StarEast 2010
Last week I attended StarEast in Orlando Florida. From start to finish it was quite a ground breaking series of moments for me.
1. Elisabeth Hendrickson gave a keynote that gave me goosebumps. I heard her give a great keynote at PNSQC, but what I loved about this was it was even more test focused. It inspired me to hear her say in no uncertain terms that Exploratory Testing is not optional. YES! I am so thankful that in public in a main stream setting people are brave enough to say this. I hope that people who have some power to make changes at companies are listening and will try it. I don't ask anyone to agree. I just ask that they try it and compare results.
Elisabeth answers questions after her keynote.
(Left to Right) Selena, Me, Matt, and Dan discuss after the Keynote.
2. This may be the most self-centered thing, but James Bach gave a keynote about earning your reputation as a tester. He gave me a head's up that he was going to mention me, but I had no idea it would be with a slide and details! I was there, of course. I've never missed a chance to see James speak given any possible way to go. I started writing my blog because I took a tutorial at CAST 2007 about self-education for testers from James, where I finally gained enough confidence to share my ideas despite the criticism that might result. More on that in my first blog ever if you are interested. I wasn't just that he mentioned me that was such an honor, but more that he believes in my potential as a tester. I have so much to say about this that I'm going to do my first video blog on this topic when my laptop arrives. Look for it in a week! Anyhow, until then, if you were at the keynote and wonder what it was about, check out what I said a test case was in a technical paper, which James rightly questioned. You can read my response which is a blog called."What is a Test?". The keynote itself was important and not just because James is a great speaker (which he is), but because you will hear many ideas at conferences. There is one key reason that James is different and it has nothing to do with his style and everything to do with the content. His ideas work. Not just for a manager. They work in practice as a tester. They empower each tester to do better work rather than belittling them.
3. Overheard at the conference, "The context driven kids are running the show." Not so sure if that is the case as plenty of Agile kids and process kids were running the show, or some combination of all of them. Tools were (as is the new usual) still very popular. I saw a few I enjoyed! It seems to me the Program Chair Lee Copeland is the one running the show, but I'd agree that the context driven school of thought was well represented.
4. Rob Sabourin and Jon Bach -These guys helped me figure out my exercise for Better Software! I'll beta test it first, but I'm so glad I got the chance to meet Rob in person and get Jon's advice too.
5. Rebel Alliance is Hooray!-This is a whole blog post in itself. I'll get on writing that. Rebel Alliance is the name for a small group of us who didn't come with a larger company group. The goal was to learn from each other and not eat bagels alone. Huge thanks go out to Matt Heusser for his work arranging this.
6. Alan Page -While I was a bum for missing his keynote, I was thrilled I got to ask him a bit about his new role and hear he is happy! He looks fantastic and as soon as I got back to my hotel I read all of his slides and now I see what the buzz was about. Great stuff on what we can find out about users. I love that focus! Glad to see his work continues on bringing more thoughtful test leadership with him wherever he goes in his career, so far still at Microsoft. People kept talking about A/B testing even at dinner and best of all how they might use it. Clearly the sign of a great keynote when testers can't wait to apply it!
7. Playing dice games. First at lunch with Matt Heusser on an LED pair, and then pairing with Shmuel Gershon on an exercise given by Michael Bolton which was awesome! I didn't get to finish and don't tell me the secrets as I'm going to play again.
8. Unsanctioned Rebel Lightening Talks were amazing. I'll get to that in the Rebel Alliance post.
Flight In: Red Eyes-Free Lunch and Tolls
The thing about driving in Florida is that you need so many $1 bills that you look like a vending machine robber. It seems you pay a toll for breathing. Once I got out of the airport in my confusion, I picked up a few awesome people to join me! Although he is very humble, few people are as smart, kind, and all around awesome as Matt Heusser . We were joined by Justin Hunter , Mark Vasko and Alex Kell. At dinner we talked about the perils and evil of Corporate Big Business (caps required) and how we must watch ethics as testers because short term returns is a huge focus now more than long term value to the customer. The real power long term is in customer value, and how can we continue to promote that as testers? As a group we felt that in addition to bringing proof of what serves the customer whenever possible, there are times when it is critical to vote with your feet and know what you stand for and what crosses the line. Unfortunately, we all had stories to share of scary moments we had to take a stand and be strong in what was ethically right. 3 out of 4 testers surveyed at the table felt that taking a stand for ethics had cost us or contributed to costing us at least one job.
After a struggle to pass customs, because we all know how dangerous those Canadian vegans can appear, Selena Delesie, my roomie for the conference finally made it! This is the first conference I've been to where I was going without company sponsorship. I stayed through Saturday to get a cheaper ticket home. It was well worth it. I wrote a long followup that was a huge amount of name dropping and I realized I'm never going to get to the point if I rehash all of the awesome people I met, so instead let me give you just the most insane highlights and start with that.
On the way home I sat by a woman who sent out her wedding invitations that week on Wednesday. On Thursday her Fiance never woke up. He was dead when she woke and she frantically gave him CPR. I had the chance to help her get to her sister and collect her luggage. She was so upset. When it comes down to it, life is really short. When you are planning for what would be ideal, you never know what the next day brings. The future is happening now as we are planning it. Odds are that we'll all wake up tomorrow, but we don't know that for sure. I was pretty sure that I already had an action bias, but if I didn't before, I sure would now.
1. Elisabeth Hendrickson gave a keynote that gave me goosebumps. I heard her give a great keynote at PNSQC, but what I loved about this was it was even more test focused. It inspired me to hear her say in no uncertain terms that Exploratory Testing is not optional. YES! I am so thankful that in public in a main stream setting people are brave enough to say this. I hope that people who have some power to make changes at companies are listening and will try it. I don't ask anyone to agree. I just ask that they try it and compare results.
Elisabeth answers questions after her keynote.
(Left to Right) Selena, Me, Matt, and Dan discuss after the Keynote.
2. This may be the most self-centered thing, but James Bach gave a keynote about earning your reputation as a tester. He gave me a head's up that he was going to mention me, but I had no idea it would be with a slide and details! I was there, of course. I've never missed a chance to see James speak given any possible way to go. I started writing my blog because I took a tutorial at CAST 2007 about self-education for testers from James, where I finally gained enough confidence to share my ideas despite the criticism that might result. More on that in my first blog ever if you are interested. I wasn't just that he mentioned me that was such an honor, but more that he believes in my potential as a tester. I have so much to say about this that I'm going to do my first video blog on this topic when my laptop arrives. Look for it in a week! Anyhow, until then, if you were at the keynote and wonder what it was about, check out what I said a test case was in a technical paper, which James rightly questioned. You can read my response which is a blog called."What is a Test?". The keynote itself was important and not just because James is a great speaker (which he is), but because you will hear many ideas at conferences. There is one key reason that James is different and it has nothing to do with his style and everything to do with the content. His ideas work. Not just for a manager. They work in practice as a tester. They empower each tester to do better work rather than belittling them.
3. Overheard at the conference, "The context driven kids are running the show." Not so sure if that is the case as plenty of Agile kids and process kids were running the show, or some combination of all of them. Tools were (as is the new usual) still very popular. I saw a few I enjoyed! It seems to me the Program Chair Lee Copeland is the one running the show, but I'd agree that the context driven school of thought was well represented.
4. Rob Sabourin and Jon Bach -These guys helped me figure out my exercise for Better Software! I'll beta test it first, but I'm so glad I got the chance to meet Rob in person and get Jon's advice too.
5. Rebel Alliance is Hooray!-This is a whole blog post in itself. I'll get on writing that. Rebel Alliance is the name for a small group of us who didn't come with a larger company group. The goal was to learn from each other and not eat bagels alone. Huge thanks go out to Matt Heusser for his work arranging this.
6. Alan Page -While I was a bum for missing his keynote, I was thrilled I got to ask him a bit about his new role and hear he is happy! He looks fantastic and as soon as I got back to my hotel I read all of his slides and now I see what the buzz was about. Great stuff on what we can find out about users. I love that focus! Glad to see his work continues on bringing more thoughtful test leadership with him wherever he goes in his career, so far still at Microsoft. People kept talking about A/B testing even at dinner and best of all how they might use it. Clearly the sign of a great keynote when testers can't wait to apply it!
7. Playing dice games. First at lunch with Matt Heusser on an LED pair, and then pairing with Shmuel Gershon on an exercise given by Michael Bolton which was awesome! I didn't get to finish and don't tell me the secrets as I'm going to play again.
8. Unsanctioned Rebel Lightening Talks were amazing. I'll get to that in the Rebel Alliance post.
Flight In: Red Eyes-Free Lunch and Tolls
The thing about driving in Florida is that you need so many $1 bills that you look like a vending machine robber. It seems you pay a toll for breathing. Once I got out of the airport in my confusion, I picked up a few awesome people to join me! Although he is very humble, few people are as smart, kind, and all around awesome as Matt Heusser . We were joined by Justin Hunter , Mark Vasko and Alex Kell. At dinner we talked about the perils and evil of Corporate Big Business (caps required) and how we must watch ethics as testers because short term returns is a huge focus now more than long term value to the customer. The real power long term is in customer value, and how can we continue to promote that as testers? As a group we felt that in addition to bringing proof of what serves the customer whenever possible, there are times when it is critical to vote with your feet and know what you stand for and what crosses the line. Unfortunately, we all had stories to share of scary moments we had to take a stand and be strong in what was ethically right. 3 out of 4 testers surveyed at the table felt that taking a stand for ethics had cost us or contributed to costing us at least one job.
After a struggle to pass customs, because we all know how dangerous those Canadian vegans can appear, Selena Delesie, my roomie for the conference finally made it! This is the first conference I've been to where I was going without company sponsorship. I stayed through Saturday to get a cheaper ticket home. It was well worth it. I wrote a long followup that was a huge amount of name dropping and I realized I'm never going to get to the point if I rehash all of the awesome people I met, so instead let me give you just the most insane highlights and start with that.
On the way home I sat by a woman who sent out her wedding invitations that week on Wednesday. On Thursday her Fiance never woke up. He was dead when she woke and she frantically gave him CPR. I had the chance to help her get to her sister and collect her luggage. She was so upset. When it comes down to it, life is really short. When you are planning for what would be ideal, you never know what the next day brings. The future is happening now as we are planning it. Odds are that we'll all wake up tomorrow, but we don't know that for sure. I was pretty sure that I already had an action bias, but if I didn't before, I sure would now.
Posted by Testy Redhead at 2 May 2010 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: StarEast2010 presenting test leadership test methodology testing rebellion
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: StarEast2010 presenting test leadership test methodology testing rebellion
Great summary of some StarEast highlights! One of my highlights was meeting you! I loved your lightning talk on herding cats. The 1 think I wish is that we could all get over "context driven guys' vs. "agile guys". We're all working toward same goal. :->
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For what it's worth, When I said the context-driven kids were running the show, that was in contrast to the school of stable, predictable, repeatable. I think agile-testing isn't really a part of that dimension, or angle, or testing.
Increasingly I see agile aligning with context-driven. Maybe not in rhetoric, but increasingly in behavior.
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Good point! I think I should edit this blog as it is a bit misleading. First, I did quote what you said, Matt, but I said overheard because I didn't clarify it enough and I did hear one other person say something similar in the hallway as well.
The one big area where I see a difference in context driven & agile testing approaches is in the area of the value of automation. There aren't many agile testers concerned that there is too much focus on the tools. This is one area I'd like to see a change in on both sides. The reality of testing today is far from the hopes of the context driven. So far, in fact that I've had people tell me that by self-identifying as context driven I limit myself. I agree, but I consider it a great limitation.
I'm working on a blog post about the Rebel Alliance part of the conference. It really was the best conference I've ever been to, and meeting you both was a big part of that.
I'll clarify that I don't think there is no overlap between these groups of "kids" so to speak.
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Hi Lisa,
I regret not hearing you speak! Something that will be remedied very shortly I hope.
I was so glad that I got to clear up some misconceptions I had about agile testing as well. We are indeed working towards the overall value of the products for the stakeholders.
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I knew you had so much fun!
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