriously wrong that needs to be addressed with higher priority. Also, the leader should appreciate the honesty of the person and not take the remarks personally. The leader needs to be displaying genuine empathy is follow-up discussions.

4. Regarding the fourth response, no news is not always the good news. This may also indicate the lack of basic trust that is not allowing the person to freely share his views with the leader. Again a meaningful follow-up discussion (may be many) help to pin down the real issues.

This technique is helpful in the sense that it gives a platform for a good follow-up talk. This helps provide a right kind of start and if done at the start of relationship, helps build the necessary trust with the people. But bear in mind that such trust is usually not so strong. Unless meaningful, genuine follow-up discussions happen and people get to see the results, such trust will diminish sooner than later.

I hope to share few more techniques to getting to know your team based on your responses to this post. Please do share your thoughts.

My foray into Weekend Testing

2010-10-16T21:48:00.000+05:30

I should have forayed with Weekend Testing a while ago but somehow could not. Its not wise to go into the excuse mode as to why i was not able to yet, so i wont take the discussion there. But what i want to be focusing here is my experience into Weekend testing.
The challenge posed to participants was to figure out which is best platform/tool to conduct the Weekend testing session. The setup for Weekend Testing Session# 48 was by itself challenging in the sense that it asked for finding out the best solution by testing the new contender tool (Old, tried and tested one being “Skype”). The new contender was a Real Time Collaboration tool called Pligus . I wont go into the details of the features of this tool but would certainly like to share my quick learnings out of the session-

• I had realized earlier but now experienced first-hand that Weekend Testing is quite an unique platform in which Testers irrespective of their Geographies and cultures get together in a session which is devoid of any Office Politics, without any interruptions to focus only one thing, which is Pure Testing.

• I had been involved quite much in Competitive Software Analysis in the past and this session refreshed my experience. The prime relearning that i had was to compare the two or more Software Product in question per feature. One way to quickly do these session to decompose the features of the product that you already know and try and find the same/similar features in the other product under question. As a next step, try and find any other enhanced features in the product under test.

• I revived the art of questioning. Was glad to see so many questions being ask from all quarters as soon as the challenge was given to the virtual teams. Questioning helped refine everyone's approach towards the task at hand and also at times added to confusion as the questions kept coming from all the participants. But i guess this confusion is useful in the end result and is not totally avoidable.

• My current Job profile of late did not allow me to test as much so this session was very much redeeming for me.

I could not attend the entire session because of some prior commitment but still could gather many positives as listed above. Looking forward for more such sessions.

Panel Talk: Achieving Test Competency – Challenges & Emerging Trends

2010-09-17T16:01:00.000+05:30

I was recently invited to be a part of Panel Talk in ISQT’s STEP AUTO Conference . Was a part of this session yesterday and overall it was an great experience being on the panel sharing thoughts and perspective on the diverse topic of Achieving Test Competency – Challenges & Emerging Trends . Other Panelists included Harinath Pudipeddi Practice Manager, Cerner Corporation and Ramesh Ramani Director –QA at Tavant. Harinath and me were in touch long back on a Collaborative Book writing project on Software Testing and it was great meeting and knowing him in person. Same pleasing experience sharing the Panel table with Ramesh as well.
In this post, I intend to cover some of the thoughts that I put forward in the session-

Achieving Test Competency is very much contextual:
While thinking about Skills and Competencies, Let me commence by first of all sharing my perspective where we are coming from and where we are currently headed in Software Testing profession. I think the past decade i.e. from 2000 to 2009 has been quite an eventful one in the history of Software Testing profession. Among the changes that have happened over this time, the profession certainly has gained more respectability and acceptance. Fundamentally, I have seen the Software Testing move from more being an Singular dimension profession in late 90’s to being more of multi-dimension profession. What I mean by this is that in early 90’s, the prime focus largely used to be on Functional part of testing i.e. the features that are exposed to customers through the UI. And over a period of time, the terms such as Security Testing, Performance Testing, Globalization Testing, Whitebox etc. rightly gained more prominence. I never say these types of testing did not exist a decade back but the extent of their applicability, popularity and awareness was way lower than what it is right now. There were multiple factors governing this change mainly- Expectations of customers, Post production bugs (and the noise generated by these!) and motivation to deliver ”complete" software to the market.
All the change that we have observed in the last decade or so had a significant impact on how we perceive Test competencies and its evolution. At the grassroots level, Test competency can be defined as ability of a person to do Testing well and effectively. "Achieving Test Competency" is no longer a simple phenomenon. With the diversification of Software Testing field, Software Testing competency has increasingly become very contextual i.e. when we say Achieving Software Test Competency, do we mean "Achieving Security Test Competency" or "Achieving Performance Test Competency" or "Achieving Functional Test Competency" or something else that is relevant. So, one thing is for sure, we dont have easy answers here.

Evolution of Software Testing Competencies- Practice makes a Tester perfect:
Speaking on the topic of Competence, i would like to mention about the famous psychologist, Abraham Maslow's conscious competence theory , which is is also known as "Four Stages of Learning". Relating this theory to Software Testing,
First of the phase that he talks about is Unconscious Incompetence i.e. the Individual neither understands the new skill and is also not aware or recognizes that he has any deficiency. E.g. A person who is still in college may have heard of Software Testing but may not be aware at all about what kind of knowledge is he lacking given the fact that Software testing is usually only superficially touched-upon in the colleges.

The Next stage is Conscious Incompetence i.e. when a person knows about what he lacks, has a deficiency on when considering a skill but has not yet put in effort to address that. Consider the same guy who was in college now joins an organization as a Software Test Engineer. Seeing a lot of activities happening around Software Testing areas, he may start to recognize what he lacks but may not have spend much time addressing the deficiency.

The Next stage is Conscious Competence i.e. when a person understands or knows how to do something and has acquired the nuances of the profession but demonstrating the skill do not come naturally to him and requires some level of consciousness. i.e. the same tester now spends lot of time learning Software testing techniques, tools, gets hands on information on different stuff, gets himself familiar with the indepth topics and various forms of testing and get experienced. He reaches a stage wherein he has gained considerable level of competence in the various areas and is able to work with little supervision from others.

The final stage is Unconscious Competence i.e. when the person has had so much practice with a skill that it becomes "second nature" and can be performed easily (often without concentrating too deeply). The powerful word here is that you gain so much expertise on something that it becomes a "second nature" and the skill and output flows naturally. One example of something that Second nature to you can be your command over your mother tongue. It is so ingrained in our systems that we don’t need to think twice before conveying our thoughts. Now, the question to answer would be- "Does Software Testing appear as Second Nature to us ?", "Have we achieved Unconscious Competence in Software Testing ?".

I won’t be judgmental in answering these questions here but to me Key to achieve Software Testing as a Second nature are 3 words- Practice, Practice and more Practice.
How much of Practice do we need to attain Second nature type expertise in Software Testing ? I probably don’t know but would like to quote a study presented by Malcolm Gladwell is his best-selling book- Outliers . Malcolm presents something that is called as 10000 hour rule i.e. Studies suggest that the key to success in any field is simply practice, 10,000 hours of it — 20 hours a week for 10 years. Excellence at a complex task requires a minimum level of practice, and experts have settled on 10,000 hours as the magic number for true expertise. This is true even of people we think of as prodigies, such as Mozart. During his formative years, Bill Gates spent several hours altogether in lab, programming almost nonstop for seven consecutive years. He was way past 10000 hours.
Another example, he cites is The Beatles, who performed live in Hamburg, Germany over 1,200 times from 1960 to 1964, amassing more than 10,000 hours of playing time.

This theory raises several thoughts-
Is this rule applicable to Software Testing ? Though I don’t have the researched data on Software Testing but I would rather believe that it is possible in Software Testing rather than not believing it. I have no reason to believe why it would not be given the diverse examples this study cites. This much practice would also help achieve what we call as ever elusive Second Nature in Software testing phenomenon.

Balance between different Types of Skills in Software Testing is a big Challenge:
Broadly speaking, we can view software testers as having two kinds of skills: one set used to perform basic duties at work, and another set of skills used to approach work. The former can be categorized as technical skills and the latter as soft skills. To elaborate more on soft skills, these are the ones that define one's approach towards work, life, problems, etc. Soft skills are people skills. The best part about mastering them is that the application of these skills is not limited to one's profession, but their scope reaches all aspects of life. Technical skills may teach one how to meet the expectations of the job, but soft skills teach one to succeed, and to exceed expectations. It is surprising that we spend our time educating almost exclusively in technical skills.

Having said so much in favor of soft skills, my intention is never to undermine the importance of technical skills. It's nearly impossible for a tester to survive in the profession without sound technical skills. What I intend to challenge here is a popular myth: Technical skills, and only technical skills make a tester a complete professional. I firmly believe that both technical and soft skills complement each other and the balance between these two is what makes a tester a complete professional.

For me, the key challenge in achieving Test competency is achieving right kind of balance between Technical skills and Soft skills. Aligning our schedules in a way that we spend quality time mastering both these types of skills and to the right degree. It comes with lot of discipline and afterall, we are what we repeatedly do.

Emerging Trends:

Virtualizing the Software Testing:
The whole notion of Software Virtualization has affected Software Testing in a positive manner and it has potential to create more positive differentiation as I can foresee. The whole idea of completing a complex setup in a few minutes which earlier used to takes weeks is so fascinating. All this has been made possible because of advent of Software Virtualization. I do foresee lot of automation efforts happening around the area of Lab Management some things and some tools that will help to automate the entire Lab Management, manage the workflows at the click of the mouse. That would require more expertise from the testing teams to understand the concept of Virtualization in-depth to reap greater benefits.

Achieving zero Globalization Test Technical debt:
I think, in the overall Software practice because of the way Software development was perceived in the past, currently we are paying something that is termed as Technical Debt . The term "technical debt" was coined by Ward Cunningham to describe the obligation that a software organization incurs when it chooses a design or construction approach that's expedient in the short term but that increases complexity and is more costly in the long term. Take for example, earlier there was not a pressing requirement from customers to include Security into the product and as a result, the developers were complacent or intentionally didn’t include Security into the product. But over the years, when Security has become so much an ingrained requirement now the Development teams are paying the debt by include Security features in legacy code.
I have observed the same kind of phenomenon in Software Testing especially while doing the Automation of International Software applications. People design automation framework only considering one main language and do not build in Internationalization in automated scripts. When the product starts supporting various language at the later stage, we end up paying the Technical debt by modifying the Automated scripts to support various languages at much later stage. This is an inefficient practice, which I think will change in the time to come.

Apple-ification of Software Testing:
The first million iPods sold in 4 months. The first million iPads sold in mere 28 days. Apple is everywhere these days and according to many experts primary reason why Apple is seeing a stupendous success is because of its fanatical focus on product Design. Apple has literally redefined product design in more ways than one. More companies are focusing on design as core competency. I do foresee more advancements in the field of Usability testing. Like Security testing was in infancy at the start of last decade, I would say that Usability testing is in infancy at the start of this decade. As the time progresses, I foresee more structure around Usability testing than it is right now and it will soon emerge as a specialized skill. Again, Like Security Testing was earlier, currently as I see, Usability Testing is more a function of design and it will be more a part of testing life cycle soon.

Advancements in measurement of competencies:
Second thing I foresee is more external completion judging skills. There has been lot of competitions that are happening in Software Testing space that help judge core skills and competencies relating to Software Testing. Some examples are Zappers-Live Testing, Test Republic- Testing and Defect Reporting etc. Playing fields are leveled for all the testers. This to a large extent addresses the problems with traditional recognition systems for testers like Bug of the month around the organizations.

Overall, it was a great experience being a part of the Panel facing an intelligent audience.

Key professional lessons from the life and times of James Bach

2010-09-04T17:13:00.000+05:30

Continuing steady on my reading expedition, i managed to complete- Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success quite a while back. Infact I had given a stab at reading it when it was launched and accessible free for a week or so. I liked it then but would admit that i did not comprehend the concept of book completely then. In the hindsight, it was may be due to the way i have perceived academic education all though the life is quite different from the book. But I am glad I read it again, most of the things started making much sense.
In some sense, this book presents autobiographical picture of James Bach. In Software Testing circles, the name James Bach needs no introduction. I don’t intend to use this space to try to speak on his achievements but attempt at something more interesting and meaningful to me that is to attempt and draw a picture of his philosophy towards life and work just on the basis on the excerpts in this book. This is something that i enjoy doing whenever i read any autobiographical natured literature.

Here is my yet another humble attempt at that-

Paperless credentials are more valuable than Paper ones:
We live in a world that is full of Four-letter acronyms for certifications that are supposedly meant to be telling an external world that you are "Expert" at something. Most of the people seem to be caught up in the mad race to get certified. I have no problems with that as long as that meets your purpose.
The problem at core seems to be that the definition of the word "Expert" seems to have been limited to achieving a certain certification and i disagree with this notion.
All along James's life he seems to have relied more on his reputation of work rather than something written on the paper giving proof to his credentials. The paperless
credentials comes directly from the extent of work done and meaningful work at that. It is only true that your reputation reaches your prospective employer much before you do.

As Bach himself says-
Buccaneer leaders gained reputation through the tests they faced in their work, and their portfolio of tangible outcomes.
I do the same thing. By writing articles and teaching classes, I'm able to show my work. I also have a website and a blog. I wrote a book. Most of the work i do for paying clients is confidential but sometimes i have more easygoing employers who let me show off specific documents or programs i've written for them. That's my portfolio.
My portfolio and my performance on tests slowly gain a reputation for me. it's my reputation that brings customers from all over the world. I don't directly control my
reputation. By holding string opinions, I have gained both friends and enemies. On Internet, with blogs, forums and social networking websites, a reputation can be made almost instantly.

Being Courageous :
The conventionalist will find it very hard to appreciate this book. The reason as James outlines is in the form of a truth and that truth is- Society mostly rewards someone who achieves something significant while staying in the realms of the conventional thinking, while behaving conventionally. This is quite true and more so in Indian societies where the extent of achievement is considered in direct proportions to heaviness of the title one hold in the organization. And its an ideal recipe for superficial success and good for the acceptance in the so called societal norms.
Going against the tide is hard and it requires a purpose and a lot of self drive. Given the attempt to go against the tide is for a positive cause, sooner or later it does help find one's reason for existence.

Using Ignorance as a Power:
There's an Excerpt from the book-
Once, i was suffering writer’s block on a technical article about measuring the quality of Software, my brother Jon announced he would use his “Power of Ignorance” to help me write it. At the time, he worked as a dishwasher and had no experience in Software Industry. But by just asking me questions about my article, getting me to teach him the material, he helped me find a new way to explain it, and i quickly finished the piece.

As i have experienced, Ignorance can indeed be a power if used wisely. I have been in situations where my wife (not from Software industry) has helped me crack some tough situations just by asking simple questions that elude you if you think of yourself as more knowledgeable. Isn’t the true test for Software usability is giving a Software to a person who is ignorant of its benefits and checking how fast could he get used to the product and understand its functionalities ?
Testers often also face Tester's block i.e. having worked on one module for a long time they do tend to not ask obvious questions which a fresh person ignorant of module may ask. While preparing for a speech, I always tend to imagine delivering it to most ignorant and more knowledgeable person in the audience. That helps strike a rare balance.
As above examples prove, Ignorance can be bliss.

Handling criticism positively:
There's an Excerpt from the book-
Taking criticism well makes me feel tough. If being a buccaneer means anything, it ought to mean that i can look at scary truth in a face and smile. While I’m listening to someone tell me I ‘m not good enough, remind myself that this process is the way i achieve deep self respect. From that point of view, criticism is a gift. There is a childish part of me that feels wounded by any kind of criticism. But I learned a little trick from one of my mentors, Jerry Weinberg, about how to deal with it. I notice the feeling and say to myself, “Oh, that’s the childish part of me, again, doing what it likes to do. Funny little critter. It will settles down again, soon.”

If you are working with humans, be assured that one of the by-products is criticism. There is no escaping criticism for anyone. I used to often feel in my early days as a professional that some people have the habit of getting on your nerves and criticize you. But over a period of time, have realized how valuable the criticism can be, if you learn to handle it such that it works for you. As Robin Sharma says in one of his books- “Love your Irritations” i.e. Get into habit of loving anything or any person that irritates you, He or that situation is certainly your best teacher.
I have tried James’ way of handling criticism and (though he doesn’t need my acceptance to prove it) it certainly works! The earlier one learns to handle criticism, the better it is.

Expect to learn from Unexpected:
One of the things that i liked from the book and could relate to well was the “Principle of Peripheral Wisdom”. It says that- “most of what we learn is a side effect of something else we are trying to do.”
The learnings mentioned in this post are as a result of Peripheral wisdom i picked up after reading his book.

Helping Competitors succeed:
There's an Excerpt from the book-
I understood how to handle people who were smarter than me: respect them for what they are; help them get what they need. By doing that, I become a part of their story.
Instead of competing with them, I could join them, or learn from them. But even if I competed, my competition could have a new purpose: to enrich my opponent, not just myself. I could treat competition as a special kind of collaboration.

To me this is unconventional thinking at its best. To me this kind of thinking serves best if you are working in a team or working to lead a team. Conventional thinking says that being a leader you should be the one having the maximum knowledge on the area of work. But with the kind of era we live in, where once has access to more information than is ever needed, there are very high chances that you are leading someone who is more smart than you. Infact most of the progressive companies encourages Managers to hire someone who is more smarter than themselves. At core, this is something that can help a company leap and grow many-fold. The very fact that one acknowledges that the other person is more smart, knowledgeable that you are makes the work culture egoless and hence more productive.

Wandering of mind is not bad after all:
This is one of the eye-opening lessons for me from this book. I wrote about this in one of my earlier posts . From my earlier conditioning and experiences, i always perceived Procrastination as a negative trait till i read this book. Procrastination as i now appreciate is a natural human trait and something everyone possesses. James talk about the way in which you can turn it to your advantage. Wandering of mind is usually considered bad in study circles where concentration is treated as something great. Allowing your mind to what it naturally wants to do i.e. wander for few minutes and come back to task at hand will only make you feel better. Infact, I have used "The Procrastinate and Push Heuristic" and also "Plunge in and Quit Heuristic" while creating this post.

Of course, there were many more learnings and a whole new way of looking at the Self Education that one could learn by going through the book but to me the above learnings stand-out.

Are you game for trying out something unconventional ?

Published: Why is Integrity foremost of Software Tester's skills ?

2010-08-24T14:14:00.000+05:30

In the month of August 2010, Beyond Testing eMagazine was launched. This magazine is being hailed as India's first Software Testing magazine.

I too contributed to this magazine and my article- Why is Integrity foremost of Software Tester's skills ? got published here. It took a cue from one of my previous blog posts and came up with this piece.

Do go through this and let me know your comments.

As for the magazine, i must say its an honest attempt by the editorial board to launch this. I think the biggest challenge would be to sustain this for a longer time and also make the overall formatting and layout look even better and more professional that what it is currently. One (of many) good things that i found was that it was quite good content-wise and worth a read!

Lessons Learned from Leadership Summit

2010-08-11T21:10:00.000+05:30

Last week, on 5th-Aug, i got an invitation to attend Silicon India's Leadership Summit at Bangalore. Overall,it was an amazing event. What else could it be when you have VPs and India Heads of companies like Microsoft, Dell, McAfee, Citrix, Intuit, NetApp, Mindtree, Yahoo, Tejas Networks in front of you for whole day educating you with Leadership as they percieve it, as they have experienced it first hand.
I feel blessed to be a part of this event and would like to share my learnings through this medium.

My learnings from this wonderful event are documented at this location .

Some of my favorite quotes from the Summit:

- If you have not failed, then you are not a leader.

- One of the key things for a leader is to build the consensus.

- Good leaders create vision by inclusion- including all the people involved.

- Best way to develop people is to challenge them.

- There can be 99 reasons why something could not be done. It takes positive thinking to find that 1 elusive reason on why that very thing should be done.

- If you don’t take risk, you are stagnant. And if you are stagnant, you are not going linear but falling back literally.

- A lot of times success and failures in career is because of what opportunity one picks up. Great leaders grab the opportunity when they find it.

- Be genuine and be visible- Don’t be arrogant or boastful but be visible and market yourself and your achievement in a right manner.

- Passion is absolute commitment to something you want to achieve.

- Leaders execute well.

- It is very important for the leaders to lead self before leading others.

- Expect and help your talented people to outgrow. The million dollar question is- Can you work for your subordinate in future ?

- Leaders look for opportunity when things are worse. Leaders need to demand results but also show empathy and look to achieve a bigger cause.

With due respect to all the speakers, i have included my honest comments in the document location above. If you find my dislike for a few sessions, please treat those as my views alone.

Do find time to go through the learnings! Awaiting your thoughts!

Would you ever choose to use "Hand of God" at Work ?

2010-07-18T13:24:00.000+05:30

The FIFA world cup frenzy is over. And we are all are now left with memories of the super moments that defined this World cup.
One such moment was during the Ghana vs Uruguay Quarter Final match on 2nd-July. The scene was set when both the teams were tied-up after the designated time. The match went into Extra-time and with just less than couple of minutes left in the Extra-time, the teams still tied at 1-1, Ghana spotted a golden opportunity. Ghana forward beating the defense and then the goalkeeper, who was lying on the ground as a mere spectator to the Kick that was meant to be landing at Uruguay's goal post but destiny had other plans. Just a few inches from the goal post stood Uruguan striker Luis Suarez, who deliberately put his hands to the ball, which otherwise would have landed in the goal post, giving Ghana the victory. The ball reflected and went away. The outcome of this act by Saurez was evident- a Red card and a penalty kick to Ghana. One of the most reliable strikers in Ghana took the penalty and as luck would have it, missed the shot. The rest, as they say, is history- Ghana losing the match on subsequent penalty shootout.
Image Source: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/03/article-1291679-0A4DF706000005DC-405_306x423.jpg

Luis Suarez later described his handball act as 2010 version of "Hand of God" drawing parallels with Diego Maradona's original Hand of God . Saurez obviously became a Hero for Uruguay as his act was instrumental in denying Ghana the semi-final spot, which would have made them the first South African country to achieve the honors. Saurez, more obviously was a villain for Ghana, denying them a slice of history.

I am not sure what went into Luis Suarez's mind but would like to make an attempt here. He simply had a split second to decide and act. For him, it was surely a big risk. Look at odds at stake for him-
- What if Ghana would have scored on the subsequent penalty ? Ghana would have won and he would have been villian for rest of the world including Uruguay. Uruguan's would not have appreciated his act had Ghana won.
- What if Ghana missed the subsequent penalty and win in the shootout ? I guess the outcome here would have been same as above. Saurez being a bad guy till the time he is on this planet.
- What if he tried stopping the ball but the ball goes inside his goal post touching his hand ? He would have been termed as a loser for whole life.
- Even if he were to save the ball, the odds of getting the Red card stared at him.Then too he was not sure that his country would win.

All these consequences stared at him but he chose to do what he thought was right for the moment and risking entire career and life ahead of him. But the million dollar question is-

Did Saurez do the right thing in overall scheme of things?

Lets look at why is it that Saurez's act was all fine-
FIFA World cup is a high intensity, high profile tournament. As an estimate, the Finals were watched by close to 750 million people across the globe. Not even the commoners, but the higher up government official including head of states of different countries follow game like ardent fans. The French President Nicolas Sarkozy got so taken aback by his team’s show that he termed his team’s loss in early round as an National issue and has even summoned a probe to discuss his team’s debacle.

With so much at stake, the term “Winning” takes altogether a new dimension. When each win is influential enough to lift the mood of entire nation and each loss is treated as bad as losing a war, “Win at any cost” seems to be the motto of many teams. Considering this, what Saurez did was just right because, the goal at just 2 minutes from the finish time would have virtually eliminated his team but his “Hand of God” act would atleast give his team an outside chance to reach the coveted semifinal position. Afterall, he was letting his country gain at the cost of him being called a scapegoat.

Didnt Holland try every trick in the bag during the final that earned them two figure Yellow cards ? Didnt they consider country above anything else ?
What Saurez did can be described as a selfless act. He didn’t care about his reputation, put country before self. He thought of a bigger cause- his country. His act was patriotic.

He may be treated as a patriot. His act was selfless, without caring about himself, he thought of a bigger cause- his country.
His act can be more thought of as an instinctive, split second reaction and he did what he thought was best for the moment and his country did eventually gain.

One more thing is that he did not escape the punishment nor did he try to question that. He got the red card, one match suspension. And as per rules, Ghana was offered a Penalty which they eventually missed. What was Saurez’s fault if Ghana did not make use of given opportunity ?

Now, Some insights into why his act was a bad act ?
“Hand of God” of Maradona and “Hand of God” of Saurez were quite different. Infact, Maradona’s act was more of a disguise when referee didnt spot that ball hit Maradona’s fist and landed into goal. Saurez's was an open violation of football laws. There was certain mystery surrounding Maradona’s act but in essence “Hand of God” is unethical. Just because no one saw, doesnt mean your act was all fine. Infact, at the surface it was a cheating act which the guy who did knew but no one else in the world had an inkling about. But just by labeling it as “Hand of God” turned it into more dignified act, and got the respect which it didn’t deserve. Saurez just tried to leverage the aura around “Hand of God” to find excuse and get respect for his terrible show of hand.

One more thing is that Red card is no doubt a blot on any footballer’s resume. The worst punishment that can be offered to a footballer. There is nothing actually to be celebrated for a red card. Even thought his country reached semis on this act, they eventually lost. In proves that Sports is actually a great leveler.

People from Uruguay may term Saurez’s act as patriotic but can he be called as “Role model” outside his country ? It is highly doubtful. It is infact every sportsperson dream to be a source of inspiration for the younger ones. Saurez, unfortunately has lost this opportunity by choosing to do something unsportsmanlike.

If such an act can be termed as good, should this be included as a part of football coaching instructions ? Should more teams be using hands more often in “foot”ball. Can anyone who uses hand in football use the term “Hand of God” to make his act more dignified ?
Does it not have parallels with Trevor Chappel’s underarm incident in Cricket ? Trevor exploited the loopholes in rule and Australia won but he lost the credibility. The Cricket rules were later changed to disallow underarm bowling.

"Hand of God" at work. Are you for it ?:
The term “Hand of God” can be treated as a metaphor for an act that helps a bigger cause i.e. helps achieve success in a meaningful venture but by using seemingly less fair means and eventually controversial means. We live in a fiercely competitive era. Organizations need a unwavering focus in sustain profits in today’s era. Ever increasing profit lines seems to be the mantra of organizations. After all the respect comes only after organizations has been successful. In such an environment, if an employees are often faced with situations when they have to choose between what is right as against something that not all that wrong but will fetch organizations much needed profits. But the bigger question is- Is it ok to make profits by compromising Integrity ? Did Saurez’s act compromise his Integrity ?

In his book, The Professional Subroto Bagchi talks about what Integrity means in the professional context-
- We follow the rules.
- Where rules do not exist, we use fair judgment.
- When in doubt, we do not go ahead and do what suits us; we seek counsel.
- Finally, faced with a dilemma, we as ourselves:
Can my act stand public scrutiny without causing embarrassment to me and my family ?

Often, the situations we are faced with are not very straight-forward. There is always a very thin line between an Ethical and Unethical behavior. But when the stakes are high, your integrity is put to real test. The best definition of Ethical behavior that i know of is- "Doing the right thing when no one's watching you ?"

For example, if you are a person who is involved in testing a product and know of a big loop hole that might impact the customer in a long run but the defect is such that it is not visible on the surface and would not impact the Acceptance test. I have talked about one such case in my earlier posts here . Would you go ahead and raise your voice and present all the possible facts ? or Would you remain silent and let the product go as no one is going to be finding about your defect anyway anytime sooner.i.e. Would you use your “Hand of God” and keep quiet and thereby helping the organization “succeed” in a short term atleast.

Such situations are tough, but i think standing by truth and being ethical is not the easiest thing to do. If it really were, the world would not have witnessed the Satyam saga and it would still have been one of most respected organizations. But the reality is not always sunny and rosy.

Are you for using “Hand of God” at work ?

Wanted Software Testing Evangelists- Are you game ?

2010-07-13T12:33:00.000+05:30

I was recently reading one of blog post of Parimala Shankaraiah . Sharing some thoughts regarding one of the points she raised-

I interviewed one person on telephone recently where I asked him to test a marker he claimed to have in his hand. He was shocked, “What? Test a marker?” He intended to say “Do you mean I’ll be testing markers in your organization?”

In my opinion, this reflects a larger problem we are faced with. Something that backtracks to the level of Software testing education in colleges. None of the colleges that i have visited seems to have deep or should i say any insights in Software testing as a profession. There is a disappointing narrow-mindedness that i have seen. The college staff who supervise the projects, do not encourage the students to take the testing projects. This happened in one of the colleges that i recently visited and also have observed this in past many times.
The reason i am mentioning my experience here is that even before the future Software engineers join the Industry the seeds of Job profiling or creating distinction are sown in their minds. And as a natural progression, it gets carried forward when these people join the Industry. Even though, such people will join Software testing as a field but will think "Automation" as a superior job than testing using mind. The basic premise that "If you are not coding, you are not being productive" is actually ingrained in the minds while they are still studying.

Gartner report of 2008 suggested Software Testing as a 14 billion dollar industry, which is only going to be moving in upward direction considering the advent of recent technologies including Cloud, Virtualization, mobile devices etc. coming up in a big way. What bigger proof do the institutions need about the viability and future of this profession. Have tried spreading the message of Software testing as a viable career choice with some success in colleges that I visited but I think the problem to solve here is changing the mind-set of people which is not possible entirely in one meaningful presentation.

We probably need more Software Testing Evangelists so that we get more new talent who join the profession by "choice" rather than by "chance".

Do share across your thoughts on how to solve this in a longer run.

Update on 14th-July-2010

If you were like me, you would too have this question that i asked my friend some time back. How do one become an Evangelist ?

I find the below exceprt from The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class by Rohin Sharma quite close to answering this question-

Being an "evangelist" has negative connotations in the world we reside in. But an evangelist, by definition, is simply someone who spreads good news. Its someone who get stuck on a big idea or a passionate cause and then walks out into his day and spreads the message like a virus. Its someone who gets so engaged in doing something important that its all he thinks about, dreams about, talks about. Its a human being who understands- at a cellular level- what Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said:
"If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live."

So, now what do you think about becoming Software Testing Evangelist ?

Presented at SoftTec 2010 Testing conference

2010-07-05T20:47:00.000+05:30

I got to present at the SoftTec 2010 Testing conference this weekend (on 3rd-July-2010). The conference details are available here .

It was after quite a while that i presented on a public forum and realized that i should be doing it more often.
This conference was different from the other Software Testing conferences (QAI, STeP-In Forum) that i attended in the past. Some of the key things were-
- Test Professional track and Test Leadership tracks were different and the presentations ran parallely.
- The conference was attended by around 700 Software Testing professionals right from Interns to CEOs, the audience consisted of one and all. Infact, this is the largest gathering of Software Test Enthusiasts that i have seen so far.

Coming to the topic i presented, it had to be something i eat, sleep and live (as i had only 2 days to prepare) and it was- Globalization Testing- Getting your Software World Ready .
I have posted the presentation here

I think I was able to complete the presentation just-in-time in the allocated time and credit to audience for creating meaningful conversations by asking some challenging questions.

Some Questions that got asked in Q/A session:
- How many languages have you been involved in testing as a part of Globalization testing ?
- I have heard that Sanskrit is the best language for Software Globalization. Are you aware of any Indian organization who are involved in researching about Sanskrit Localization ?
- What considerations we need to be putting towards Database side when we are talking about multilingual applications ?
- I am working to test application mostly in around 10 Indian languages. I am under pressure to devise Test strategy in such a way that i dont spend too much testing effort. How do i do it ?
- Can you tell something about Automation Strategy to be used for multilingual applications ?
- If i am involved in testing multiple languages, Do i test everything (as i do for Enhlish language) in all the languages ?
- If i am testing say login of the application say Japanese application, one Japanese character may occupy more space than English character- how do i plan for such a test ?
- I am involved in testing an application and sometimes i am required to copy labels so that i can check the meaning using some Online translator. Can this be done ?

I think this covers all the questions that i could recollect. I will be taking answers to some of these questions (some are already explictely covered in my previous posts) in the upcoming blog posts.

Overall, it was a hugely satisfying experience.

Update on 16th-Oct-2010:
TheSmartTechie magazine in their Aug 2010 edition ran an article on this conference. It had some comments for my presentation as well. Read below-

Can procrastination be a positive trait? Does reading help shape one's mind?

2010-06-27T00:12:00.000+05:30

I know the title of this post may seem disjointed but first things first, a story below-
Part 1 of the Story:
"Procrastination is a thief of time"- With this very quote Edward Young, i got introduced to the word Procrastination years back.
Then this quote prompted me to look at the dictionary for the very meaning of this word and it said "To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness". I also inferred Procrastination on the same lines as Absent mindedness.
While doing my Handwriting Analysis basic course (this course taught me determining different personality traits using in isolation using handwriting), I learnt Procrastination to be associated with word "delay".
More recently, while reading one of the fine books i have read in recent times a calmer you , the author described Procrastination as tendency to keep putting things on the back-burner, till the time they snowball into a crazy overload.
Over the years, i attended various Self-development seminars and all of these made my belief about Procrastination being a negative trait more firm.

End of Part 1
Part 2 of the Story:
It was not until i read two of the books that i quite admire that i started to change my rather established perception about Procrastination. First of the two books is Eat that Frog . It introduced me to the term "Creative Procrastination" and that got me thinking "Wow, can we apply creativity to Procrastination". The principle of Creative procrastination is based on a simple fact that we all know but somehow don’t acknowledge as much. The fact is that one cannot do everything that one has to do. You have to procrastinate on something. Therefore, procrastinate on small tasks. To me, the beauty of this approach is the fact that it encourages us to acknowledge the fact that everyone procrastinates and its only very human to procrastinate. This very acknowledgement releases a lot of stress that we often associate with this word. And secondly, it satisfy this inherent urge to procrastinate it allows us to procrastinate more on posteriorities than priorities.

The concept of "Creative procrastination" sounded all fine and sensible to me as suggested by the book- "Eat that Frog". It was not until i read Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How Self-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success by James Bach , that i could visualize "Creative Procrastination" in action. In this book, the James shares a lots of self-education heuristics that has made him successful. Few such heuristics are- "The Procrastinate and Push Heuristic" and also "Plunge in and Quit Heuristic". James says-

Procrastination occurs when i am committed to a task, I have the opportunity to do it, and yet i do something else that seems less important. I often procrastinate when i need to study, learn, write or synthesize new ideas. I call that creative procrastination.

The Self Learning heuristics mentioned are much based on the idea of creative procrastination.
End of Part 2

My Learnings #1: Procrastination can be a positive trait
Quite obvious inference is that Procrastination is not a bad trait, after all. More important than that- Never be judgmental on Personality traits. One of the lessons that i learned from my advanced course in Handwriting Analysis is that it is not quite right to be judgmental about human personality traits. There is nothing called as a good trait or a bad trait. If you look around the workplace, one of the easiest thing is to be judgmental about the people around you. "That guy is just a Lazy fellow", "My boss doesn’t have listening ability", "He is very stubborn in his approach" and many other such statements or judgments, should i say do rounds in the workplace and more often these are based on first thought or first impression, which is often not so right.

Reading the above stories word Procrastination, would you dismiss it as a negative trait as i used to do ? I guess No. Most of the traits have meaning that are context based and judgments that we derive are without the knowledge of that context.

My Learnings #2: Reading does help shape one’s mind in a big way
One of the more profound learnings that i had in the journey from Part 1 of the story to Part 2 is about the power of reading. Most of our preferences and perceptions gets formed based on what we consume from our environment. Reading is one sure way to feed our brains. My perception about Procrastination as a negative trait got formed largely due to the reading and then the counter perception also got formed due to reading. As is evident in this case, reading resulted in collision of ideas in the brain and it eventually bombarded the incorrect perception and resulted in a more balanced view about procrastination. More i think about it, the more i realize that to be more the better ways to learn i.e. read about contrasting ideas, breed them and let them collide in mind and the end result will be you- a person with balanced opinions and better perspectives about the things around you.

Well, to admit writing this piece has in itself been an exercise in creative procrastination. I started writing a while back but kept holding back till i had all the ideas in place and the ideas were presented close to the way i wanted them to be in. As James Bach inferred- Creative mind knows no deadlines!

Do you still find the title of this post disjointed ? I think No, If you have read till here!

Uncovering myths about Globalization testing- Approach to generate Localized test data- II

2010-06-08T21:22:00.000+05:30

This post is in continuation of one of my previous posts on the subject of Localized test data generation. To recap the suggested approach, here it is-
- Come up with the appropriate classes of the data as per the structure of the language.
- Once the classes are identified, enture to pick up test data in a way that each class has a representation in the text data.

In the previous post, i gave an example about classes specific to Spanish language. I though to extend this further to include other European languages German and French as below.

French Language Input characters classes:
Capitals:
À,Â,Ä,È,É,Ê,Ë,Î,Ï,Ô,Œ,Ù,Û,Ü,Ÿ (commas are only used as separators)

Lower case:
à,â,ä,è,é,ê,ë,î,ï,ô,œ,ù,û,ü,ÿ

Punctuation
Ç,ç,«,»,€

Special French representations:
HTML entity codes (HTML entity codes are the codes which allow browsers and screen readers to process data as the appropriate language) e.g. for the character á, the HTML entity code is á
HTML entity codes for French language are listed here .

English Lower case characters:
a-z

English Upper case characters:
A-Z

Numeric representations:
1,2,3,4....

Special characters (EN):
~`!@#$%^&*()_+-={}[]|\:;"'<,>.?/

Any Known problematic French characters (not included above):

Some Real French Test data:
The purpose of this class is to simulate some of the real time test data as might be used by customers for some fields. Microsoft Terminology Translations offer a good source to simulate real strings that are used in Microsoft Terminologies.

**********************************************************************************************************

German Language Input characters classes:
Capitals:
Ä,Ö,Ü,ß,€ (commas are only used as separators)

Lower case:
ä,ö,ü

Punctuation
«,»,‹,›,„‚“‘”’–,—

Special German representations:
HTML entity codes (HTML entity codes are the codes which allow browsers and screen readers to process data as the appropriate language) e.g. for the character á, the HTML entity code is á
HTML entity codes for German language are listed here .

English Lower case characters:
a-z

English Upper case characters:
A-Z

Numeric representations:
1,2,3,4....

Special characters (EN):
~`!@#$%^&*()_+-={}[]|\:;"'<,>.?/

Any Known problematic German characters (not included above):

Some Real German Test data:
The purpose of this class is to simulate some of the real time test data as might be used by customers for some fields. Microsoft Terminology Translations offer a good source to simulate real strings that are used in Microsoft Terminologies.

Watch out this space further for Test data classes for Japanese, Chinese, Korean and other complex languages.

Published- An article in Testing Experience Magazine

2010-06-08T14:25:00.000+05:30

How did you respond to other's work today ?

2010-05-23T22:04:00.000+05:30

Scenario# 1:
A test engineer working to test an application seemingly works hard to find an all important bug that is potentially a show stopper. He later takes care of all the possible details to log the defect. This defect goes into the series of confrontations with the Development team and after much of back and forth, the development team agrees to fix the defect. This makes the test engineer happy but he does not get to hear any words about his effort from his superior or for that matter none of his colleagues respond back on good skills that he displayed.

Sounds a familiar situation! It might be. I think most of us have gone through such an event or may be would have gone through it so many times that we have stopped caring that someone would respond.

Scenario# 2:
Reciting the above story again and this time say the end response is changed. The superior of the test engineer looses his temper on him when the confrontation with the Development team was happening without understanding the bigger picture of what he was trying to achieve. This definitely is an unreasonable response but not a unique one. Most of the people face the situation when they get reprimanded prematurely. I have faced it . You must have faced it too.

The question here is not how often you have faced outcomes in Scenario# 1 and 2 in your work life or how you responded when faced with this situation. But i think the bigger question seemingly is what are the prime factors that lead to such situations ? The prime factors not pertaining to the individual at the receiving end but largely why such situations arise.

Primarily, Why does an individual seek a response to any work done by him or her ?
Note that i have chosen the word "response" instead of "feedback" here. The prime reason for that is because the feedback can be positive or negative but the response to a particular situation may vary depending upon the context.

Any individual may seek a response to his or her work for myraid of reasons. One of the greatest reasons is Self esteem needs. If an individual feels he has done a good work,depending upon a kind of person he/she is- may seek approval from others to feel good himself. Self esteem needs are the most basic of the human needs and if it is not met, the individual will tend to be discouraged in a longer run. Every employee in true sense seeks that "feel good" factor from the job he is doing. It is one of the intangible benefits that an organization can provide in addition to all the incentives etc.
Other reason can be seeking the ways to improve his or her efforts. By giving right response, an Individual can enhance the work performance manifold.
One way a response to work can help is showing what is the "right" way to do a task in a given context.

Does the response needs to be given only by his superior ?
The answer to this question may be tricky as it largely depends upon the Organization or team culture as setup by the Group head. Going by the traditional model, the feedback of a certain task is given by one's superior only. But the avenues of an employee to improve does not end at the Superior's feedback given the fact that Superior may be working under several external forces when undertaking a feedback session. The employees truly looking to improve upon their work skills do not solely rely on feedback from superior and seek the improvement ideas from all possible quarters in a professional manner. I strongly beleive that for a success of team, followership is more important than leadership. One of the key responsibilities of a follower is to seek feedback and also give feedback. The practice of giving feedback may vary depending upon the organizational culture. Please note that the word "Follower" is generally looked down upon by certain section of employees. In my world, a follower is the most important element of a team and plays a crucial role to make the leader, the team and the organization successful.

Ken Blanchard's "response model":
I think it is apt to discuss the "response model" suggested by Ken Blanchard in his book- the little book of coaching

There are 4 ways in which a coach can respond when the team member does some work-
1. No response:
It means no acknowledgement what-so-ever of the work done.
2. Negative response:
It means that the coach is always on the look out for a mistake and blasts off, if it happens (how-so-ever minor).
3. Redirection response:
It means that the coach helps the employee understand the correct way and helps redirect the energies of the employee towards the goals when a mistake or failure happens.
4. Positive response:
It means that the coach makes an efforts to find the positive things and bestows a genuine appreciation for the good job done.

The responses# 1 and 2 above are quite common in today’s work place and infact these responses are easy in a way and for most people it do not require any effort at all. It is very easy for the Coaches to come up with these responses being in their comfort zones. In my experience, the no response is sometimes more dangerous than a negative response as it instills the doubt in an employee’s minds as to whether his work is worthwhile to the organization afterall.

Most coaches struggle to give responses# 3 and 4. Giving an heart-felt praise or an honest redirection requires guts and courage to leave that typical comfort zone- a skill that doesnt come naturally to many. But the fact of the matter is that a Redirection response or a Positive response goes a long way in ensuring that intent of response is internalized properly.

How often do you choose Redirection or Positive response in your coaching ?

Uncovering myths about Globalization testing- Approach to generate Localized test data

2010-05-12T19:13:00.000+05:30

Myth 23: It is possibly the right strategy to randomly pick the test data specific to the localized language you are testing

While performing Internationalization testing, a tester largely deals with testing the product on the languages not known to him. Imagine a tester from India testing a product on Spanish Operating system. While it is largely possible to do the Internationalization testing without knowing the language
but there are certain traps related to this ignorance of the underlying language that a tester should be aware of. One of such trap is usage of test data.

Very often the lack of knowledge of language prompts the tester to just use a "few" input characters of the language under test while ignoring the rest. This is obviously a dangerous situation as it leads to some holes in the test coverage. The below example illustrates what i was mentioning here-

E.g. considering that a tester is testing Spanish langage, he is most likely to include Spanish specific input characters such as- á,é,í,ó,ú,ñ,ü and may be more investigative ones will use there above list in CAPS, or in combination with English characters, numbers etc. But the basic question that most of testers resist to ask is whether my test data is covering all the possible Input characters for the language under test ?
May be one reason this question is not asked is because of lack of complete knowledge of the language under test. Some may argue the validity of this question with an argument- Is it really necessary to test all the possible Input characters that a langauge offers ? This is a fair questionconsidering say while testing English language- if a tester uses "a" as a test data or if he uses "z" as a test data, wouldnt the result be the same all the time ?
May be Yes.
But when we are considering the test data generation of Localized characters, there are some more crucial points to be considered. This is what i intend to cover in the upcoming sections with a idea on how the test data of "foreign" languages can be better classified and used while testing.

How do i know which Input characters should be tested for a particular language ?
I have generally found this website quite good and informative. This has separate web pages for different languages and the tester can easily see which Input characters define each language. More on this in upcoming examples.

Is there a reasonable way to ensure that the localized test data gets appropriately covered ?
This website would not only allow you to know the characters used in a particular language but also the appropriate ways of classifying the same.

In my experience, dividing the Input characters of a particular language in to appropriate classes is always a better approach. Let me try and explain using an example.

Consider Spanish language for example-

Webpage listing all the chatacter inputs:
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/bylanguage/spanish.htm

E.g. the below section represent Input character classes for Spanish language characters in a boarder sense. And while coming up with the test data for a particular field say- Password, depending on the rules and the length accepted one or more characters from each of these classes can be used as a test data.

Spanish Language Input characters classes:
Capitals:
Á, É, Í, Ó,Ú,Ñ,Ü (commas are only used as separators)

Lower case:
á,é,í,ó,ú,ñ,ü

Punctuation
¿,¡,º,ª,«,»,€:

Special Spanish representations:
HTML entity codes (HTML entity codes are the codes which allow browsers and screen readers to process data as the appropriate language) e.g. for the character á, the HTML entity code is á
The reason to include these codes as a separate class is because if these codes are used separately as the Test data in an input fields, the application might interpret this as a single letter. This possiblity is espacially true for web based applications.

English Lower case characters:
a-z

English Upper case characters:
A-Z

Numeric representations:
1,2,3,4....

Special characters (EN):
~`!@#$%^&*()_+-={}[]|\:;"'<,>.?/

Any Known problematic Spanish characters (not included above):

The reason to include English Input characters in Spanish test data is that users generally use English along side with Spanish characters with some commonality being there in characters usage.
Further in our example- say is password is accepted to be 20 or less character length, some of the test data can be (notice that test data has one or more characters from each identified class).

Less than 20 characters
Áñº«gz24@

=20 characters
Üó€»sH224&ÜÍ¿¡

Greater than 20 characters
Óáª«»tyKL7845`!@º

Far Greater than 20 characters
(If there are no limits on the UI)

0 characters
(blank)

Important point to note that each test data above includes atleast one character from the Input data classes identified for Spanish language above. That is the key as this approach helps ensure that all the classes of data is utilized appropriately and no Input character is actually left to chance.

Some questions related to this that i would be working to address in upcoming posts-
- The strategy to divide the Input characters into classes seems good for the languages which has limited set of characters like European lanaguages. Can this approach be used for Asian languages like which Japanese, Chinese, Korean etc. which deals with multiple writing scripts as well as thousands of characters ?
- In larger context, what could be the test straregy totest Unicode feature ? Unicode being one of the key Globalization features that is built in the product and should be tested comprehensively from the point of view of Globalization testing.

For a complete list of Globalization testing myths uncovered in the past, please visit here .

Did you eat that frog today ?

2010-05-06T16:26:00.000+05:30

Recently during a workshop on Exploratory testing Pradeep gave an exercise to the participants to test an application. After around 15 minutes of testing, different participants came up with different types and numbers of defects. The question that got asked next was obvious- Why do different testers find different types, numbers of bugs given the same amount of time ?
Interesting question, isn’t it ? What got demonstrated in 15 minutes is the story of every organization involving testing teams i.e. some testers find important bugs faster than the others. There can be several reasons one can think of for such a phenomenon but i feel at the core it has something to do with the ability of a tester to prioritize and execute the most relevant and important test at a given time. The skill of a tester including the testing skills, technical skills, product knowledge, soft skills etc. all help the testers to build this all important ability.
Generally, in work life this concept is of utmost importance i.e. one's ability to select the most important task at each moment and then executing it to perfection will have the greatest impact on one's ability to deliver on results. And thinking on an even larger frame, this ability is the basis of managing time better.
So, what stops a person from selecting and executing a person from doing the most important task for a moment. Again, a common thought process can lead to many responses but largely it has something to do with inherent habit of human beings to procrastinate or delay the uncomfortable tasks, how-so-ever important they may be to any given context.
Consider some situations-
- A person who is more of an introvert will often delay going to a large gatherings, even though it may be important and required.
- Coming into office, one might often delay doing the tasks involving confrontations.
- While testing some application, general tendency is to delay working of the areas where one has less knowledge.
- If one has to choose between two tasks of more or less equal importance, the general tendency is it choose one that sounds easy.
There can be many such examples in our day-to-day life where we procrastinate. I once read somewhere that Procrastination is a Thief of time. Quite true it is!

I recently completed reading a book called - Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy. To be honest, i picked it up from a book store because i just needed something to read but when i reached the end, i found it to be one of the more profound practical book on the subject of Time Management. So, this blog is dedicated to my learnings from this book.

Does this title of this blog sounds strange ?
It might and if someone thinks about it literally, it might sound disgusting also. This is based on what Mark Twain once said- "If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long." So "Frog" here is a metaphor for the task you find ugly but it needs to be done.
The idea of managing time in a better way is to create time for yourself in a day so that one can get more done in less time. We often hear proponents of Time management say that we all have 24 hours, yet some get more work done and some get lesser done. This illustration is quite true, without doubt.

Rules in Frog eating:
Now that we know what a frog means, Yes, it is that ugly task that you hate to do i.e. given a choice in normal situations, you will never choose to do it. But at the same time, it will be most critical to your success in a given endeavor.

The first rule in Frog eating states something like-
If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugly one first.

In other words, if you have two important and not-so-pleasant tasks to do, always choose the unpleasant of the two first. I think we as a human beings forms certain preferences as we move ahead in the life and these preferences always act as the filters to our thoughts. E.g. if a person has to eat 2 medicines to treat an ailment, one tastes sour and the other sweet, if a person has a preference for sweet he will tend to stay away from the sour medicine as much as possible. But the fact of the matter is that to treat an ailment, he might be required to eat both in right proportions.
Another situation- a creative person working to test an application, will invariably prefer to do an Exploratory test rather than a time consuming and repetitive task of verifying a single functionality for a long time. Suppose, the same tester is in a situation when the development team needs an urgent information on a bug, which requires him to run a same test 100 times to gather necessary data, what will this person do ? That’s the essence of the first rule of frog eating. Do the difficult task first, it will set the tone for the rest of the day.
The outcome of each day is based on the choices we make. Suppose if a person chooses to do easy tasks in his most productive hours of the day, it will mean that he has left the monstrous tasks towards the time when his mind is wavering, one can imagine what the outcome will be.

The second rule in frog eating is-
If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.

Generally the way people show the dislike towards a certain task is by keeping it their list and dont do anything on it. Follow-up on tasks is a very common phenomenon at the work place. And the situation of following-up arises when one delays the task. The irony in this situation is that even after the delay, you tend to do the task because it was required. Knowing this, the better sense would demand - why delay in the first place!
Keeping an unpleasant task till the end of the day or even beyond makes one feel stressed and it is one of the reasons of people suffering from low self esteem, which then affects many other aspects of work and life in general.

So what are your waiting for ? Pick up yourself and do that unpleasent task thats sitting on your mind and blocking you from thinking clearly. There is nothing as exhasuting as an unpleasant, uncompleted task.
Try starting your day by going through this short video and acting upon what is being said.

Will be sharing more learnings in upcoming posts. Do share your thoughts around this ?

Is the concept of Innovation culture dependent ?

2010-04-19T22:07:00.000+05:30

The thoughts presented in this blog are as a result of an interesting question by one of the readers- Vittal, in my earlier post- Key Lessons from the life and times of Steve Jobs
Thanks for sharing your learning. The ideas are thought provoking.
I am not challenging the purity and the effectiveness of the ideas, but would definitely like to know, how they can be applied and be effective in our work models and culture.
Its different worlds when we look at western corporate and eastern corporate culture.
Do share your thoughts.

Certainly some interesting thoughts above and in this post i would like to share some of my thoughts around this topic. In all honesty, i understand that the complete answer to the question as vital as the title of this post cannot be answered in a source as abstract as one blog post.

First question that comes to my mind is, Are the cultures really different fundamentally ?

There is something i learned earlier on, it is that when we talk about cultures, there is nothing right or wrong. Each culture is right in its own way and has to be accepted for what it is. This understanding came from one of my earlier managers and over the years i have begin to realize that this is quite right. It also indicates that cultures are fundamentally different and that difference can vary from many unique factors such as one's religion, Geography, upbringing etc. I have not seen the concept of culture being so simplisticallly described as done by Yang Liu . Consider some of the below pictures designed by Yang Liu-

In the images below-
Blue= Western culture
Red= Eastern culture
The Boss

Anger

Punctuality

Me

See more of these here
So, cultures are different. No doubt about that and these differences at the grass roots level do influence our thinking to a larger extent. Our cultural background has a lot of relevance in explaining what we do, how we take decisions and what thinking patterns do we apply to solve problems.
Having said the above, in my experience one of the things that i have observed is that we cannot generalize any culture e.g. if as indicated in above example- for eastern cultures the boss is treated above all the employees, it does not necessarily mean that all the bosses in eastern culture consider themselves superior to the rest. There will always be exceptions which defies the norm.

Is Western thinking really different from Eastern thinking ?
When we talk about the subject of thinking, any mention would be incomplete without the mention of work done by Edward de Bono . In his book- Six Thinking hats , de Bono provides a very interesting perspective on these Western and Japanese cultures.

Argument or No Argument:
Western thinking is more driven by argument. Japanese thinking does not value argument much. An attacking conversation by means of argument is considered impolite and harsh.

Conduct of meetings:
A Western type of meeting is usually the one which is more based on discussions and arguments. The meeting participants gives their ideas/thoughts and these are discussed, criticized and reasoned upon. And the idea thats usually "wins" is the one that stands all the criticism and questions.
A Japanese meeting usually has many people actually listening. Active Listening is a key virtue. Once after listening, they gather all the inputs and present their thoughts in a neutral manner, rather than pinpointing or criticizing anyone's ideas.No one tends to hammer the ideas by criticizing. So, the personal attack is not considered good.

The role of ego:
Western thinking is usually considered as more ego based with argument occupying the central space. Japanese culture is not ego based.

The process of ideation:
In his book- a fine line , Hartmut Esslinger talks about Japanese notion of ideation. It says that Japanese don't believe that they "have" ideas but ideas actually "come to them". Such selfless approach towards ideas certainly makes the whole ideation process ego-free with no one involved in the process having to worry about who owns the idea.

The handling of mistakes:
In the same book, Hartmut Esslinger also talks about the Japanese notion of handling mistakes. True to Japanese culture, the notion is that- "people don't make mistakes" but "mistakes are something that develop over time". This very notion really takes away all the focus from personal blame games. This may be exactly or somewhat opposite to Western culture.

Perfectionism:
I would like to narrate a story here, adapted from this source. Here it goes-

The Japanese have a great liking for fresh fish. But the waters close to Japan have not held many fish for decades. So, to feed the Japanese population, fishing boats got bigger and went farther than ever. The farther the fishermen went, the longer it took to bring back the fish. The longer it took them to bring back the fish, the staler they grew. The fish were not fresh and the Japanese did not like the taste. To solve this problem, fishing companies installed freezers on their boats. They would catch the fish and freeze them at sea. Freezers allowed the boats to go farther and stay longer. However, the Japanese could taste the difference between fresh and frozen fish. And they did not like the taste of frozen fish. The frozen fish brought a lower price. So, fishing companies installed fish tanks. They would catch the fish and stuff them in the tanks, fin to fin. After a little hashing around, the fish stopped moving. They were tired and dull, but alive.
Unfortunately, the Japanese could still taste the difference. Because the fish did not move for days, they lost their fresh-fish taste. The Japanese preferred the lively taste of fresh fish, not sluggish fish. The fishing industry faced an impending crisis! But today, it has got over that crisis and has emerged as one of the most important trades in that country! How did Japanese fishing companies solve this problem? How do they get fresh-tasting fish to Japan?
To keep the fish tasting fresh, the Japanese fishing companies still put the fish in the tanks. But now they add a small shark to each tank. The shark eats a few fish, but most of the fish arrive in a very lively state. The fish are challenged and hence are constantly on the move. And they survive and arrive in a healthy state! They command a higher price and are most sought-after. The challenge they face keeps them fresh!
Humans are no different. L. Ron Hubbard observed in the early 1950’s: “Man thrives, oddly enough, only in the presence of a challenging environment.” George Bernard Shaw said: “Satisfaction is death!”
If you are steadily conquering challenges, you are happy. Your challenges keep you energized. You are excited to try new solutions. You have fun. You are alive! Instead of avoiding challenges, jump into them. Do not postpone a task, simply because its challenging. Catch these challenges by their horns and vanquish them. Enjoy the game. If your challenges are too large or too numerous, do not give up. Giving up makes you tired. Instead, reorganize. Find more determination, more knowledge, more help. Don’t create success and revel in it in a state of inertia. You have the resources, skills and abilities to make a difference.

Moral of the story: Put a shark in your tank and see how far you can really go!

There are some real life learnings from this story as this article talks about. But it also reflects one very unique aspect of Japanese culture which is that Japanese tend to imbibe perfectionism in everything they do. In the case of this story, its the taste of fish and there can be numerous instances in day-to-day, work life of such perfectionism. That is one trait that has really helped Japan during its formative years. Possibly no other culture comes closer in this aspect.

Repeating myself here again by saying that though the above may give a very high level distinctions between the cultures but it may be naive to consider the people in a certain culture behave the same way. So there will be exceptions and many at that.

What's Innovation got to do with culture ?
In think our cultural orientation definitely has a great impact on our basic thinking patterns as the numerous of the above examples state. I feel that Eastern cultures are more bent towards cumulative form of Innovativeness in which the ideas get matured going through the various stages and then eventually we have a big solution. And may be the breakthrough Innovation is more associated with Western culture. One example that i can think of is the advent of break-through products like Windows Operating systems, Office Applications, Apple Macs- all big inventions of our times happened in Western culture. They are no less than the breakthrough innovation but on the Eastern parts we had successful business models built up on the Computer services side (Infosys, Wipro, TCS etc.), and largely thinking, these business models had in its foundation, the success of core computing driven by the Western organizations. I think both these forms certainly compliment each other and it would not be right to treat one greater than the other.
Another culture aspect is that True Innovation has its basis in more free form of thinking and it generally does not breed in an hierarchical form of organization in which each idea would need to go through certain approval and each failure would be blamed.
From my personal observation, some organizations take Innovation as another “task” given that this is something that is “needed” for survival. And in doing so the very essence of Innovation is lost. As an example, I have seen many organizations reward the employees on getting through with Patents. And with a good monetary reward system in place, the talented engineers are definitely encouraged to get the patents and they get successful too. But i guess, this definition of success turns out to be a bit loose in overall scheme of things, for example when we glance at the data on how many patents filed actually get into the products or even turn to blockbuster product ideas. Though I don’t have a real time data but just common sense analysis of comparing number of patents granted to organization as against number of products it has in its rank, the whole story becomes clear.

Have you observed this trend ? Does it have any cultural basis ?

Do share your thoughts.

Wonder how your website looks on an iPad...

2010-04-10T17:00:00.000+05:30

The recent iPad launch has for sure caused a lot of buzz in the market. With the sales figures topping 300,000 numbers in a single day, this is certainly a dream start for any upcoming product.
It may not even require a prediction to judge that the Software Testing community will soon be embracing iPad and testing their products on the same.

Just came across a tool that can help you simulate your websites look and feel on iPad. All about it at the URL below-

How Does your Website Look on an iPad?

A good tool atleast till you get your hands on a real iPad.

Key lessons from the life and times of Richard Branson

2010-04-04T06:52:00.000+05:30

When i wrote this article on managing multiple passions, i had not really read through about the Life of Richard Branson . His life definitely adds a great dimension to article. To me, he is one the rare people who not only managed unrelated interests with great zest for life but also got a considerable success and fulfillment in doing so.
For starters, Richard Branson is the owner of Virgin brand which started modestly as a record shop company but the brand is humongous now with more than 400 companies around the world. Apart from managing such a huge business conglomerate, Richard has a certain flair for Adventure. He has made several world record breaking attempts like fastest to be Atlantic ocean crossing to travelling around the world in Hot air balloons.He do plans to take his Airlines- Virgin Atlantic to space. Apart from this, he is very much involved in social work covering diverse areas.
I got to know him better through one the book- Screw it, Let's Do it: Lessons in Life written by Richard Branson himself. The book presents a lot of learnings from his life capturing the key events and i have tried to capture the snippets in his own words) in this post. As usual, i have captured important learnings right from this book. Read on and Enjoy!
The personal pronoun "I" in the upcoming text represents the words said by Richard Branson himself.

Have goals but be practical about them:
I believe in goals. Its never a bad thing to have a dream, but I'm practical about it. I don't sit day dreaming about things that are impossible. I set goals and then work on how to achieve them. Anything i want to do in life, I want to do well and not half- heartedly.

Just do it:
The best lesson i learned was to Just do it. It doesn't matter what it is, or how hard it might seem, as the ancient Greek, Plato said- "The beginning is most important part of any work." A journey of a thousand miles start with that first step. If you look ahead to the end, and all the weary miles between, with all the dangers you might face, you might never take that first step. So, take that first step. There will be many challenges. You might get knocked back- but in the end you will make it.

Getting things done:
The staff at Virgin have a name for me. It is "Dr yes". They call me this because i wont say no. I will find more reasons to do things that not to do. My motto really is: "Screw it- let's do it!". I will never say, "I can;t do this because i don't know how to." I wont let silly rules stop me.

Never say "Can't":
I don't believe in that that little word "can't" should stop you. If you don't have the right experience to reach your goal, look for another way i. If you want to fly, get down the airfield at the age of sixteen and make the tea. Keep your eyes open. Look and learn. You don't have to go to art school to be a fashion designer. Join a fashion company and push the broom. Work your way up.

Brilliant ideas come when you least expect them:
Here's an anecdote from the book which proves the heading-
Our plan was to travel on to Puerto Rico- but when we got to Airport, the flight was cancelled. People were roaming about, looking lost. No one was doing anything. So I did- someone had to. I chartered a plane for $2,000. I divided that by number of people. It came to $39 per head. I borrowed a blackboard and wrote on it: VIRGIN AIRWAYS. $39 SINGLE FLIGHT TO PUERTO RICO. The idea of Virgin Airways was born, right in the middle of a holiday.

Don't moan a bad boss but Love your work instead:
If you do still have to work for a boss at a job you don't like as almost everyone does at some point, don't moan about it. Have a positive outlook on life and just get on with it. Work hard and earn your pay. Enjoy the people you come into contact with through your job. And if you are still unhappy, make it instead your goal to divide your private life from your work life. Have fun in your own time, you will feel happier and you'll enjoy your life and your job more.

Have dreams and never give up on them:
It's easy to give up when things are hard but i believe we have to keep chasing our dreams and our goals. And once we decide to do something, we should never look back, never regret it.

Keeping your words:
One thing i always try to do is to keep my word. I set my goals and stick to them. Success is more than luck. You have to believe in yourself and make it happen. That way others also believe in you.

Embrace challenges:
As the writer and mountain climber James Ullman once said- Challenge is the core and mainspring of all human action. If there's an ocean, we cross it. If there's a disease, we cure it. If there's wrong, we right it. If there's a record, we break it. And if theres a mountain, we climb it.

Self belief:
I believe in myself. I believe in the hands that work, in the brains that think, and in the hearts that love.

Have no regrets:
I believe the one thing that helps you capture the moment is to have no regrets. Regrets weigh you down. They hold you back in the past when you should move on.

Live in the moment:
Always living in the future can slow us down as much as always looking behind. Many people are always looking ahead and they never seem content. They look for quick fixes like winning a lottery. I know that goals are important. Money is important. But the bottom line is that money is just a means to an end, not an end in itself. And what is going on now is just as important as what you're planning for the future. So, even though my diary is full for months ahead, I have learned to live for the moment.

Compartmentalize life:
The man who started IKEA divides his day into ten minute sections. He says, "Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. Divide your life into ten-minute units, don't waste even a minute.

My final thoughts:
I think this blog has gotten far longer than i had thought but i really couldn't help it. I still ended up omitting a lot of what i thought i would put across after i read the book but the above represents the best of my learnings from the life of Richard Branson. Going by the precept- "Best is yet to come", i am sharing one more key learning as below-

One of the great things that i found impressive in Richard Brason's life is ability to overcome odds. In his school days, the teachers not realizing he has dyslexic tendencies considered him quite slow in reading and writing. To overcome this, he taught himself to memorize things and became good at his perceived weakness and went on to even win a School level Essay contest, which is indeed an achievement for a guy written off almost at the early age. Certainly, he showed flashes of greatness even at a early age!

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Testing MUI feature

2010-03-19T19:17:00.000+05:30

Myth 22 : A tester testing Globalization features need not pay any special attention towards testing MUI feature.

I had touched up the nuances of Multilingual user interface (MUI) feature in this post as well as this one in the past. These posts primarily focused on how MUI technology is implemented in Windows Operating systems and spoke about the differences in MUI technology in different versions of Windows OS. What these posts did not cover specifically about MUI was- if the software application you are testing supports Multilingual user Interface, then what are the aspects that you can look at from testing perspective to ensure that MUI is tested properly. In my experience, this is an often neglected area of Globalization testing. May be because supporting MUI is one of the basic features and it is often "expected" to be working fine just because few common user cases work. The purpose of this post is to correct this myth and look at the finer details of a typical MUI implementation and the areas the could be generally tested.

MUI at a basic level:
What does it actually mean why you stare at a requirement that says- the application you are testing supports MUI ?
At a very basic level, it means that-
1. In the application under test, the strings are separated from the source code. What does "Strings" include in an application ? Strings may include any text on User Interface (or even sometimes Command Line interface) such as Menu names, Text labels,Control names etc. All these are generally static texts, which are usually the candidates for translation into any given language. These strings are separated from the source code and included in the resource files.
2. The second part- at a higher level, of being an MUI supported application is that the application has the ability (built programatically) to load the separated resource files dynamically at the run time.

So MUI software application is the one which is language neutral, has the translatable strings available separately in the resource files and finally has the ability to load the resource files dynamically.

Lets further look into some questions that might come into mind at this time-

What is the need to separate the strings from the source code ?
If the strings are not separated from the source code, then it will reside in the source code. What that means is- the language experts who translate the strings to the target language wont have access to those strings as they usually get the strings in separate files (called resource files) to carry out the translation. In this situation, when the strings are still in source code- it will result in that text being shown in the base language even when the application is localized. e.g. suppose the application's original language is English and there is a requirement to translate in German. So, the strings residing in source code will not get translated in German and we will have part English and part German text because of some English strings still being "hard-coded".

The second question that might arise is-

What is the need to dynamically load the resource file ?
Few examples here-
- Suppose an application supports 3 languages- English, German and French. If user installs the application on German OS, then at the time of installation, the application should recognize the Germaan OS and load the German resource files. If it does not then the German customer may end up seeing English or French text.
- Suppose the organization has a support group in Germany and they deal with English customers. The German support engineer might prefer the User interface to be in German and as he is dealing with English customer, there may be a need for him to switch between German and English User interfaces. This is where dynamically loading the resources and hence, the MUI features comes in real handy.

What are the questions i should ask before testing MUI feature ?
Asking questions helps! and it does always help to ask quite a lot before testing and of course, while testing. Some questions below might help understanding the scope of MUI testing-

- Is the Installer of my application support MUI i.e. does the application Installer installs different supported languages' resource files as a part of Installation ? i.e. if product supports English, German and French languages- does the respective resource files gets into the system during installation ?
- Does the installer recognize the OS locale settings and installs appropriate resources files as per locale settings ?
- Does the application installer provides an option to select the language before proceeding with Installation ?
- Is the Fallback logic implemented ? i.e. say if supported language is German and the application is installed on Dutch OS, does the application falls back to a common language say English ?
- After the application is installed, does it provide the option to the user to switch language at a run time ? i.e.
- If the computer has 2 users with different languages (its possible in Windows OS!) i.e. say English and German and the user logs on to German user settings, does the application desplays the German UI ? This should be taken care of by the application's dynamic resource loading logic.
- If the application happens to be a web application, then too all the above questions will hold good. One additional question to ask, though can be- What is user's browser language ? This is a typical case- when OS language is different from the browser language. In this case, what is the fallback logic ? How should it behave ? It can become more complex say in a situation when the web application runs on French OS with French Canadian browser settings and at the application logon page, the user selects English language as his preferred language. In this case, what language should be shown to the user ?
- How does the MUi logic works in Mac, Linux, Firefox, Mozilla etc. ? Are there any implementation differences that i need to be aware of ?

These questions (and may be more) can help clarify MUI requirement in detail and accordingly testing strategy can be formed. Asking questions is required because Test engineers may never get the requirements in as much detail as might be required for them to test effectively.

Why is testing MUI feature important ?
For an International application, MUI is one of the key features. It is a feature that has helped Microsoft add the required scalability to scale their products across the world. The reason i used Microsoft's example here is because probably Microsoft is the most Global software organization in the entire world. Consider this- Windows 98 supported 30 languages, Windows XP supported 42 languages and Windows Vista- a whopping 97 languages. One of the prime reasons, Microsoft has been able to scale up so much in Windows Vista is because of advancement in MUI technology during the Vista release and this technology is further used in Windows 7 too. So, for an application to be truly global, it has to have a core global arhitecture in place which is what MUI helps achieve.

What are typical Test ideas of Testing MUI feature in the application ?
At the core level, testing MUI means-
- Testing for Language neutral core binary
- Testing for single MUI Installation
- Testing for switching language without Reinstallation
- Testing for the logic of dynamically loading resources
- Testing for language Fallback mechanism
- Testing for Single base binary

Depending upon the answer to the questions asked in the section above, the right testing strategy can be formed.
I think with this information, i will be good to continue the discussion further on what parts of MUI can be specifically tested in your applications.

Please do share your ideas!

Key professional lessons from Football coaching principles

2010-03-13T20:21:00.000+05:30

In football circles, the mention of Don Shula doesnt need any introduction. He was a coach par excellence of Miami Dolphins in American National Football League (NFL). What stands him apart from most of other generations of Football coaches is sustained success in pressure cooker situations. If you have any doubts about what a pressure cooker situation means with respect to Football, just watch any high intensity international or even European club level matches to get an idea. Maddening crowds, Sharp critics, tensed coaches- it has all the elements of a nerve wrecking drama. In such an environment, Shula set numerous records in his 33 seasons as a head coach. He is the All-Time leader in Victories with 347. He is first in most games coached (526), most consecutive seasons coached (33) and many more.
His coaching was regarded as out of the world and to top it all his consistency in achieving super results over the years set many standards which are hard (if not impossible) to match.

Don Shula teamed up with Ken Blanchard to write an impressive book on coaching called the little book of coaching . This book is quite unique in its writing style as Don Shula shares his Football coaching methods that helped him achieve all the results that he did and Ken Blanchard on the other hand, presented his understanding of those very principles and utilized in day to day dealing. The content of this book is engaging and for sure opens up many a thought processes and the text that follows represents my attempt to decipher these valuable coaching fundamentals and its potential use in coaching Software testers-

[The text in Italics below represents the excerpts from the book, mainly in the form of quotes from Don Shula]

The Bull's eye philosophy:
I believe if you want to hit a target, you should aim for the Bull's eye. If you aim for the Bull's eye and miss, you will still hit the target. But if you are aiming only for the target and miss, you will be nowhere.

In 1972 NFL season, Don Shula's team won each and every game and remained unbeaten. And this was the goal that he set for his team.
While leading your testing teams, have the highest goals set for your team. As an example- say finding all the non regression bugs by the first iteration of testing as one the goals. If testers know this to be as their goal, they will strive to achieve this (of course if provided with the right kind of motivation). But if the goal stands like- Find all the non regression defects by the first Release candidate build, it is very likely that there will be last minute bugs before the release.
As a coach, always describe the vision of Bull's eye to your teams. More often than you might think, the team members do not know or have a clearer picture of how a perfect work output looks like. And in absence of such a vision, they adopt for a relaxing, comfortable goal that will invariably make them complacent. Drawing the vision of Bull's eye does not require one to be a magician but requires two things- One- clarity of thoughts i.e. first knowing what a perfect work output is like and Second- Ability to weave the picture of perfection for the team members, which they can strive to achieve. More the team strives to achieve the Bull's eye vision, more closer will it reach to perfection.
As Leo Burnett rightly quoted-
"If you reach for the stars, you might not quite get one, but you won’t end up with a handful of mud, either."

Overlearn, Overlearn, Overlearn...:
Overlearning means that the players are so prepared for a game that they have the skill and confidence needed to make the big play. More than anything else, overlearning- constant practice, constant attention to getting the details right everytime- produces hunger to be in the middle of the action. Perfection happens only when the mechanics are automatic.

As a coach of a Software testing, it pays to have your team reach the "Overlearning" state. Overlearning for Software testers cover many critical aspects of the Job-
- The testers are aware of their prime roles in the current project/scheme of things.
- The testers are trained so adequately that they almost simulate and visualize the situations and their response to it.
- The testers work independently as they strive to reach the auto-pilot mode i.e. not needing minor directions.
- The testers achieve Execution excellence- they dont just stare up the steps but step up the stairs.

The above areas form the core of activities for a Software testing coach also as these are the ones that actually are the difference between an average team and a performing team. The coach would need to Overlearn themselves first and then have their teams follow the suit.

Lead by Example:
I dont know any other way but lead by example.
During the 1994-95 season Don Shula ruptured his Achilles tendon. The day he had the operation was the first regular season practice Shula had missed in his twenty-five years with the Dolphins. After the operation, Don was taken to recovery and then to his hospital room, where he was scheduled to stay overnight. By 2:30 in the afternoon, he'd had enough of the hospital. He asked the doctor for his crutches and was on his way home shortly afterward. By 5:30 the next morning, he was up and wanting to attend Mass and then go to practice. By 10:00 A.M. he was on the practice field in a golf cart.

Moral of the story- if as a coach, if you expect commitment, demonstrate the same to your team. If you expect excellence, demonstrate the same to your team. The team wont learn anything in a better way than seeing you do the same very things you want them to do.

Change Plan as situation demands:
There is no point sticking to a game plan that's not working. The sun does not rise and fall based on one person's judgment. Effective coaches are continually out there scanning for data and advice that will make their decision more intelligent.

Software products probably undergo more changes during its entire life-cycle than any other products that ever existed. That really makes Software testing a very dynamic entity.
In spite of this, there is a growing tendency among the test owners to stick to a Testing Plan document that gets created at the start of the release and is probably never looked at through out the duration of the project. Effective Software testing coaches realize the importance of updating the overall plan as need arises and keep the team updated and informed. Such coaches can sense, anticipate the changes and be well prepared in advance.

Apply twenty-four hour rule equally to Failures and Successes:
I had a twenty-four hour rule. I allowed myself, my coaches, and our players a maximum of twenty-four hours after football game to celebrate a victory or bemoan a defeat. During that time, everyone was encouraged to experience the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat as deeply as possible, while learning as much as we could from that same experience. Once the twenty-four hour deadline had passed, we put it behind us and focused our energies on preparing for next opponent.

I feel this rule is very much applicable to handle mistakes and errors at workplace. Not all days are similar, there may be some days you do well and at other you end up doing mistakes. A typical bad day at office for a Software tester can be- Missing a deadline, missing to find a bug that could have been found earlier, committing an error in verifying a test properly, missing to gather right information to advocate defect appropriately and many more. Many people let these disappointments affect them and future work tasks severely. I think the role of a coach becomes greater and significant during these situation. Enforcing a twenty-four hour rule can be immensely beneficial in these situations i.e. for twenty four hours feel the current situation as much as possible and to an extent to learn from it enough not to repeat it excessively and after twenty fours- like they say- "let bygones be bygones".
Personally, i dont think the successes should also be lived only for twenty-four hours as more they are remembered in a right way (not losing the focus on present), it acts as a positive source of energy for the team members.

Be consistent:
Consistency is not behaving the same way all the time; it is behaving the same way in similar circumstances.

People generally have varying notions of consistency. Generally speaking, if as a coach you give no response/feedback to your team member when he or she does well and you neither give response/feedback when he or she commits a mistake- then thats not consistency. Though the conventional wisdom will call such a behavior consistent because as a coach one acted the same way in both the situations. As Shula clarifies, Consistency is actually behaving the same way in similar circumstances.
Withholding feedback when it should be given and not praising an effort when it should be applauded are an example of coach being inconsistent with his team members.
Consistent coaches deliver consistent results.

Personally notice your team:
You cant catch your people doing something right if you're not there to see them do something right.

People appreciate praise more when its genuine. A coach can be genuine in expressing his praise for the team only when he or she witnesses it firsthand. If as a Software testing coach, you are not there to directly witness your team member logging that all important bug or delivering a great presentation or convincing a developer, you are for sure not up-to-the-mark there.
Being personally there with the team when they are in pressure situations or not even in so much pressure situations gives them a belief that they can look upto you and also that you will be fair with them in performance related dealings.

Managing meetings effectively:
I want to make sure that my team came out of every meetings a little more intelligent than when they went in, that they came off the practice field a little better prepared mentally and physically to play the game than they were before the practice.

In the corporate world, meetings are for sure necessary evils. Organizations need meetings to synergize, sync-up and work towards the shared vision. But at the same time most of the meetings turn out to be ineffective with a very little takeaway for all the stakeholders. Below is an interesting nugget from this source about the way meetings are conducted in US corporations-

"More often than not, company and department meetings are inefficient, disorderly and ineffective. Every day, approximately 11 million meetings are held in the United States. That means roughly 37 percent of employee time is spent in meetings, according to the National Statistics Council. What's more, researchers have found that nearly all meeting attendees (91 percent) admit to daydreaming during meetings, while more than one-third (39 percent) have dozed off."

I think you would appreciate that the above inference is not only US specific but the rest of the world is not too far behind. Being a coach, Don Shula's thinking about ensuring that the team members should come out of the meeting little more intelligent and better is quite insightful. Even in the corporate meetings, the intent of meeting organizer is quite vital. This is where effective coaching can make a difference.
I feel as a coach of testing team or any team for that matter, if someone inculcates "making the team members more intelligent, more informed, more knowledgeable at the end of meeting" as a driving goal, we might probably see more happy faces and less dreamers during the day.

Do you already apply these principles in your coaching ? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Key lessons from the life and times of Steve Jobs

2010-03-07T22:08:00.000+05:30

I had completed reading the Book- Inside steve’s brain a while back. I found this book an excellent representation of the business lessons that can be learned from the life of Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs , the co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.

I have this inherent interest of going through the biographies of the people who have strived to excel in their chosen fields. (i could have used the word "Successful" in the previous sentence while describing the people who achieve something, but i tend to refrain from using that word because Success to me is very subjective, its very definition changes from people to people. I find Striving to Excel much meaningful representation here).
The prime driver of this interest is that there is a lot to learn from these people who had managed to do the seemingly unthinkable things. Books are simply a great medium which virtually help to connect to these people's lives and imbibe the learnings.

I have read quite a few biographies in the past and i would love to share my learnings through this medium.
This post is obviously all about Steve Jobs. Here are some detailed insights into what Steve Jobs is made up of-

Taking hard decisions head-on:
When Jobs took over as a CEO of Apple, he took a critical view of the situation at Apple. He arranged for each product group to present to him or rather virtually sell to him on the work they were doing, why it is important and why should be keep on funding them. In effective, the overall review process resulted in him taking some very tough decisions ranging from either the non critical projects being cut down or people being "steved" (meaning fired in Apple folklore).

He had to make some very hard tough decisions but he had courage and conviction to take them head-on rather than procrastinating or delaying them just because they were tough to make.
There is no official track on how much time human beings waste by just delaying some decisions just because they are uncomfortable but it were to be calculated, it would virtually run into zillions of hours wasted.
Facing hard decisions head-on is a vital quality for any decision maker.

Not hesitating to rightly say "No" when situation demands:
Steve Job's favorite mantra at Apple is: Focus means saying "No". When Apple first launched iMac, Jobs insisted on it not having a Floppy drive, which was an essential part of any computer of that era. It received a severe backlash from critics in the market with one of the critic even went ahead and declared-
"The iMac is clean, elegant, floppy free- and doomed."
As a fact of matter, Jobs himself wasn’t too sure about his decision to exclude the floppy drive given the odds stacked against him, But he still went ahead and said "No" to it trusting his gut. Also, the factors that helped him take this decision was the iMac was primarily supposed to be one of the early Internet computers and also that it was one of the first computers to be shipped with USB.
Whatever be the reasoning, it does take a tremendous mental effort to say "No" trusting your guts and knowledge when everyone else in the visible world is saying "Yes" to something. Many a professional situations demand that we say "No" but we end up saying "Yes" merely because of a feeling of lack of power on our part to reason the "Yes" men out. It does take a huge strength of character and belief in one's ability to be able to rightly say "No" when situation demands.

Focus on what you are good at; delegate all else:
Steve Jobs has a great sense of his strengths which is new product development, cutting deals for Apple (he is a master negotiator) and giving product presentations (which are flawless to say the least). At the same time, he knows what he is not good at- i.e. Directing movies, or handling the Wall Street or doing the Operations related tasks. His idea seems to be always playing to strength and take the advantage of the fact that there are people who can do the other jobs better than the way he could do. This aspect shows 2 points- One is the self awareness and second is not hesitating to admit that he cannot be good at everything. In professional life, there are many who have certain blind spots about themselves which prevent them to maximize their potential.
If one is not good at something, it often eases the work as well as the work relationships to actually delegate the tasks away. It is certainly not a sign of weakness.

Attention to details:
Steve Jobs is known for his obsession with details. As one of the design folks of Apple, Ratzlaff (who worked directly with Steve) says- "He was way down into the details. He would scrutinize everything, down to pixel level." He was so much so involved in the design that he had his own ideas how the seemingly minor thing such as Scrollbar should look like.
As goes one of the sayings- "God lies in detail", often the difference between a good job and a not-so-good job lies in the level of detail spent.

Never compromise with Excellence:
In Jan 1999, the day before the introduction of a new line of multicolored iMacs, Steve Jobs was practicing his product presentation at a big auditorium near Apple's HQ. Five of the machines in a range of bright colors were mounted on a sliding pedestal hidden behind the curtain, ready to take center stage on Jobs's cue.
Jobs wanted the moment when they slid out from behind the curtain to be projected onto a large video screen looming over the stage. The Technicians set it up, but Jobs didnt think the lighting was doing the translucent machine justice. The iMacs looked good onstage, but they didn’t really shine on the projection screen. He then kept asking the technician crew to alter the lighting till it looks just perfect. Finally, after the fourth attempt, they hit the bull’s eye and he was satisfied.
The above excerpt provide Jobs's commitment to Excellence. The key learnings from this is that one should marry Excellence in everything one does and then success becomes a mere formality.

Decision making through Intellectual combat:
Jobs makes decision by fighting about ideas. Its hard and demanding but rigorous and effective.
Though Jobs had a reputation of being a micro manager but he is smart enough to involve and engage people rightly to make worthwhile decisions.
The key learnings here- Never lose focus on the betterment of organization while making decisions. Involve people, look at an idea from all the possible directions. The idea for iPod’s scroll wheel came from Phil Schiller, the head of Apple’s marketing who was never a part of formal design process.

Dont Innovate for the sake of Innovation:
All about this here.

Dont be afraid of trial and error:
The typical design process at Apple goes through the myriad of trial and errors. Even the iPod's breakthrough interface was discovered through a process of trial and error. Such processes require a lot of perseverance and tolerance for mistakes but the end result is often a very refined one.
While indulging in any new task never hesitate to commit mistakes as long as one can learn and the output becomes close to perfection.

Well, these learnings are few of my chosen ones from this wonderful book.
I intend to supplement the series by sharing the learnings from biographies from other wonderful people. Watch out this space for more!

Thank you for reading through. I would love to hear any comments and feedback!

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Finding Localization bugs before actual translation takes place

2010-03-03T19:37:00.000+05:30

Myth 21: It is not possible to find the Localization bugs before actual translation takes place.

This is a myth because it is possible to find Localization bugs before actual translation takes place using an approach called- Pseudo Translation.

To know more visit my article on Pseudo Translation

Visit here to know about other Globalization Testing myths uncovered in the past.

How often do you challenge the Pseudo comfort of your Comfort zone ?

2010-02-13T20:57:00.000+05:30

One of the things that have always intrigued me is why majority of the human beings (including me!) just love being in their Comfort zones. Consider a few examples-

- In front of a large audience, if one was asked to give an extempore presentation- wouldn’t one's feet tremble and the heart skip a beat?
- If one is always habitual of sitting on the back seat of the car is suddenly asked to drive the vehicle (of course one has to know the driving), wouldn’t you take up the driver's seat with a great deal of anxiety if you are not used to driving so much on busy roads.
- Your employer asks you to pass on a bad news about pink slip to an employee.
- You are given a project for which expect the out to be delivered at a very short time.

There can be numerous such examples in our lives when we unwillingly are "asked" to do something that we think is beyond our "scope of existence". The key element here is that be in our Jobs or day-to-day lives outside of Jobs we tend to define a certain scope of existence. If any event in our lives falls under this scope, we execute it with certain comfort. If anything goes beyond this scope, normally we tend to feel discomfort, we feel anxious, and there may be other visible indications each amounting to discomfort. The general tendency exhibited by human beings is to avoid this feeling altogether. The question that arises is- Is it right to avoid this feeling ?

I was recently reading a ebook (Titled as "Dare to Dream") by Anthony Fernando , there was a mention of Comfort zone and its finer points. With due credit to the author, i am sharing a few key points that this article touches.

Everything you want in life is waiting for you outside of your comfort zone.

When we stay safe inside our comfort zones, we limit ourselves to experiencing the things that are already part of our life.

The only way to change your circumstances is to venture out of your comfort zone into a Possibility zone, because it is here that you will find everything you have ever wanted.

The only way to expand your comfort zone is to bite the bullet and step out into the possibility zone.
Initially this can be uncomfortable but with repeated effort, your comfort zone will slowly expand to include the things that you really want from life.

To me the above are the real gems of the wisdom. Whenever we are faced with any unfamiliar situation at work or in life usually that very situation tend to push us outside our self defined Comfort zone. And generally our mind treats getting out of Comfort zone as something unpleasant and something that it does not have natural motivation for. From what I know, it is just natural for the human beings to live life in set patterns. A normal human being usually favors a certain predictability in life in a way sequence of events shapes up. E.g. One generally tend to expect praises from the superiors and if some situation leads to reprimands, then that’s kind of breaking the set pattern that one had expected for one self.

The journey towards something meaningful, towards achieving one’s goals start with discomfort, with pains of trying something new despite hiccups, glitches or difficulties. Rather than running away from the discomfort the real courage lies in facing it upfront, quell the fear, defeating all the apprehensions. Even if the initial results of leaving your comfort zone aren’t favorable, I think that’s still better than someone willing to be in its own comfort zone. That discomfort is certainly the first step towards achieving the intended goals. I the true sense, the comforts brought forward by the Comfort zone as Pseudo comforts that keep us in illusion and hamper us from achieving our true worth.

Do you have any stories to share across regarding breaking your comfort zones and achieving something that even surprised you ? Do share it across!

Well, I didn’t initially intend this post to be as much philosophical as its eventually turned out. But my experience tells me that its an important enough topic to be deserving a rightful mention.

Motivating (or relentlessly Pushing ?) Testers towards higher number of bugs. Does it always work ?

2010-02-07T23:30:00.001+05:30

Numeric defect related goals. Have you experienced the syndrome ?
Have you ever heard a team owner (read Leader, Manager or whatever) of a Testing team say any of the below-
- My study of Defect Prediction model suggests that this project should have 400 bugs. Why have we found only 50% so far ?
- You have logged less number of bugs in this cycle. Please pull up your socks.
- Your performance is not upto the mark. Please log more bugs.
- Your goal is to log 50 bugs in this cycle.
- In this quarter, you need to improve your bug logging rate.

If you haven’t heard any of the above in your Testing experience, I would consider you lucky, you have been in a good company. Given the professional situation we stay in, i am convinced that many of the test engineers might had to go through the situation where in they were assessed or recognized solely based on the number of bugs they report, no matter what that means.

Is it worthwhile having Numeric defect related goals ?
It usually makes me wonder about the benefits of having the numeric goals bestowed upon the Test engineers. I really fail to find many.
One may argue that having a numeric goal as a reference always keeps the test engineers focused on the goals that they need to achieve. This may be fair for some but this explanation does not capture the overall scheme of things. Consider the below quote by Ichek Adizes that i recently read-

Managing only for profit is like playing tennis with your eye on scoreboard and not on the ball.

To me this quote clarifies a lot of things. With due credit to the author of the quote, i would take the liberty of tweaking this quote a bit for our profession. Read this-

Managing only for number of bugs is like testing the software with your focus on a mere number to achieve than for the love of profession.

Doesn’t the above quote (or requote i say) brings out the essence of the ill effects a senseless numeric goals has on the most important assets of a testing group- The people. The people who are passionate about Software testing would resonate that what interests them towards this craft is the process of learning something new about the Software, having or working to build a unique perspective to assess the software, to solve the problems of complex nature, to apply new techniques, to learn and relearn and many many more things. And the end result of application of this passion, interest, skill is the bugs that we see testers find.
Having focus only on finding a certain number of bugs seem more like robbing a Test engineer of all the greatest perks of work that result in finding the good bugs.

The need for Positive motivation to find bugs:
Before I sound like going unidirectional, I do recognize there is a need of certain motivation that can possibly help find good defects. And certain people do apply the thought of keeping numeric goals to improve defect rate and probably may achieve certain success but this certainly leads to defocusing of Test engineer's energies to a mere number leaving him/her not enjoying the overall process of testing, which is certainly not good for the overall sake of the profession.

I do believe that in addition to educating Test engineers on the right knowledge and skills, as a Test group owner one needs to have effective motivational strategies in place as well. How-so-ever tempting the business of numeric goals may sound, somehow it doesn’t seem to convince me fully. I would certainly worry if any project in question doesn’t have any bugs found but then such a situation is ideal for further analysis and to be figured out the root cause of such an issue rather than just setting a number goal. This may work sometimes (may be if you are dealing with staff who isn’t passionate enough about Software testing and treats it as just as a Stop gap arrangement) but not in majority of situations.

Try using Placebos for silent motivation:
In his book, Stop the Excuses , Dr. Wayne W. Dyer says-

That mind controls the body is hardly up for dispute. You have probably heard of documented studies where sugar pills given to control group believing that they're a remedy for, say, arthritis, turn out to be as effective as the drug being administered, for arthritis. This placebo effect apparently occurs due to the belief in the effectiveness of the pill.

Placebos are quite widely used in the field of medicine. It’s a kind of make believe treatment in which patient believes that he is being treated upon with medicine for some ailment but in reality he is just being sugar pills. This makes his mind believe that he is being treated rightly and to some surprise the medical field has found considerable success with such a Pseudo treatment.

Placebos and Software testing- Are they related somehow ? Some might think this reading the above. But i feel there is an inherent connection there. Consider a situation that you are dealing with a complacent team who believes that they have tested all that could be possibly tested in a product and there are "no" bugs in the product (In my experience, I find teams feeling confident, may be over confident to make such a tall claim, which is improbable). In these situations, one could either believe what the team says or may be "push" them to find more bugs by setting numeric goals. But I do feel Placebos do work quite well there. Just have the team swallow a Placebo that "Development team feels that there is some part of code which is vulnerable to bugs, many bugs." I call this Placebo because as this is no less that a sugar pill that helps Testing team deal with Complacency and act as a certain source of motivation. Complacent test engineers, no matter how much skilled they are- tend to let go of opportunities to find good bugs. You might even be surprised to see the number of test ideas that starts flowing out of the minds that weren’t even considered before. All this just by chewing (not literally!) an artificial Placebo.

The overall point I was trying make is that there are good ways, better ways than mindlessly directing numeric defect related goals.

Do you tend to agree or disagree ? I would certainly love to hear!

Managing multiple passions- make most of your hidden talents

2010-01-24T13:45:00.000+05:30

Harsha Bhogle in his book-"Out of the Box - Watching the Game We Love" has a mention-
Peter Reobuck once told me of the twin loves of his life: cricket and the English language. They work well together; certainly in our game which lends itself to fine writing.

The above lines have an unique reflection about people having Multiple passions and interests. People's talents are usually not limited to being good at just one thing for life (we usually refer to as Passion) and are helped immensely by parallel interests. In case of Peter Roebuck, its Cricket and Speaking, Writing in English language.
Jack Russell came into limelight when was a part of English cricket team in 1980s and 1990s. Though not being formally trained at art, he had a special interest in art and took up as a Full time artist after his Cricket career was over. Not only this, he also is a Football goalkeeping coach.
In Michael Phelps biography (Michael Phelps The Untold Story of a Champion) by Bob Schaller, there is a mention of fellow swimmer Natalie Coughlin . He says “A graduate of Cal-Berkely, Natalie Coughlin has interests outside of the pool that means as much to her as her life in water .She goes out of her way to keep balance in her life, and while swimmers everywhere do doubles and train hours every single day, Coughlin is just as prone to balance a single daily workout with Pilates, walking her dog or Spinning.”

Pradeep Soundararajan in his blog wrote this post giving some insights into how interests different than Software Testing help the craft. Looking at the Blogosphere, there are so many distinguished testing practitioners who not only are the experts at their craft but also find time to do write frequently in blogs, magazines, speak in conferences and other relevant forums. All this really gives a view that there are two types of people in the World- One who find time to just do what they are supposed to do and the other half being the people who not only do what the profession demands but also goes a few notches beyond that and manage multiple interests. Though there may be doubts about accepting such an extreme classification of the world, but one thing is for sure that there exists people who seemingly achieve more in a day thereby giving an impression to the external world that God probably was more kind to these guys and gave them more than 24 hours in a day. It is often intriguing to me to wonder why some people manage different passions so well while some people make an attempt at the same but with little success. My mind had been working overtime to demystify this fact and following in this post i would like to share some thoughts around it. The text that follows is mostly in the form of answers to some relevant questions involving handling of multiple passions-

Am I "Only Interested" or Am I "Fully Committed" ?
Ken Blanchard in his book "The Heart of a Leader" mentions-
I learned from author and consultant Art Turock that we need to make a distinction between being interested and being committed. When you are "interested" in doing something, you only do it when its convenient, but when you are "committed", you follow through no matter what, no excuse."

I think this is a very relevant observation. I think people who manage multiple passions are not only interested and deeply in love with their areas of interests but are also hugely committed towards the same. They operate in a mode as if it’s their responsibility to contribute towards their passion every day, every hour no matter what. Many people get inspired and interested in pursuing additional interests but fail to pursue it for a longer period of time because the convenience factor creeps in with the lack of commitment. If one is committed to the cause, it’s not impossible to cross any obstacle.
If you like to do something but haven’t been able to pursue, just ask- Do i really want it badly ? Am i really only interested or committed also ?
The sooner one sorts out the answers to these questions, it lends the desired clarity to live with one's passions.

Am I able to "prioritize" effectively ?
I was having a conversation with J.D.Meier about managing multiple priorities and why individuals even while having interests in multiple activities aren’t able to contribute enough or balance properly. Here is what he had to say-
Here's what I do:
Mapping Out What's Important:
- Identify the most important results in each area or hot spot in your life (just the top 3 result for each hot spot or interest)
Producing Results:
- On Mondays, I identify 3 results for the week
- Each day, I identify 3 results I want to accomplish (this drives my day)
- On Fridays, I reflect on my results. I identify 3 things going well, and 3 things to improve.
Monthly Themes
- Each month, I pick a theme for focus. This is how I can balance across my interests. It allows me to focus less on one thing, while I focus more on another.
This is a quick start guide that helps - http://sourcesofinsight.com/2008/12/10/the-zen-of-results-free-e-book/

I did try this suggestion and found it to be quite reasonably working. Of course, like with any other approach, this approach also requires one to be disciplined enough to follow it consistently. One thing that this suggestion helps achieve is the required focus on your interest at a given time. One of the challenges in managing multiple passions is effectively juggling between the different priorities while not losing the focus. Getting to work effectively towards three focused areas in a week helps one take baby steps towards an eventual achievement. The beauty of this approach is that it does not suggest you to take up huge tasks and then later struggle to complete them (that’s the reason i used the word "Baby step" in the previous sentence). Like with every endeavor- Patience and Perseverance is the key here too. This is because Baby steps taken in the right direction leads to Giant steps in a longer run.

The question may arise, whether an individual should talk about more than 3 priorities at a give time. Here's how J.D. Meier answered it, when i asked-
Why not finish the first 3, then bite off more?
The value of 3 is that you can remember it without writing it down. Test yourself. Today, I had 3 priorities - complete my draft vision, confirm the budget, and sync w/my partner group. Did I have lots more things to do? ... Sure, but those 3 were my best bets for the day. If I got through those 3, I could always bite off more. What I didn't want to do was have a long list of things I couldn't remember.
The rule of 3 was actually found to be the most effective number in the military for people to remember outcomes without writing things down. I didn't know this at the time. I'm just happy that the military came to the same conclusion. I lucked into it :)

Isn’t this Simplification at its best ? Clear mind does achieve more than a cluttered mind.

Am I able to "create" enough time ?
Of course, the common thought people who want to do more but aren’t able to do so is that they don’t have enough time. From my observations, the idea is to create time for self, for what you want to do.
There are infinite ways one can look at the day and build up time for something you really want to do. One of the ways, Subroto Bagchi mentions in his book- "The Professional" when he introduces the term- "White Space"-
I do not know how the term White Space originated. In telecommunication, it denotes frequency allocated to a channel but not used. Typically, broadcasters are provided additional frequency that is not meant to be populated so that the adjacent broadcast stations do not overlap. In print, the white space denotes emptiness so that we can read between the characters that form a word and a group of words that form a sentence.
In our professional lives, white space is a train or a bus ride to work, it is the time waiting outside the client's office, the time spent on long flights. We have all been given huge white spaces and we simply let their power go waste.

Look back at the day you spent, you will notice the white spaces and how you utilized them. If you wanted to read a book, could you have utilized the white space better. If you wanted to write something, could white space have been utilized in a better manner. I am not suggesting you to use all the available White spaces towards your interests, probably that’s not ideal. But what is more apt is that in order to create time for self, White space do offer the necessary time space for you.
By just having a look at how you utilize the time in the day, you would be able to figure out how to manufacture time. Believe me, it’s possible!

Am I able to "compartmentalize" life ?
"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hands" - Thomas Carlyle

Dale Carnegie too was a huge proponent of Living in a Day tight compartments. Over a period of time, i have begun to appreciate the essence of living in Day tight compartments. Much of our mental and emotional energies drains out worrying about what will happen tomorrow or also by replaying the mistakes that we did yesterday in our minds. Living in a day-tight compartment is a metaphor that symbolizes that we shut out thoughts that carry over from yesterday or thoughts that represents tomorrow's anxieties and live life as it happens today. The idea is not to let residue thoughts of yesterday and toxic worries of tomorrow bother you today.
I have found the application of this concept suitable even while managing multiple passions. I try and live a slightly modified version of this principle- "Live in a hour tight compartments" when you are dealing with multiple interests.
It often happens that disappointment resulting in failure or a mistake in one task during the start of the day often occupies your mind throughout the day and affects everything else you do throughout the day. Living the day in a hour tight compartment helps one shut out what happened in the earlier on and helps maintain the required focus in other interests.

Am I believing in myself more than i should ?
This may sound somewhat naive. I always thought that believing in oneself is one of the foremost things everyone should do, till i read Don't believe in yourself if you want to succeed! . In its heart this article talks about how believing in self always leaves us vulnerable to unknown situations. When faced with these situations, we often tend to think about our limitations.
If at all you think you cannot manage multiple interests, it might as well be the case of excessive belief in your own self. Try not believing the part of you that says "you cannot do it". It works! Every achievement starts with a thought in mind.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated on 13th-March-2010
Martin Bailey --a man with multiple passions, quite beautifully balances his passion for photography with his work as a Software Management professional. For more on him, do visit- http://www.martinbaileyphotography.com/

Here is what he had to say upon reading this post-

I read your blog post with great interest. You write very well, and although I intended to scan over it, I ended up reading it fully.

I thought the part where you mentioned about being interested as opposed to committed is so very true. People often ask me how I find time to do my photography, including the weekly podcast and forum etc. while maintaining a busy full time day job. My answer is often that I don't find time, I make time. People will always make time to do something that they love and they really want to do. If you aren't able to do that, question your commitment to your passion, and not how others miraculously seem to have more time than yourself.

Prioritizing what you attack first is also very important. I've never locked into the number three, but when I have a long list of things to do, I prioritize how I spend my time. I often quote the 80:20 rule. You can say that 20% of what you do will be responsible for 80% of your success. If that's true, you can stop doing the other 80%, concentrate on doing your 20% really well, and excelling in those tasks, and your overall success will be enhanced even more. Of course, there are always going to be things in the 80% that you can't avoid doing, but you don't need to work on these as hard. I learned from an old boss, that sometimes good "enough", is good enough. You don't have to do everything to the best of your ability to succeed.

You also talk about creating time in your paragraph about White Space – I have no white space! There is no time such as on a bus or walking when I am not listening to a photography related interview, or an Audible book etc. Even when I'm sitting next to my wife after dinner, enjoying our time together before I go to my computer, if we are not talking about something, I'm running through ideas and planning my evening's activities or future plans. I do feel that I need to work harder on giving myself some white space to be honest. I am often so plugged in, that I can become over tired sometimes, to the point of making myself ill. Taking time off is important.

I like the idea of day tight or hour tight compartments. I generally learned a long time ago that I need to shut off one thought or problem to enable me to concentrate on the next. In my early twenties I would lose weekends worrying about something that happened on Friday, only to find that on Monday the problem had either disappeared, or was not such a problem after all. There are times though when I am not able to cut off feelings from previous incidents, and I'm not sure that we should. One of my bosses always praised me for being able to cut away from work easily though, and giving myself time for my photography, creating a nice balance in my life, so I'm probably doing an OK job of this.

The only thing in the article that I found a little difficult to read, or awkward was the double negative at the end. You say that we should not believe in ourselves, but then turn it into a positive, by saying that you should not believe in yourself when you think you can't achieve something. This last paragraph is funny, as I'm sure you meant it to be, but it boils down to the fact that you need to believe in yourself to give yourself the confidence to proceed, but not to be over-confident.

Personally, I have a very easy philosophy around this. I never question my ability to do something when trying to decide whether or not to take on a new task or project. The only question I ask myself is whether or not I want to do it. If I want to do something, I will make it happen, no matter how difficult the undertaking. Of course, I realize that although I'd love to be able to fly unaided or go to the moon, right now that's just not possible. You have to be realistic, although I do fully expect to go to the moon or into space at least once before I die.

Great article Anuj! Thanks very much for sharing.

2000-2009- a flourishing decade in the History of Software Testing

2010-01-14T13:28:00.000+05:30

The year 2010 not only marked the start of a new year but also a new decade. With this, the world said Good bye to another significant decade in the world history. Virtually every news channel, new paper, websites ran special series on the important events, happenings and people of the decade gone by. All this got me wondering, Software Testing as a profession too completed a rather eventful and a positive decade. It made me look back on time gone by and caused me to grow in realization that most of the things about our profession have indeed changed and evolved for good.
The text that follows this paragraph is the experience nuggets as i have observed. These are no way the researched facts but just the way i have seen Software Testing evolve.

Scope of Testing:
Start of the decade: We will develop the product and the Testing team can test the UI.
Towards the end of the decade: I need separate testing teams for Security Testing, Functional Testing, Automation, Globalization Testing etc.

It was quite apparent in the early days of the decade that the Test team was usually associated with testing the Functionality or the UI part. Even for doing that part, there were enough doubters in the organizations. I remember an instance when Development team used to come and say- please log more logic related bugs. Well they were not all that wrong here; the focus indeed had been more on testing the UI. The bottom line then was that due to various factors, the test team was not trusted to test anything beyond what is visible to the user. Performance Testing, Security Testing etc. did not even feature in the overall scheme of things.
I was recently in a discussion with a professional who said that legacy code that’s written for some of the applications 10 years back, there was no special consideration given to the Security aspects. The situation now is very different and it has evolved in alignment with the customer's expectations. Apart from superior product functionally, today's customer demands the product to be secure and working with optimum performance. While several factors have led to the transformation of expectations but after-effect has been that this change has been positive for Software testing profession. Security Testing and Performance Testing has become buzzwords and the testing streams that are based on specialized skills.

Developer's attitude:
Start of the decade: I don’t have time now. Please come later for any clarifications.
Towards the end of the decade: Please do some unit testing on the private fix. I don’t want this bug to be rejected after I introduce this fix.

Just imagine the scene- A tester has been tasked to test a very complex product. But there was no documentation. Still the tester manages to test the product, finds a seemingly good bug and then rushes to the Developer to give the news. The Typical developer staring at a screen without a blink of eyelid, does not notice the tester, falls deaf ears to tester's enthusiasm and just says- "I don’t have time now. Please come later.....". I won’t say every Developer had such an attitude then but most of them did have and each generally had different ways to "Ignore" the testers. Some even referred Software QA Engineers as "Questions and Answer" Engineers (rather than Quality Assurance).
The situation that i witnessed towards the end of decade is a lot better. The Software testing job commands a certain respect and the developers community by far realizes that they would not want to release the product to market without having gone through the eyes of a skilled tester. One of the instances that confirms me this fact is that the Developers requested Testers to test the Private binaries to ensure that the bug is fixed and it wont cause the internal builds to fail. Now, thats what i call as "Paradigm Shift".

Tester's Involvement:
Start of the decade: Test team should only be involved after the product is developed fully.
Towards the end of the decade: Have you included the Product Requirements document to be signed off by the Software Testing team?

Testing is something that’s done towards the tail-end of the Software Development Life cycle- That is what one of the super bosses of the one of the earlier projects i was involved in said. Well, not really well said. Things actually worked on the assumption that Software testers would be involved in the Project Life cycle only after builds are integrated and ready to test. When i say "Involved" in the last sentence, i meant even the knowledge acquisition of new features, any preparatory activities would start after the build is ready to test. This may be hard to believe now but certainly was the case.
Now, the things are different for good. The projects do not ideally proceed unless Product requirements are formally signed-off by the Software Testing stakeholders. The V-model being followed in essence helps ensure that the test team gets ample space to plan and do what they do the best- Find bugs and provide quality related information.

Tester's attitude:
Start of the decade: We will do lots of adhoc testing on the Release candidate build. We have to stop this release by finding bugs.
Towards the end of the decade: I need to find bugs timely for the quality release. Finding late bugs won’t reflect well on me.

One of the early instances that i remember was testers saving their best for the last i.e. testing the product loosely in early phases and when the release approaches put all the "testing skills" to optimum use and find critical crashes and bugs that would eventually "Stop" the release. And what’s more there was a certain sense of pride when boasting to others as if Testing team had some God given Power to make or break the releases at will. Howsoever naive it might sound now; this was one of the situations in the early days.
Now, of course the tester's mission is more clear and defined, and finding late bugs are not a good reflection on test strategy. By late bugs i mean, the bugs that could have been found earlier. Of course, regressions can occur at anytime in the product life-cycle. But the whole fact of the matter is with some rightful advances in Software Testing Education, the overall expectations are better communicated and known.

Passion:
Start of the decade: Test only during weekdays.
Towards the end of the decade: Weekend testing. Are you game for it ?

Passion is key to success in Software Testing like in any human endeavor. Well, in early days of the decade too there were people with immense passion for the craft. Testers were willing to go that extra-mile to learn something and evolve in the profession.
All i can say is that during the later part of decade, this has only gone better. Training methods have evolved and there are many success stories that the testers of current genre can look upto. The recent initiative of Weekend Testing community only takes this passion to a higher levels.

Career Planning:
Start of the decade: Its good to try and be big fish in a small pond.
Towards the end of the decade: Well, now we are talking about a sea.

"Its good to try and be big fish in a small pond and be a small fish in the big pond" this is how one of the testers in the earlier days of the decade remarked when i was having a conversation about why he chose Software Testing as a field. Small pond as a metaphor for Software testing was indeed short-lived. Probably the reason it became a metaphor at all was because of lack of awareness of the depth this profession possess.
Now, the perception is changed to "Welcome to the sea, folks!". Its indeed a sea, how much ever you learn, there is always something more to learn, explore and eventually master.
Also, in the early part of the decade, the folks used to join Software testing only because they were not considered to be good in Software Development. There were numerous instances that i know of when an Engineer was moved from Development to Testing only because he/she was not good at Development, as it was taken for granted that such a person will be fit enough for testing. I don’t say that we are over this mentality altogether but for sure there has been positive change. People join Software Testing profession thinking of a long term career.

Books on Software Testing:
Start of the decade: Few books on Software Testing.
Towards the end of the decade: Dedicated Shelves of books on Software Testing.

Looking back, the book stores hardly used to have the specialized books on Software Testing at the start of the decade. The literature definitely existed but the information was not as readily available as it is now. Most referred to a book by Roger S Pressman to read about Software Testing, Testing types etc. Also, not to forget the first Software Testing book that i ever held- Software Testing Techniques by Boris Beizer.
Moving on, things are much much better now. I was recently at a book shop and seeing a separate Shelf on Software Testing books, it made me feel good about the visibility this profession has gained over the years. A little glance into the future, i can only foresee this aspect getting better.

Organization's attitude:
Start of the decade: The work that develop does is more significant and hence should be paid more.
Towards the end of the decade: Testing is equally important to the project, there is no reason why Software Test engineers should not be paid equally.

Pay and Salaries are always a sensitive issues. In the early days of the decade, Software Testing was treated as a poor cousin of Software Development by many holding the plum positions in the organizations. And this led to being given the special treatment to Software Development team not only in terms of pay but also in terms of rewards and recognition. I remember once, in one of the projects that i was involved- there was a discussion on whether Testers name should be included in product's Easter Egg or not as if Testers did not have any meaningful contribution to the projects.
The better sense has prevailed in the recent times. A lot of organizations believe in equality in terms of rewards and recognition and the bridge that existed earlier between Software Development and Software Testing in these terms has been narrowed and vanished altogether in many cases. I see less and less of this sort of preferential treatment.

Globalization Testing:
Start of the decade: We sell our Software only in US. There is no reason to testing multiple languages.
Towards the end of the decade: For our business to survive, we need to go Global. Please equip yourselves to test in various languages.

I would perceive the advent of Globalization testing also an important event in this decade. Earlier on the focus was majorly on the single language speaking markets. But declining profit margins and market share has prompted Software organizations to look into diverse geographical markets and this has led to Software Globalization Engineering taking the center stage. The more Globalization specific changes are introduced, the more it has become mandatory to test them and this has resulted in evolution of Globalization testing as a specialized form.

Do you have anymore experiences to share ? Please share it across.

As a closing note, it makes me wonder why our profession does not have “Software Tester of the decade” recognition. Any ideas?

What is your "Touch-Time" as a Software Tester ?

2010-01-04T22:28:00.000+05:30

What is a Touch-Time ?
In a Lean Production system the Touch-Time is the time that the product is actually being worked on, and value is being added. In the manufacturing Lingo, the time that practitioner spends with the machine shaping the product- is the most crucial time in the production. Everything else the practitioner does while at work does not amount to the value that gets added when he or she works on the product. Though not exactly from the manufacturing world, there is a good reference for the term "Patient Touch-Time" in this article . This article beautifully defines the strategies to make best use of Touch time with patients.

In his book The Professional , Subroto Bagchi has a following mention about the Touch-Time:

While learning about Total Quality Management (TQM) in 1990s, I understood the concept of Touch-Time from manufacturing world. In a factory amidst the activities that keep a manufacturing person busy, all that truly matters is when the raw material physically touches the machinery. It is only at that stage that there is value addition as the raw material converts itself into the next higher stage in production. While a factory head may feel proud of the state-of-the-art machinery in his factory, what truly matters is not its capacity but the Touch-Time the factory is able to achieve. Quite similarly, every professional must know the equivalent of Touch-Time in his field."

What is Software Test Engineer's Touch-Time ?
As rightly pointed out by Subroto Bagchi, Every professional must know the equivalent of Touch-Time in his field. For an example- a Sales person may be involved in myriad of activities like new product training, understanding pricing and features of product, travelling but all that actually matters for Sales person is the Touch-Time with Existing or prospective customers. Without this time, there won’t be any Sales and henceforth the profits.
A similar example for the trainer. A trainer may be spending time in many activities such as training content preparation, preparing course material etc. but all that really matter for training profession is the contact time spent with the trainees.
Like in many fields, I feel the Touch-Time is hugely important in the Software Testing also. What constitutes a Touch-Time for a Software Test Engineer ? In the simplest terms, it is the time a Software Test engineer actually spend for Testing the Product. Is there anything more important to the Software Testing group than this core activity of Test engineer spending time to actually "test" the product ? I think the answer is No. It is often said that Tester's role is to provide quality-related information to the company management to help them take better-informed decisions about their products. Which activity primarily leads to gathering this information ? It is the Touch-Time. No matter how much time one spends in planning, as long as actual Test execution is not optimal, the end information gathered would be flawed.

What activities actually do not form the Software Tester's Touch-Time ?
I would say any the time spent by Software Test engineer in any activities other than actual Testing wouldn’t constitute the Software Tester's Touch-Time. This may include Test Planning, Test case creation, Test setup, Meetings etc.

Does this mean that all the non Touch-Time activities aren’t important ?
Well, to me the answer to this is a "No" and a "Yes".
"No" because one cannot obviously perform testing without the supporting activities like immaculate planning, appropriate test setup etc. I would rather call these as "supporting" activities which though are not directly productive but are essential.
"Yes" because there has to be an appropriate balance between Software Testing and non Touch-Time related activities. A good chunk of non Touch-Time activities also include "Time wasters" like unnecessary breaks while at work, giving leisure more importance, spending too much time on personal emails, Social networking etc. I am not saying that one should do away with these activities but the point i am trying to make is to understand the importance of Touch-Time and be more Self aware of how time gets spent and what chunk of time gets devoted to Touch-Time activity of testing.

Is there a way to create more Touch-Time for myself ?
At the grassroots level, whenever i felt deprived of Touch-Time one of the first things to do is to understand where the time is going. For this, i have found the use of Activity Logs quite helpful. Knowing at a granular level which activity takes more time is a good starting point to improve and create more opportunity to spend time in things that matters the most.
One another idea for creating more Touch-Time is to Invest time in Exploratory Testing.

Any ideas, thoughts, comments ? Please do share it across.

Software Testing- A Job of Infinite Possibilities

2010-01-02T10:53:00.001+05:30

Here is an Excerpt from the book- "How we test Software at Microsoft ?"
How do you Test Hundreds of Modems ?
We needed to test model dial-up server scalability in Microsoft Windows NT Remote Access Server (RAS) with limited hardware resources. We had the money and lab infrastructure only for tens of modems, but we had a testability issue in that we needed to test with hundreds of modems to simulate real customer deployments accurately. The team came up with the idea to simulate a real modem in software and have it connect over Ethernet; we called in RASETHER. This test tool turned out to be a great idea because it was the first time anyone had created a private network with a network. Today, this technology is known as Virtual Private Network (VPN). What started as a scalability test tool for the Windows NT modem server became a huge commercial success and something we use every time we "tunnel" into the corporate network. - David Catlett, Test Architect

In my opinion, the above anecdote is really an inspiring one for Software testers. Here we are talking about the birth of a blockbuster technology that makes life easier for so many employees world wide (enabling them to work efficiently out of the office premises with same ease). And this technology- VPN was born as a result of an innovation done by a bunch of Software testers who were out there to solve a testability issue they faced because of crunch of resources.
A few learnings here-
The recent few years has been turbulent from economic stand point and virtually every organization were faced with cost cuts and Software testing industry is no different in this regard. The times when "Do more with less" is more a rule than norm, the above excerpt is quite inspirational. As a test engineer, even before asking for "more resources" to do your job, always ask yourself and explore all the possible sources till you get an answer to this question- "Is there a better way of doing things ?", "I believe there should be a cost effective way, i must find one.". Who knows, as you get an answer to these questions- more brighter are the chances that you will come up with better ways, almost always. Adversity does breed innovation!

I wish that more such possibilities are explored in 2010. Wish you a happy new year!

"Innovation for the sake of Innovation" - Does it really help?

2009-12-24T11:05:00.000+05:30

Below is an yet another interesting remark in the book- "Inside steve's brain"

When asked by Rob Walker, a New York Times reporter, if he ever consciously thinks about innovation, Jobs responded "No. We consciously think about making great products. We don't think, 'Lets’ be innovative! Lets take a class! Here are the five rules of innovation, let’s put them up all over the company!" Jobs said trying to systemize innovation is "Like somebody who's not cool trying to be cool. It's painful to watch...Its like watching Michael Dell try to dance. Painful."
Image Source: http://m2.wnymedia.net/files/2009/11/innovation.jpg

Well, i see pearls of wisdom existing in above statement about Innovation. In most of the organizations, the employees are "asked" to be innovative or are given training on how to be innovative. (To be clear, i have nothing against such trainings in general.) How many times have you heard the statements like-

"You should have found the creative solution"
"Why cant you think a bit more innovatively to solve the underlying problem ?"
"Lets think out of box"
"Please think of creative test ideas"
"Try and think beyond boundaries and solve the problem at hand"

After reading Steve Jobs' notion about Innovation, it really makes me wonder whether the above statements about "trying" to make an individual innovative really had a profound effect. Did it really change the world ? Hearing these statements- does it really raises one's Innovativeness quotient ?

Every time I think, the answer is more leaned towards a "No". While encouragement and motivation are required in any situation, but per my experience an individual does not really become creative by a constant push from someone or by some sort of weekly training. I believe at the root of every innovation or a discovery (no matter how small it may be) is a burning desire to do something or make a difference. In the case of Jobs' it is that inherent desire to make great products. If a deep passion is missing, no matter what anyone says- Innovative ideas will cease to exist or die after a short burst.

From my profession, a tester will be genuinely creative only if he desires to and takes immense pride in releasing products that the customers can use with ease and without issues. It is this desire (apart from necessary skills) that will drive him to regularly come up with test ideas that matter.
If for innovation sake, somebody gives a direction to tester to find creative test ideas- it will lead to directionless Innovation, which is often a waste of time and resources.

Citing another instance from the same book below.

Wanton Innovation is wasteful. There must be a direction, something to pull it all together. Some Silicon Valley companies develop new technologies and then go in search of problems for those technologies to solve. Take the Internet bubble of late 1990s. The bubble was defined by this kind of thinking. It was a carnival of worthless innovation- half-baked business ideas pumped into vast money-burning concerns in a misguided attempt to get big quick and beat the competition.

Do drop in your comments!

Enhancing your Reading Skills- Are you for it ?

2009-12-15T10:24:00.001+05:30

While reading "Competition 360" magazine, i came across a very interesting piece of article by Prakash Iyer on the topic- "Leaders are readers. Are You ?"
The URL for online version of article is as under:
http://careers360.com/news/3712-Leaders-are-readers-Are-YOU

Some beautiful thoughts from this article-
- It has been rightly said that there is very little difference between an illiterate person- who cannot read- and a literate person who does not read. Time to ask yourself the question: are you one of those literate illiterates, too ?

- If you want to take a simple step towards expanding your mind and improving your life, start reading. A book can change your life.

- If you read for just half an hour everyday, you could finish a 250 page book in just two weeks' time. That's twenty six books a year. A hundred books in next four years.
Just think, what difference would that make to the quality of your mind, your career, your life ? Just thirty minutes a day can do the trick, so stop giving excuses about not having the time to read.

- It allows you to peep into some of the finest minds in the world. Reading a book is like having a conversation with the author, listening to his stories and learning from his experiences. You can get ideas, inspiration and thoughts- all from a book! Every book you read becomes a layer of knowledge you can stand on. And every book makes you grow taller, just a little bit. So, remember, in the supermarket of life, the best things are always stacked on the uppershelves. If you are not a reader, you may never be able to reach them.

- American comedian and film star Groucho Marx was right. He once remarked that he found television very educating. He said, 'Every time someone switches on the TV, I walk into another room and start reading a good book!" Get the Groucho habit. Pick up a book Today!

- Leaders are readers. If you look around, you will find that most successful people are reading. Visit their officies, and you will find books strewn around. Visit their homes, and you will find a well stocked book shelf. Take a leaf out of their books. Start reading.

These thoughts are something that i completely resonate with. In this fast paced world, when every human being is trying to differentiate from the person next to him by all means possible, it is apt to realize that the real differentiation happens within mind. And Reading is one of the activities that helps one give an edge and helps one grow.

Irrespective of the profession one is in, Reading appropriately only helps one move in one direction. Upwards!

Uncovering Myths about Globalization Testing- Knowledge of Native Language

2009-12-09T11:50:00.000+05:30

Myth 20: If i dont know German at all, i can still effectively test a German application

Referring to Globalization Testing Myth# 4 i talked about why "A person who doesn't know French cannot test the French version of the Software" is a myth.
There is one relevant thought as i was going through Bj Rollison’s interesting blog on Localization testing.
In one of my past experiences, while testing a consumer application- there was a very critical bug that got overlooked resulting in a lot of noise generated by the customers. Basically, the team was involved in testing an update to an existing version for different languages. As none in the team was an expert in the language ,the pure focus of this update testing was to test the changed areas (and none of the changed areas included UI specific changes) with least focus on UI regression as nothing had changed.
After a while the update was released, it caused immense confusion to the customers based out of Germany. The prime reason for confusion was that they were now seeing the User Interface in a "different" language than German, which needless to say offended many customers. And as this was a consumer application, it did affect many home users. The corrective update with right language pack was soon delivered to the customers.
The Root cause analysis of this issue result in crucial learning for all the teams involved. While this issue was mostly because of wrong resource file being referenced for German build, which could ideally have been caught during unit testing. From Testing team's perspective, this issue could have been found earlier by some sort of a checklist that would have been in place which could help a test engineer distinguish between languages by means of checking the presence of language reserved characters etc. This would be highly effective while testing "similar" looking languages.

So, even though one is not a language expert, it does add value to know the nuances of languages enough so as to help test engineers make more informed decision on what he/she is testing.

Embrace CEO like thinking in your testing

2009-11-28T23:08:00.000+05:30

What is the first thought that cross your mind when you hear the word "CEO" ? Chief Executive Officer, a person who is at the helm of all the affairs in the organization, a person who drives the organization through its growth, basically a person who is visionary.
All these are right inferences given the context of a CEO. A CEO may not be an expert in all the diverse areas that constitute his/her organization but does possess a certain kind of unique thinking patterns (in addition to the vast knowledge and experience, of course) that enables him to take most complex decisions.
That really makes me wonder often- Is there any takeaway for test engineers from the CEO mindset that can assist in testing a product effectively ?
To explore the answer to above curiosity, I came across some of the beautiful instances in my recent experience.
The book "Inside Steve's brain" provides an wonderful insight into Steve Jobs' thinking and how it helped transform Apple over the years. There is a significant mention of Steve Jobs being a perfectionist and a stickler for details. The book talks about how Jobs sat with designers and virtually tested the prototypes and gave valuable feedback for every seemingly minor detail. His involvement is touted as one of the major reason why Apple products have a good focus on User friendliness aspect. Consider the below instances from the book-
Instance #1
Incredibly, Ratzlaff's team (He was in charge of look and feel of Apple's Operating Systems) spent six months refining the scrollbars to Jobs's satisfaction. Scrollbars are an important part of any Operating System but are hardly most visible element of the user interface. Nonetheless, Jobs insisted the scrollbars look just so, and Ratzlaff's team had to design version after version.

Instance #2
While working on the new interface, Jobs would sometimes suggest what at first seemed to be crazy ideas, but later turned out to be the good ones. At one meeting, he was scrutinizing three tiny buttons at the top left of every window. The three buttons were for closing, shrinking, and expanding the window, respectively. The designers had made all the buttons the same muted gray, to prevent them from distracting the user, but it was difficult to tell what the buttons were for. It was suggested that their function should be illustrated by animation that was triggered when mouse cursor hovered over them.
But then Jobs made when seemed like an odd suggestion: that the buttons should be colored like traffic stoplights: red to close the window, yellow to shrink it, and green to expand it. When we heard that, we felt that was a strange thing to associate with a computer, "Ratzlaff said. But we worked on it for a little while and he was right." The color of button implicitly suggested the consequence of clicking it, especially the red button, which suggested "danger" if the user clicked it and didn’t mean to close the window.

These are interesting quotations that emphasizes many things one of which is the attention to detail required to make a real difference to the product. Jobs’s Attention to details is exemplary and something which is a direct takeaway for the Test engineers.

One another appealing aspect is his CEO like thinking. CEO is the real "owner" of each and every aspect of organization and product design is definitely one of them. Taking ownership of something is easier said than done. To think about ownership, think about the project that you are currently working as the one in which you have personally invested and the stakes of the project depended upon how well you do your part. If you don’t do your part well, you lose all your investment. Imbibing ownership in testing opens door for several initiatives and innovations, which would otherwise stay dormant.

I feel another aspect of Jobs's personality that is exhibited in above quotations is his passion, a burning desire to succeed and make a difference to the user experience.
The aspect of ownership and passion are a lesson for any aspiring as well as Experienced tester. After all being "Experienced" in something doesn’t ideally mean that one is "Passionate" about that very thing. Ownership and Passion indeed supersede any other skill an employee need to create a space for himself/herself in their sphere of work.
Here’s to a CEO who tests!

Any thoughts/comments ? Please do share.

Consider testing the "box" for "Out of box" testing!

2009-11-13T23:33:00.000+05:30

The opening lines from the book- "Inside Steve's Brain" by Leander Kahney goes something like this-
Steve Jobs gives almost as much thought to the cardboard boxes his gadgets come in as the products themselves. This is not for the reasons of taste or elegance- though that’s part of it. To Jobs, the act of pulling a product from its box is an important part of the user experience, and like everything else he does, its very carefully thought out.
Jobs sees product packaging as a helpful way to introduce new, unfamiliar technology to consumers. Take the original Mac, which was shipped in 1984. Nobody at the time had seen anything like it. It was controlled by this weird pointing thing- not a keyboard like other early PCs. To familiarize new users with the mouse, Jobs made sure it was packaged separately in its own compartment. Forcing the user to unpack the mouse- to pick it up and plug it in- would make it little less alien when they had to use it for the first time. In the years since, Jobs has carefully designed this "unpacking routine" for each and every Apple product. The iMac packaging was designed to make it obvious how to get the machine on the Internet, and included a polystrene insert specifically designed to double as a prop for the slim instruction manual.
Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Macintosh_128k_transparency.png

To me that’s a very distinctive insight. In majority of the literature that i have gone through in addition to having experienced testing Software, the user experience has invariably been associated with how the inherent Software design make it easier for the user to learn and use the Software. User experience of a product is something that starts with Installation of software to all the actions user can do till a software is uninstalled. Here we have- Steve Jobs- recently voted as the CEO of the decade - giving a refreshing dimension to User experience. User experience is certainly something that starts taking shape as soon as the user visualizes or sees the product. User can either see the product physically in the Store, on websites or other visual mechanisms such as TV advertisements, newspapers etc.

Another inference i gained- From Software testing point of view- Do we as a testers generally consider testing the Software packaging ? Many traditionalists tend to believe that this would be out of scope of testing department in a typical organization. Why would they think so ? May be because there is a lot of emphasis given in the organizations to bind the roles with specific terms e.g. a set of people do "Manual testing", a set of people do "Automation", a set of people do "Performance testing" and on and on. So who owns the things that do not come under the high level umbrella of these terms. The above illustration suggests that a person as influential as Steve Jobs consider Product packaging as important as Product itself. No wonder Apple products are so far ahead on usability. But again, for traditionalists- there is no term called as "Software Packaging testing" so wont it come under scope of anyone ?
Well, i consider an employee's role in an organization to be as elaborate or small as he or she makes out to be. There is a general tendency to limit our learning and contribution while living under the so called influence of terminology. It may have a dependency on organization's culture as well but generally limiting ourselves to certain role doesn’t help an employee grow, whereas it might only help to just do the roles for which one is hired.

Ok. Before i sound like moving farther away from original point i intended to make. Testing the product packaging is testing the first impression a customer might have when in contact with the product. It will not require high degree of technical skills. What is more evident in Steve Jobs' thinking about Packaging is simplicity of thoughts or common sense, which unfortunately is so uncommon. I think one of the key Soft skills that a Software tester should possess is common sense that generally help reason and find many bugs that may "commonly" get unnoticed. One of the example of testing customer's first impression would be testing the way products are represented in the websites.

So, key learnings from this excerpt has been-
- User experience goes beyond the internal workings of the product.
- Do not limit the role you play in organization. There is always scope to do more.
- Testing the product packaging is more complex that it looks and more important than it sound.
- Common sense is one of the key Soft skills for Software testers.

So would you consider testing the "box" for "Out of box" testing ? Do Share your experiences and thoughts.

Thinking opposite- turning flops to successes

2009-11-11T11:17:00.000+05:30

Here is one of the interesting story from the book- "Whatever you think think the opposite" by Paul Arden-
Until the Mexico Olympics of 1968 the customary way for a high jumper to cross the bar was with his body parallel to it, in a technique known as the Western Roll. But that was about to change.
A little-known athlete approached the bar, which was set at a world record height of 7 ft 4.25 inches. He took off, but instead of turning his body towards the bar, he turned his back on it.
He brought his legs up and flipped over the bar backwards.
His name was Dick Fosbury, and his method of jumping became known as Fosbury Flop. It is still used today.
He jumped higher than any man before, by thinking opposite from everyone else.
This example is just a technique for thinking, but here the technique for thinking became a technique for jumping, turning a flop into success.
Image Source: http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/25/1225-004-A77580A6.jpg

This is an insightful story with a true focus on what it takes to stand out from the crowd and embrace success.
Would Dick Fosbury be remembered as he is now had he thought as rest of the world did i.e. thinking straight ?
Would he have broken the world record by using the conventional thinking ?
Would the new technique have evolved had he thought traditionally ?

The answer to each of the above questions is a certain "No". Often, the difference between being ordinary and extra-ordinary is a simple drift from conventional thinking.
Is it easy ? May be not, because most people prefer their lives to follow a certain routine and go in predictable fashion. Any deviation from the set pattern of the life causes discomfort and this is what happens when people try to move beyond conventional thinking. Those who manage to counter this discomfort begin their journey towards being extra-ordinary.

Till the time Fosbury flipped over the bar backwards, none of the coaching techniques for High jumping preached this. He caused the coaching manuals to be rewritten and future generations, even till now follow his technique. This is an interesting insight. In Sports and in life broadly, correct coaching help us distinguish right from wrong and in the process of doing so, sometimes restricts our thinking. It again takes the courage to think on your feet and imbibe Independent err... Opposite thinking. It may not guarantee success the first time you do it but it definitely kicks off the process required to succeed.

When was the last you thought opposite of norm ?

Do share your ideas and experiences.

Uncovering Myths about Globalization Testing- Websites with localized addresses

2009-11-08T15:05:00.000+05:30

Myth 19: There is no need to include localized web addresses as a part of your test data as Web addresses are always in English

This was a truth till a little while back. The news is that Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has given a go ahead to International domain names.
As per the news details- Currently, domain names can only be displayed using the Latin alphabet letters A-Z, the digits 0-9 and the hyphen, but in future countries will be able to display country-code Top Level Domains (cc TLDs) in their native language. ccTLDs are those that have a two-letter country designation at the end of a domain name.

Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/181052/international_domains_get_icann_thumbs_up.html

So, Globalization testers- get those fancy web addresses with localized characters added to your test data. There are more bugs waiting to be found.

Does your testing catch Cockroaches ?

2009-11-07T16:25:00.000+05:30

The year 2009 saw one of the potentially worst recessions in the history often (at the earlier stages) getting compared with Great Depression era post World war-II. Luckily for the current generation, the impact of current recession hasnt been as strong as Great depression but for sure this time has been one involving stupendous learning for the world economies. While most of the organizations and individuals remain cautious in their economic outlook, there has been a far reaching impetus laid on creativity, innovation to come up with cost effective and efficient ways of doing things. This period has also given birth to many interesting theories pointing to the cause of current situation to many similar topics. One such theory is Cockroach Theory.

What Does Cockroach Theory Mean?
A market theory that suggests that when a company reveals bad news to the public, there may be many more related negative events that have yet to be revealed. The term comes from the common belief that seeing one cockroach is usually evidence that there are many more that remain hidden.

Investopedia explains Cockroach Theory
For example, in February 2007, subprime lender New Century Financial Corporation faced liquidity concerns as losses arising from bad loans to defaulting subprime borrowers started to emerge. This company was the first of many other subprime lenders that faced financial problems, contributing to the subprime mortgage meltdown.
In other words, the fact that one subprime lender (one cockroach) faced financial problems indicated that many other similar businesses were likely to face the same issues.

Source for above text in Italics: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cockroach-theory.asp

After reading the above information, it made me think- Is there any similarity this theory has with Software testing ?
Can the negative events referred to in above description be equated to bugs ? Negative events are also referred to as cockroaches i.e. even if you manage to slay one cockroach in your house, be assured there are quite a few hiding in the vicinity. Does this sound like a similar situation for us testers ? Even if you find one good bug, there are always more hiding in the closet.
This is especially true whenever the changes are introduced in the Software product be it as huge a change as an architectural change or as small a change as a minor UI bug fix. Each change introduces cockroaches in the Software code and it is left up to the skill of a Software tester to find it as soon as possible. I have normally seen the tendency of developers to come and defend any change done saying only a minimal testing is enough. Testers should be wary about such statements and plan their testing only after a thorough analysis of the introduced change. For example, Every bug fix introduces a change in Software product. More often, the tendency of testers is to only execute the steps mentioned in the bug report to verify the bug fix. While this may be good to make sure that the mentioned behavior in the bug report is fixed but this approach in no way ensures that the “change” introduced by the bug fix is tested properly. This “change” often gives birth to new cockroaches which because of lack of good planning to test “change” gets found quite late.

Often during the project, testers tend to give up or relax after a major bug is found. When you are feeling like relaxing next time, just think of the Cockroach theory!

I would like to hear your experiences around cockroaches in Software testing. Did you come across any ?

Note:
Inspiration of this post comes from this article by Tathagat Verma

Conquering the demon called “Change”

2009-10-21T16:16:00.000+05:30

"Only thing constant in this world in Change.",
"Nothing is permanent except change"

Here goes some of the ageless quotes about often dreaded phenomenon called as Change. Time and again- Professionals or Home makers, Kids or Adults, Males or Females have found dealing with any sort of changes in their lives, day-to-day routines a challenge, some times as stiff as a mountain to climb.
While going through an article on Embracing Change , the author gives useful insights into typical types of change. Read this-

The reason we may fear change is between what we might call “familiar” and “unfamiliar” types of change. Familiar change is the type we all can, more-or-less, expect and anticipate: we grow older, we learn new things, we expect to get a flu in winter, our favorite (mostly winning) team goes on a (mostly) losing streak, etc.
It is, however, normal to feel disoriented in the midst of unfamiliar, or unexpected, change and cues. In our rapid-fire, rapidly changing world, our schedules, plans and routines become disrupted in a totally unexpected way. The recent mortgage crisis, the stock market crash, and the global economic turmoil are all unexpected, profound, changes that most people simply did not expect to happen.

This is one unique way of looking at change. Before i read this, Change for me meant something that leads to a messy situation and makes the thinking cluttered. This above provide a different perspective. Not all change is messy after all. It also makes me believe that the age-old wisdom of "solving a big problem by decomposing into smaller manageable parts" still holds good in today's times when (unlike in the past) no two days are same in any sense. It is this wisdom that probably prompted the author to break-up and classify the phenomenon of change, which if considered as a single entity is quite hard to fathom.
When describing with what author believes can be a potential solution of dealing with massive changes in life, the article says-

In the midst of change most of us get off of our center because we are creatures of habit. We normally gravitate to sameness and routine unless we work really hard at doing different things. For example, we take the same route to work, eat in the same restaurants on the same day of the week, eat the same cereal for breakfast every day, wear the same style clothes all the time, watch the same TV shows, etc.
The first step to coping with change is to break some of these simple habits. If we can change in some small ways, we can get accustomed to dealing with change and the bigger, less familiar changes will be easier to deal with.

This is quite an useful step. How often do we as an individual’s often opt to break the routine ? I tried to explore this concept in one of my earlier posts- Wake up, Shake up and then test... . But i didn’t quite cover how breaking the normal routines can help us prepare for bigger changes in life- be it personal or professional. Its quite a fact that most human beings by nature prefer thier lives/events to get predictable as much as possible so that they can avoid being out of their self-inflicted boundaries. Being in a predictable mode has its advantages but in a longer run it really hinder our preparedness for unexpected events in life. I think the key here is to enhance the "Preparedness levels" for a change. The reason most of the change events in our lives drains us mentally is majorly attributed to Preparedness Levels. There are many a times life prepares you to deal with changes and at other times when things tend to get predictable, it is apt push further break normal routines.
Being on this topic, i could relate very well with an beautiful article- Where is the Shark in your cubicle ? . Here is an Excerpt from this article-

Quite often, we underestimate the power of ‘positive pressure’ (some might prefer to call it a negative pressure, though) dismissing it as a constraining force rather than an enabling one. However, there might be situations where such tactics might actually be a good, rather better, way to get things done.
Don’t run away from the shark in your cubicle, and if you have none, start by putting a shark in your cubicle first.

"Shark" in this write-up is a metaphor that is used to equate with day-to-day situations that are unpleasant and make our thinking to stutter. Unless we consciously put Sharks in our work, we wont feel challenged enough to take ourselves to a greater heights. There is a mention of term- "Positive pressure" and the very mention of this term actually changes the perception one has about Pressure. The traditional version of Pressure is that something that causes discomfort and slows us down. Positive pressure indicates pressure helping to gain positive results. So, don’t scare the Sharks away, they might help you achieve greater heights and also help you prepare for the change.

Do you share your experiences and ideas on how you manage change in your lives!

Using Six thinking Hats for creative writing

2009-10-04T23:11:00.000+05:30

I had written about Six Thinking Hats and its association with Software testing a while back. I had been sporadically using this concept in my day-to-day life. In my quest to further explore its usage, i gave a shot to use this amazing concept for creative writing.
In this post, i would further like to share my experiences, successes and failures on the topic. When i ventured into writing one of my recent articles on Enhancing your Learning skills through the Development continuum , it occurred to me that like for any thinking activity- the Six thinking Hats can be applied appropriately in creative writing as well. With this started my journey to explore this aspect further.
While i explain this in the upcoming sections, i would be dissecting my earlier article into pieces and narrate the usage of various hats and the sequence in which i used the thinking hats. Here we go-
[At some places in the upcoming text, i would be quoting (in Italics) the description of hats from Edward de bono's book- Six Thinking hats , the credit for which lies with the great author.

The usage of Hats in creative writing

Blue Hat Thinking
Blue Hat is for thinking about Thinking. The Blue hat is for organization of thinking. This hat lays out what is to be achieved. Going by a wonderful analogy with Computers- Computers follow their programs, which tell them what to do giving instructions. In a similar way, one of the function of blue hat is to design software for thinking about a particular matter.
Creative writing in itself is an engrossing activity involving extensive thinking. Going by the description of the Blue hat, i considered it ideal to commence this article though Blue Hat. Blue hat deals primarily with Organization of thinking. I started the article wearing (not literally!) a Blue thinking hat basically helping me to organize my thinking on the contents and also arrive at the Agenda. The text mentioned in the "Prologue" section is all listed while wearing a Blue thinking hat. This section of article basically covered initial thoughts that setup the tone for the entire article.
To compliment the actual use of Blue hat, this was not the only time i used the Blue hat while writing this article. As Blue hat basically "controls" the thinking, i practically used this hat in the later sections as a check-point.

White Hat Thinking
White hat thinking is a convenient way of asking for the facts and figures to be put forward in a neutral and objective manner.
Since this article primarily revolves around a new concept (new to me atleast!), it was apt to cover the facts that describe the concept of "The Development continuum". Unless i spent the time and energy explaining this concept, the rest of the article would not have made sense. This is where White hat thinking comes in handy as it focuses just on facts and facts only. The sections "What is Development Continuum ?", "What are the Stages involved in Development Continuum ?", "What does the Development Continuum suggests an individual to do if he/she is at "Enthusiastic Beginner", "Disillusioned Learner" or "Capable but Cautious Performer" stage ?" covers the facts describing this concepts. These were written with White hat thinking on.

Red Hat Thinking
Wearing the red hat allows the thinker to say: "This is how i feel about the matter". The red hat legitimizes the emotions and feelings as an important part of thinking.
As an unwritten norm in professional world, it is usually considered not good to express emotions and feelings. But the truth of the matter is that any subject cannot be explored in its entirety without considering an individual's passion, feeling and emotions. Human beings cannot always operate on plain logic while suppressing emotions and feelings, if it were then there would be no difference between Computers and humans. Well, that’s definitely not the case. No matter how much an individual pretend to be logical, there is always a tinge of emotions, feelings in any decision a person takes. Any creative write-up would be incomplete if it does not take into account the passion, emotion, feeling of the author and in my experience, these are usually brought forward in the first impression that an individual gets after going through the new concept. So, the section "My first Impressions" of this article was written wearing the Red hat.

Yellow Hat Thinking
Yellow Hat thinking is positive and constructive and this type of thinking is concerned with positive assessment of the situation. It focuses on benefit and Optimism.
While exploring a new concept, it is quite viable to look at it and find out whether is it solving the problems that it was intended to, how much beneficial is it going to be for an individual. I wrote the following sections of the article wearing the Yellow thinking hat-
"At what stage of learning do the learners tend to give up ?"
"Can an individual use this model for Self assessment ?"

Black Hat Thinking
Black Hat is concerned with caution. This hat helps the learner extend his thinking to look at the possible dangers and risks in the current context.
It would be only foolish to not consider risks and potential disadvantages in the topic under exploration. Its a given fact that some human beings always tend to look at negative aspect of any situation. If risks and dangers are looked at in a reasonable and appropriate manner then it adds value to the entire process. I did look at this aspect while writing my article as represented in the section "Are there any limitations this model has ?"

Green Hat Thinking
Green Hat is for creative thinking. The search for alternatives is an fundamental aspect of Green hat thinking.
Thinking above and beyond the current topic and exploring its possible alternative applications is a desired motive when writing. The write-up can always be based on the facts, figures, related emotions, benefits and risks but it would really be incomplete unless the author thinks to look beyond and presents the readers with alternative approaches. This is what actually tests author's grip on the subject and overall imagination. This is what i covered in the topic- "What are the opportunities available with this model ? "

Some more thoughts:
- One inference that i am realizing that anyone can draw after reading the above text is that anyone would think that even without using the Hats, i would have thought the same. I agree it may be true and also realize that such an inference may be because i have not explicitly mentioned in my write-up above is that the usage of each individual hat calls for a focused thinking i.e. while wearing a White hat, i am thinking only about facts and figure and not about emotion, passion, negativity etc. Uncluttered mind tend to give best results and this is what Six thinking hats help us achieve. Working in a time box and wearing certain hat gives more output and clarity in thoughts and hence in overall writing.
- One more thing is that the sequences of using these hats differ in different contexts.

Overall, working through this article has been an unique experience for me. I would love to hear from you, your thoughts, ideas and experiences.

Enhancing your Learning skills through the Development continuum

2009-10-03T21:51:00.000+05:30

Prologue:
We live in the era of virtual information explosion. There is unimaginable content that is available on any topic just at a stroke of a keyboard or click of a mouse. Individuals working in the Software arena have been rightly referred as Knowledge workers. There are many competencies and skills that help define the success or failure of a Software professional. One of the prime competency for Knowledge worker is one's Learning ability. With the knowledge workers virtually needing to deal with tons of information, assimilate it, sniff it and intelligently absorb or reject the information- One's Learning ability has definitely taken a center stage. Learning "How to "Learn" is going to become a buzzword if it is not already. The entire activity of learning can be easy or difficult depending upon one's talent, flair for understanding new things, technical know how and many more related factors. In my experience, i have felt that there are a lot of challenges associated with learning something new-
- How often have you started learning something new and left without completing it ?
- What are the ways can you enhance your technical know how ?
- Is it right to start learning something and leave mid-way ?
- How often did your mind wander to pick up something else to learn instead of what you are learning currently ?
- Though you have worked to understand the basics and intricate details of the subject yet you are very cautious to stand up to questions ?
- How many people feign something that didn’t know ?
The list can go on further but i better stop and arrive at a point.

Of late, I had been reading a book- "Self Leadership and the One minute manager" by Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler an Laurence Hawkins. This book introduces several interesting concepts about Self leadership and one of the part that i found very relevant is "The Development continuum". I will spend some time in the next section to represent how i understood the Development continuum and how it can be beneficial to deal with the multiple challenges associated with Learning or mastering something new.

What is Development Continuum ?
Simply put, the Development Continuum defines a staged approach to learn or master something. This continuum defines four phases that are involved when an individual takes up learning something new till he/she becomes a master.

What are the Stages involved in Development Continuum ?
I have listed the entire phases in the Development Continuum in the URL below-
The Development Continuum

Please note that this is my representation of the Development continuum as i understood when i learned from the above mentioned book. Just a note that all the credit of coming up with this fabulous approach rests with author(s) of the book "Self Leadership and the One minute manager".

To Summarize, the Development continuum defines 4 different stages of learning in correlation with 2 important aspects-
"Competence"- Competence can be equated with possession of required skill.
"Commitment"- Commitment is ability of an individual to give best effort towards the goal in question.
- When an individual intends to learn something new, he/starts as "Enthusiastic Beginner" that is when the Competence is Low, Commitment is High.
- The next stage in learning is- "Disillusioned Learner" that is when Competence is Low and Commitment is Low. Commitment becomes Low primarily because the learner comes across unforeseen problems in quest for learning something new and doesn’t get answers.
- This stage is followed by "Capable but Cautious Performer" that is when Competence is Fairly High and Commitment is variable.
- The Last and Final stage is "High Achiever" stage which is characterized by High Competence and High Commitment. This is a stage where the learner reaches a level of expertise.
After going through the stages, the next question that comes to mind is-

What does the Development Continuum suggests an individual to do if he/she is at "Enthusiastic Beginner", "Disillusioned Learner" or "Capable but Cautious Performer" stage ?
Each of the earlier phases of Learning is characterized by either Low Competence or Low Commitment. The Development Continuum says "When your Competence is Low, you need DIRECTION; When your Commitment is low, you need SUPPORT."
If your Competence is low, someone can help you provide Direction by Setting a goal, provide deadlines, help you with Technical concepts, track your progress and provide feedback etc.
If your Commitment is low, someone can help your provide Support by Empathizing with you, Listen to your concerns, Provide encouragement, Share their experiences, help you focus on task etc.

My First Impressions:
I believe the above sections would have set the right context of what this model is all about. After learning through this, i was definitely excited to know that a model of this sort is exciting. This model not only helps to understand where we are at while learning anything but also provides an yard stick to measure the entire learning activity. At any given instance, one can know which stage of learning an individual is in and what needs to be done to move to this next level. Coming back to some of the questions that i touched upon during the Introduction section-

At what stage of learning do the learners tend to give up ?
In my experience, the learners generally tend to give up during the stage of "Disillusioned learner". It is at this stage, with Competence and Commitment being low, the Confidence of an individual also takes a beating. People tend to give up at this stage unless they are provided with the right kind of Direction and Support. In this situation, an individual needs to take a call if it is actually worthwhile spending his/her time in the activity. I know in many work related situations, we do not have a choice but in those situations also a discussion is warranted with higher-ups. To me, a situation where an individual slogs meaninglessly on an activity which he/she is not naturally inclined or talented to do results in lot of unproductive situations.
It is in the situations like these; this model can help and proactively find alternatives. So, giving up Learning something new is not always bad.

Can an individual use this model for Self assessment ?
Definitely Yes. If applied honestly, this model can help in some extent to eliminate Blind spots. Blind spots are the unproductive behavior patterns that an individual might have in his/her personality but for some reason, he/she refuses to acknowledge. This model can help provide an fairly reasonable assessment of learning abilities and even help strike a meaningful discussion with superiors.

What are the other Advantages of using this model ?
In my experience in using this model so far, the greatest benefit i have noticed is knowing when to ask for help. Learning is becoming an increasing complex activity and more often than we believe, we require help and assistance of people who has already gone through the similar knowledge enhancing activity. More often it is the case of Individual's ego coming in between asking someone for help for something even though it means delay. People sometimes refrain from asking for help not realizing the consequences it may have on project. This model enables the self leadership in a way that it enables the Individual's thinking to ask for necessary Direction and Support from others and also helping an individual decide what Leadership style is apt for leading self in a given situation.

Are there any limitations this model has ?
Based on my limited experience, i am not sure if this model for Learning is applicable to diverse situations. I am really keen to apply this on situations which require quick learning i.e. when the deliverables are short termed and the learner is expected to perform/give deliverables in a short span. In this situation, the learner will need to be self reliant. It would be interesting to see how Direction and Support can be leveraged in this situation.

What are the opportunities available with this model ?
In principle, this is a Self leadership model which can be applied aptly in many situations other than learning. One of the key areas (other than learning) where this model can be applied is assessing the gaps between Individual's current and future role in the organization. The development areas can be identified in the stages described by this model and with necessary direction and support, the skills gaps can be reduced. The greatest benefit of course, is knowing the status quo and gaining the understanding of what needs to be done to move to next stage.

These were some of my thoughts on learning about this unique model of staged learning. Please do share your thoughts and also experiences related to any learning strategies you have adopted to master something new.

Uncovering myths about Globalization testing- Context driven planning

2009-10-02T18:05:00.000+05:30

Myth 18: There is one standard way of Test Planning the Globalization testing, which is applicable to all the contexts.

I have been looking at the alternate approaches on how different Software Organizations are planning for Globalization testing. Its quite an intriguing topic because the way different Software product organizations go for strategizing Globalization testing is quite unique and yet yield successful results within their own sphere of influence. In the quest to gain knowledge in this area, i came across an interesting presentation at the below URL.

www.localisation.ie/resources/conferences/2007/presentations/TCallanan/Risk-based-L10N.pps

I had an interesting conversation with the Author of this PPT- Mr. Tim Callanan and below is the excerpt of the conversation i had with him-
[Please ensure to go through the above PPT to appreciate the questions and responses below]

A question regarding Test case prioritization and Test Prioritization-
1. The High Risk=1 category shows the Risk as "New Product Feature" and this feature is also on High Importance category (=1). Suppose the Core team has defined 1000 test cases to test this new feature-

a. Will Globalization (G11N) team pick up all 1000 test cases in its execution ?
[Tim] At the start of a project, we will define a number of core modules that we must test. These core modules again will be based on importance. So, for
example, Product A, would have Feature A and Feature B as critical functions, this will be reflected in the importance value that will be associated with this function. Then say if 1000 test cases was associated with this function, G11N team will quickly review all 1000 test cases and will then sample some of those test cases from an G11N view point to ensure that the most critical of these, based on importance and risk to determine priority will be covered.

b. If at all G11N team decides to not use all 1000 test cases (as execution would be costly), what factors would be considered to cut down on number of test cases here ?
[Tim] Again, this will be based upon importance and risk using historical bug analysis, newly written areas of code, potential customer impact etc. We reviewed all core test cases for all products and found a lot of them did not directly effect G11N, the reason being that core testing involves a lot of performance, compatibility, hardware etc. testing that may not effect the Globalized product.

c. What kind of test cases other than these 1000 or subset of 1000 (depends on approach a. or b. above) would be created from G11N perspective to test the particular feature ?
[Tim] The main areas we would need to look at would be tests that would effect G11N but would not be covered by core. This would involve particular 3rd party applications that would only be available in the regions e.g. Japan use a lot of e-mail clients that are just not sold outside Japan, compatibility with these 3rd party apps would be critical for L10N. Also some type of I18N testing i.e scanning a DBSC or extended character directory for example or compatibility with a particular piece of hardware that is only sold in the regions. Also the insertion of non EN characters and lots of UI issues such as char. corruption, clipped strings, etc.

The approach defined in your presentation seems to be very effective. What kind of deliverables are expected of Core development team to ensure that Risk based L10N testing works ?
[Tim] The most important deliverables is that core team adhere to what was agreed at the milestones of the Software Development Lifecycle. By including G11N criteria at each stage of SDLC and ensuring that the Core team deliver these will ensure that nothing is overlooked that could potentially make any piece of software 'unlocalisable' or that would resulting major L10N or I18N defects being found at a very late stage in a process that would cause delay in the I18N releases.

Deliverables like-
The code base is same for all Single byte languages.
The code base is same for all double byte languages.
etc.
[Tim] Yea, there must be only one code based for all language versions. So here I18N considerations are critical. For this reason i18N testing is included as a critical functional of either the core or L10N teams (depending on what can be agreed between the two groups) to be execute as early as possible in SDLC. I have seen in the past, in other companies, how the code base was split and a separate code based used to address i18N defects that was found late in the project to ensure that the En-US version could ship on time. It turned out to be a real nightmare trying to maintain to separate code bases and merge code later in the project. This is definitely something to be avoided if at all possible.
The key I think to ensure a good Localised and Internationally enabled product is to ensure that there is 'Functionality parity'; between software products running on EN OS and all other Localised OSs. In other words the EN product on En-US OS becomes your base line and all Languages version of software running on any non-En-OS will functional in exactly the same way as the English product. If we don't have this we have big problems.

Its a well known fact that most of the tests that Globalization team does are derived from English test cases. Another fact is that it is not efficient to run all test cases on all the languages.
Is there a standard that you know or a norm that you follow in testing that defines-
- How much %age of English test cases should be run on the localized languages ?
[Tim] To answer your question, we usual base this upon risk and importance, this was the focus of the LRC paper that I wrote a couple of years back
http://www.localisation.ie/resources/conferences/2007/programme.htm. It is hard to sat exactly the percentage of test cases we would cover as this would be based upon product maturity, feature set, degree of internationalization testing already conducted, the level of pseudo translation testing already undertaken etc. etc.
Based on projects that we have done in the past, L10N would involve testing roughly 30% of the cases that are conducted by the core team but this is a very general estimate and we would use the risk based testing method to ensure that all necessary tests are carried out. If this comes out at 30% then that would be our coverage but it will depend on the risk that is assessed.

All Globalization Testing myths uncovered so far....many more to come

2009-09-26T09:34:00.000+05:30

Its been a while that i have been writing about uncovering various myths associated with Globalization testing. While there is a lot of relevant information on Globalization testing already listed in this blog, i am inclined to think about and work towards consolidating this information and much more in the form of an ebook in the time to come. Though i dont have definitive timelines in mind at the moment, this is something i have started working towards already. For the benefits of the readers, while i work to uncover more myths around Globalization testing, i have consolidated all the previous posts on this topic below.
[Just to remind that all these myths are the real time myths that i have experienced while working on Globalization testing]

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -1
Myth 1: G11n testing is not technical enough
Myth 2: G11n testing is majorly about testing the UI
Myth 3: G11n Testing can start only after the base product is translated

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -2
Myth 4: A person who doesn't know French cannot test the French version of the Software
Myth 5: A tester only needs to follow the test cases executed for Base language in order to thoroughly test the internationalized applications
Myth 6: There is no scope of exploratory testing while testing internationalized applications
Myth 7: The language verification of User Interface can be done by comparing the text on screen with translation outputs of any freely available Online translator.

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -3
Myth 8: If a test case works fine in French language, it will work fine in German language as well
Myth 9: If the Foreign text input in application text fields work fine by using the Soft keys, then it means the data input through respective Foreign language key board would also work fine.
Myth 10: Globalization testing doesn't require the same test setup as is required to do the Base language testing. Globalization testing can be done with a minimum test setup.

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing -4
Myth 11: Localization - means Localized product on a localized Operating System, Internationalization- means Localized product on English Operating System

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- Demystifying MUI Packs
Myth 12: Testing International applications using "Microsoft's MUI Pack" or "Localized OS installation" means one and the same thing

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- Input validation testing
Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- Input validation testing 2
Myth 13- A tester can perform tests specific to text inputs for Localized applications using the similar approaches as the English language testing

Uncovering Myths...."Security Testing is from Mars and Globalization Testing is from Venus"
Myth 14- Security Testing is from Mars and Globalization testing is from Venus

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- English version on Localized setup
Myth 15: There is no use testing the English version of a product on Localized Operating systems

Uncovering Myths about Globalization testing- MUI Packs in Win XP and Win Vista
Myth 16: There is no difference between MUI technology being used in Win XP and Win Vista

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Reusing Test Automation
Myth 17: The test scripts meant for English language automated tests cannot be reused for Internationalization testing

Hope you enjoyed going over these again. Would appreciate your comments, suggestions!

Key professional lessons from a Long distance run

2009-09-17T19:52:00.000+05:30

The title of this blog may sound intriguing for a blog focused primarily on Software testing. I hope that by the time i reach the end of this post, i would have justified the inclusion of it here. For close to around 2 years now, i have quite actively taken up running. The prime reason that attracted me towards running was experiencing the feeling of reaching the finish line after persevering a long distance run. Before i started running, i used to think of it as quite a magical feeling but after crossing the finish line close to a dozen times now, it only substantiate my original perception of crossing a finish line. Its not just magical, its simply unbelievable.
I participated in Kaveri Trail Marathon last weekend. It was a 10 Km run on a day of sweltering heat and very rough, uneven terrain. While the run was pretty challenging and as i crossed various milestones, there were quite a few valuable life lessons that i learnt. Please read ahead to know more (the points below are not necessarily in order of importance)-

When your body says "Give up"- Just don’t give up. When a random thought in your mind says "You can’t do it", Just laugh it off.
The start of every run is always full of energy and optimism. The initial moments of a long distance run pass on with ease as legs and mind are fresh and usually (if it starts early in morning) the weather is favorable. It’s only after one has travelled a few kilometers especially near the half way point, the mind start playing games. It is often surrounded with casual thoughts that tend to discourage the runner from competing further. It is at this time, the body starts getting tired as well and tends to listen more to easy thoughts that prevent you from completing the run. The key here lies in being mentally strong and laugh off the negative energies and persevere till you reach the end. Infact, in my experience, one cannot reach the finish line carrying negative, confused thoughts.
Quite similarly, in the professional world, there are often the difficult projects/situations that bring an individual out of his/her comfort zone. There is always such time in these projects/situations when one starts doubting their abilities. The key here like in a marathon is to believe in yourself and shun all the negative thoughts and keep moving forward. Just remember- "When your body says "Give up"- Just don’t give up. When a random thought in your mind says "You cant do it", Just laugh it off."

Every small step towards the goal counts
The key principle in running a long distance run is that Each and every single step adds up in you completing the run successfully. Long distance runs cannot be completed in one step. Likewise in professional life, each project decomposes in to various steps that need to done right to attain the success. One cannot achieve the end goal without performing the smaller goals to perfection. Irrespective of conditions, Always put your best foot forward.

Key to success lies in staying in present
Our mind's ways are never static and even the well trained Long distance runners often face this dilemma i.e. while on the run, the mind tend to always think ahead i.e. picture of the runner reaching the Finish line starts framing up and all this makes the runner believe that he/she has already achieved the goal whereas the runner would not have even reached the half way mark. Or it may even happen that mind takes you back to thinking about ease and freshness at the start of a run. These are the biggest distractions for a runner and has a potential to distract the runner from reaching the summit. What is important in given context is to think only about the next step and not worry about the Finish line because if the next step is taken in the right direction in a right way, you are going to reach the finish line sooner or later. So, the key lies training your mind to stay in present and be there only. In the professional life, there is a great deal of importance in Staying in present. I have tried to capture the essence of it in my post- Software Testing and art of Staying in present .

If you fall down, thats not the end of the race- there is always a better option to get up and run
It happened in the most recent long distance run i took part in. It can happen in any long distance run that gets organized. People stop either because of minor accidents or because they suffer from cramps or they get tired or any other reason. Whatever may be the reason, Falling down is the part of the game. Its not an ideal world that we live in, things usually do not always go as we plan or as intended and Failures are a part of life. The idea here is to treat failures as a minor speed bumps that slow you down but not knock you off completely. Failures should be treated as learning opportunities and not the reasons to drift away from your goals. Any one who faces failure, ideally has 2 choices- either quit or continue. The ones who have strong conviction in their goals never quit. Failing faster holds the key. Remember- If you fall down, that’s not the end of the race- there is always a better option to get up and run.

Cheering your peers gives you momentum
Long distance running usually constitute of people from different backgrounds, age groups, gender etc. There can be a 70 year old participating as against a 14 year old boy or 25 year old female or anyone running alongside you. The diversity of participation makes the run even more wonderful. It happened in my recent run also. The fun lies in treating the running participants as your peers and continually cheering and encouraging them. In the entire run, there will be many phases where you face difficult time and the thought of giving up starts to play around. If in this situation, your fellow runner comes, pats your back and says "Good job", it just helps one defeat the negative emotions and just helps you regain back the momentum. In the real life also, professionally there are tough situations which may pull you down mentally and when someone acknowledge your efforts, it does gives a great sense of assurance to move forward. This act just spreads positive energy.

Taking a break and rethinking your strategy helps more than you expect
Well organized Long distance running events have the break points where in the participants can take very short water, energy breaks to refresh the participants. The refreshment time is very vital for the participants to successfully complete the run. This not only give the opportunity to the participants to hydrate themselves but also rethink strategy to complete the remaining part (thinking about speed, moving with long steps or short steps etc.). Without these breaks, it would really be hard to complete the run. Similar analogy in our professional lives- Generally people who work very hard to attain their and organization's objectives forget about the importance of taking sufficient breaks and this leaves them at a risk of a burnout leading to shortage of problem solving ideas. This situation neither helps them nor their organizations. The key here lies in realizing that you are getting in a rut and need to slow down. The focus and overall output after a well thought out break is far enriched.

I think being out of your comfort zone helps one learn quite a bit and the above write-up is a result of many such running experiences. Do share what you think and share your experiences!

Uncovering myths about Globalization Testing- Reusing Test Automation

2009-09-07T17:43:00.000+05:30

Myth 17: The test scripts meant for English language automated tests cannot be reused for Internationalization testing

The idea of making a Software test Software without any human intervention is something that is the basis of automated testing. In my experience, i have seen fewer things that catch the fancy of management other than a well crafted Test automation strategy. I was recently studying one of the Surveys listing the success of Software projects across different Software development models. While it is interesting to notice how the project success ratio varies from different Software development methodologies but one important point to note here is that irrespective of the Software development methodology used, the success ratio is far less than maximum. Before i sound like deviating further in this post, the idea here is not to compare how different Software development methodologies fare in the real projects but certainly to draw an analogy that like the success ratio of Software projects, the success rate of Test automation projects (the lifecycle of which is quite similar to Software development projects, though on a smaller scale) is also quite far from ideal. I don’t have a real data to quote here and this inference is quite based on my observations and experience.

While the reasons of Test automation projects' failure can be plenty and its not my intention to dive deeper into those here but in this post i would be focusing on one of the main reasons automation efforts fail to scale up for International languages' testing.
To start with, It’s actually a colossal myth that the test scripts meant for English language automated tests cannot be reused for testing with International languages. I call it "colossal" because the root cause of the automated test scripts for any projects not working on International platform is no less than a design flaw or a lack of forethought at the time of scripts’ design. In my belief, the Software organizations (which went global quite late) have spent sizable costs due to rework relating to introduction of Internationalization quite late in the overall life cycle. On the similar lines as this, Test automation projects have also suffered great deal of rework because the test automation scripts were not Internationalized upfront. Let me try and elaborate what i mean here-

- For a Software product to be properly Internationalized i.e. ready to be sold in International markets- the product design should-
• be Unicode enabled i.e. the product should be able to process and display data in any language
• have all the strings externalized i.e. none of the strings that show up on User Interface should be hard coded.
• have the capability to know under what language OS is it running on i.e. if the product is installed in Japanese, the product logic should recognize that.
• Should be able to read locale specific details from underlying OS
• be robust enough so that the same code base can be used across all the languages that the product support.

- On the similar lines, for Test automation script to be fully internationalized i.e. working successfully on different languages,
• The Test tool should have a capability of being installed and running on different language OS.
• The Test tool and hence, the automated test scripts should have the capability to process the Unicode i.e. any language text and characters. This is because any testing that's done on International test environments makes use of International character sets(which is what the customers would do)
• The Test scripts should have a capability to understand under what language OS is it running.
• The Test data is not hard coded in the Test automation scripts and is Externalized to a file or any database. This helps because, once the Test scripts detects the language of the OS, the "right" language Test data files can be loaded.
• There should not be separate Test scripts per supported language but a single version of Test scripts should be capable to run on multiple languages.

I must admit the above is not a comprehensive list of features required for enablement of Internationalization in automated scripts but i feel it is good enough list to give an idea on things that need to be kept in mind while designing automation scripts which are scalable in multiple languages. Traditionally, the automated scripts are designed keeping in mind that they have to be run on English environments only. To me, that is a sort of cardinal sin because it robs the Software organizations of reaping multi-fold benefits from automation efforts. Consider this- if by automating the English language Build verification tests, the team handling English testing saves 1 man month of effort, it is just a simple mathematics to judge the benefits the same automated scripts will reap if they are designed to run on 10 languages.

In today's global market place, if your product currently doesn’t support International markets that does not mean that it would not in future also. If it is not already, Globalization of Software products would eventually be required for survival of organizations. In such a dynamic scenario, it is imperative that like smart individuals- we think of future possibilities upfront and include Internationalization in our Test automation design right from the word go.

I would be exploring this area further in detail in the upcoming posts and I am keen to hear your views and experiences around Test automation in general and specifically on leveraging Test automation scripts in International environment.