On Managers and Mothers and Bush Trimmers

As I'm writing this, it is the evening of Mother's Day in the US.  Because the weather was lovely, much time was spent in the garden this weekend mowing the lawn, trimming bushes, preparing the vegetable garden for the summer. I then took my lady-wife and mother to dinner where we had a lovely meal with nice conversation, a very drinkable bottle of wine and cannoli for the mothers in the party.

It has been a remarkable spring. 

The apple blossoms are done - no surprise there.  This is fairly normal for us.  The pear blossoms are done.  This is unusual.  Lilacs are done - not terribly unusual.  The tree peony are done.  Tulips are done - again not that unusual as they often are.  Its a little odd that the late blooming variety are done as well, but, that is not far from the realm of possibility.  Let's see.  Hmmm.  Oh yeah, iris are in bloom and there are peony ready to bloom.  Those two are unusual for mid-May in Michigan.  July is closer to the expected.

Oh, the stuff that is done?  They all bloomed within a few days of each other.  By mid-April.  That is not only unusual.  It is remarkably unusual.

Right then.  What does this have to do with anything?

On Shrubbery

Well, a few years ago, some friends were over visiting a day or so after I had trimmed the bushes in front of the house.  He (Dan, the male in this married couple, and father of a bright boy, married to the boy's mother)  made a comment, asked a question really, "Who trimmed the bushes?  They look very... zen."

I had.  I tend to do that a couple of times a year, three depending on the particular year and how much the bushes have grown.  You see, left to their own devices, shrubs - there are a couple of good-sized arbor vitae, a healthy juniper and a couple of others that I have no idea what they are.  The thing is, when it comes to trimming bushes, shrubs whatever, some of them can be trimmed into shapes really easily and will do quite well.  Others will struggle, sicken and eventually die.

As a shrub grows,and is untended for some time, it will do what ever it pleases.  It will stretch for light and water and... right you get the idea.  The thing is, if the thing is left alone, it will grow quite... big,  These were quite large the first time I tried to prune them.  How do you prune something that is probably larger than most people have them, and still allow them to be healthy and thrive whilst doing what they are supposed to do?

How does one get the most out of anything, help it develop to its full potential and achieve the goals one sets for it?

Well, with bushes, its pretty easy.  You can trim the recent growth, prune the large branches that are sticking up and neaten up the edges.  Maybe give it a nice round shape.  The thing is, from this point you can direct its growth from this point by trimming given branches one way or another - yet always allowing the bush to be a bush. 

So, this got me thinking.  It is, after all, Mother's Day.  Never having been one you see, how does a Mother guide her children in their development, growth, etc.?  I have my ideas, but, like I said, I'm not a mother - grandpa, yes, dad - well, I've played one now for an awful lot of years.  But, how does one teach young people to grow into, well, mature, positive people?

On Mothers

How does a good mother raise children?  Well, I can talk from observation of how the lady-wife and my mother tried - they focused on getting the best from their kids all the time, encouraging them to try things, if they wanted, and sticking through the commitment after starting.  Backing out after starting when things are hard or unpleasant or, boring, was discouraged.  Firm, yet loving might be a good short description.

My siblings and their spouses are using (or have used) this general approach with their kids.  Other folks we know are trying as well. Finding the balance is a challenge.  Learning what will motivate people and what gets them all excited can be a challenge - as any mother (or dad) with more than one child.  The fact is, one-size-fits-all style approaches simply do not work for raising kids - or bushes for that matter.

Some folks tell us that mothers always will do the right thing for their children.  Maybe in a movie.  I don't know.  There are plenty of examples of mothers who did a terrible job and were amazingly horrible at being mothers.  Let's face it - some people are not cut out to be mothers.  (Same with fathers, but my mind was wandering around on mothers today.)  They may want to be mothers, or think they do, but really, they have not considered what it means to be a mother at all, how much work it is and how long that work will continue.

The lady-wife tells people that becoming a mother is a life-changing event that will continue for the rest of their lives.  Once they become a mother, as long as they are alive they will be a mother.  Its a pity that some who chose to do so are not very good mothers.  I think sometimes people forget what their role is.

This got me thinking.

On Managers

Why do some managers try the one-size-fits-all when it comes to career-development, professional-development and generally assisting their staff to improve and grow?  Why do some people believe that the motivational devices that work for one or two people will work for everyone?  Yes, I know - it is up to the employee to seek out and strengthen their career - it is their career after all.  Still, managers can encourage them and show support to them for learning more and broadening their skill-sets, even if it includes learning concepts that may not be directly applicable to what they are doing right now.   After all, the way technology changes, what is to prevent them from learning something that will be helpful to them, the team and the broader company on the next project or a future project? 

Compared to mothers, managers have it easy.  They can become an "un-manager" by changing jobs, quitting, retiring, getting fired... lots of ways.  I wonder if people who want to be managers before they actually are managers would still want to be a manager after they learn the  reality of how much work it is.  Then again, if becoming an un-manager was as difficult as becoming an un-mother after being a mother (or a manager) I wonder if that would change how badly people want to be managers.  

Still, we have our own bias, don't we?  A fair number of people presume that because they wanted to become a lead and then a manager and then some higher level of boss, that the really good testers want to do the same.  Possibly the really not-so-good testers do as well.  I suspect this is because we see this path (novice >  experienced > really experienced > lead > manager > bigger manager > knight > Earl > King) as the only way to measure success.  Because "moving up" in the organization is what we are told is what we want to do - and some people really DO want to move up - then that is what everyone wants to do, right?

Or are biases and personal views getting in the way.  Mom wanted to take ballet when she was a little girl so darn it, her daughters will take ballet.  They only THINK they want to do soccer or karate.  But that can't be part of the one-size-fits-all thing right?  I wanted to be a manager so Joe must want to be a manager too!  I'll get him going and he can move up instead of being just a tester.  That is not part of the one-size-fits-all thing either.  Right?

So, Managers and Mothers - consider what it is that you want for your people - either staff or children.  Is that what you want or is that what they want?  We can't always get everything we want - I know - there's a song about that, right?

The question boils down to this - are we trying to shape out children and our staff in a way that they can be shaped or are we trying to force them into something they can not be?   Shaping and pruning them to enhance their growth will result in an amazing thing of beauty - a well-formed person.  If we force things they can not support, there is a chance they will wither and never achieve the potential that is theirs.

To all the good mothers in the world, I salute you.  Likewise all the good managers.

Bushes, shrubs and hedges?  My hedge clippers and pruning shears are cleaned and sharpened for the next time I need them. 

Janus Part 1: Looking Back 2011

One of the benefits of taking four years of Latin is that you pick up all kinds of interesting things that many other folks may miss.  Then again, an awful lot of people don't worry too much that "i.e." is an abbreviation of "id est" or, "that is".  Just like "etc." is an abbreviation of "et cetera"  - even though they may even SAY et cetera, I wonder how many know what it means?  I'm mean enough to not say here, and say "look it up" - unless you remember your Latin as well.

Janus, for whom the month of January is named, looked both forward and back.  That is a bit of what I want to do with this post and the next.  The post I wrote last night was a precursor to these couple of posts, partly because the things described yesterday laid the foundation for this past year and the year to come.

What I wrote January 1, 2011:

The Road Ahead...

The interesting thing is I've been thinking about the future. Well, not THE future, but what lay ahead for me professionally and how that may impact the family. It would seem there are several items that are possibilities for the coming year. One path would be to look for new work opportunities, either as a contract/consultant or as a full time, permanent employee. Yeah, as if "permanent" means much.

A bunch of folks commented privately, "Dude, pretty gutsy to say you'll be looking for work when you're still employed."  What I could not say then, was that in December, the entire staff of the company I worked for was told, in essence, that the company leadership was negotiating the sale of the company.  We did not know to which other company, nor what the terms would be.  Many of us speculated that the only reason we were told at that point, was because they needed us to sign releases of our stock options in case the sale closed before the end of the year. 

It was not a bold move to make such a prediction - I simply knew there was a likelihood that I'd be looking for work. When one company assimilates, well, acquires, another company, "long term employment" prospects for the staff of the acquired company are not terribly high.

As it was, I was not let go.  I was retained.  One colleague resigned after accepting a new position.  His last day, we had a farewell luncheon for him.  By the end of the next day, myself and another tester were all that remained of  our team.  One other person, a developer, had been transferred from the development staff to testing.  although others on the team

We are continuing, and moving forward.

Community

Another option is to become more involved in the testing community. Actually, I started working on that as well in 2010. What I mean is that reading blogs other folks write is a good way to learn what they're thinking is. Reading and participating in on-line forums is another way to both learn and become involved. Well, doing that as much as I can right now.

Of course, more actively engaging in both of these types of activities is on my list of things to do this coming year. Ya know, the funny thing is, the more I talk with folks about things I learn and have learned, the more I learn myself.

This continues.  I've been writing.  Alot.  STP Magazine and TechTarget's SearchSoftwareQuality both have run articles I've written.   my  more in my blog, and more engaged in forums than ever before. 

I expect this to continue and grow in the coming year.  That would be way cool.
 

Local Testing Groups

Another thing, the local testing group, GR Testers, has been going in fits and starts for a while. Meetings have been sparse of late. The most recent one, December, was kind of fun. There were a bunch of us sitting around a table, lots of wings, good beer and folks talking about testing. Good way to spend an evening. There's another meeting coming up Monday, 3 January. It makes it the first time in quite a while that there were back to back monthly meetings. Normally, they are officially held every other month. It seems that as more people are showing an interest, the meeting frequency will pick up.

I wonder how many other local testing groups are out there that have a meeting schedule based on "whenever" instead of "We meet at this time, and here are the next couple of topics we're focusing on at these meetings..." I believe that the more people know about local groups, the more they are invited to participate and the more information that is available about them, the more active and the stonger the community there is.

I think that pretty well sums up what I'm looking to do with the local group. I believe that getting more people involved and talking about testing is vital to improving not only our individual tradecraft, but the abilities of the local community. Sharing well reasoned ideas can do nothing but good, presuming all are allowed to learn and ask questions

The GR Testers, the local testing group, is up and running strong. The group has met monthly since that January post.  I've made it to most of the meetings. The ones I missed, I was out of town, usually at a conference. Cool.

Personal Development

Now, I realize that any of the above activities can lead to improving any individual participating. What I mean here is something a bit more. I had been signed up for the BBST Foundations course offered by the Association for Software Testing for a session in in the fall of 2010. Things happened and that session was cancelled. I could not take the session offered as an alternative.

The GOOD news, for me, is I am signed up to take the Foundations course this spring. YEAH! I am really looking forward to this. Everyone I know who took the course raves about it. Big-time excited.

I've continued reading blogs and articles and books and talking with people and... everything else. My goal is to continue learning and to continue to share what I learn.

For conferences, I'll be attending and presenting at STPCon in March in Nashville. I bought myself a birthday present and renewed my AST membership in October. If I can work it out, I'll be attending CAST in August in Seatle.

This happened beyond my wildest dreams.  I took and passed the BBST Foundations course.  Then, even though the schedule did not permit me to take the Bug Advocacy course - that is on the list for next year for me.  I also took the Instructor's Course from AST.  We'll see how the schedule works out this coming year.

Conferences.  I presented at STPCon (Spring) in Nashville.  I gave a joint presentation with my (then) boss, Kristin Dukic, as well as a presentation and lightning talk on my own.  I then was flattered, and honored, to attend and participate in CAST.   With Matt Heusser, I helped organize the Emerging Topics track, where a self-organized group selected topics submitted via a wiki - then ran for 20 minutes, every 25 minutes.  It was astounding.

After CAST, I had the opportunity to present at STPCon Fall in Dallas.  Matt Heusser and I did a day-long workshop (excerpts are on the Software Test Professionals site, under Podcasts) - then a joint track session on "Complete Testing".  THAT was a lot of fun. I also presented a track session on my own as well as a lightning talk.  Matt just gave a keynote.

Then since I was not busy enough, I presented at TesTrek in Toronto in November. 

Whew.

Other Stuff

Scads of people have encouraged me this year.  Among them, Matt Heusser, who put me in contact with the folks at TechTarget, and made the case that he could not do Emerging Topics at CAST on his own - which is how I got in.  Cool, heh?  THEN - Matt had so much fun with that, he asked if I'd be interested in doing a joint workshop in Dallas.  Oh yeah.  The interesting thing is that he's really a nice guy - as the folks who know him will attest. 

Also - Fiona Charles is supportive and encouraging.  She is really an amazing person who is willing to offer suggestions and ideas on how to improve articles, presentations, whatever.  She also is way cool.  She was one of the very first people that I consider a "Name" in testing, to ask for comments on a paper - the list me in the acknowledgements.  Humbling. 

Catherine Powell whom I met in person at STPCon in Nashville always has encouragement and good suggestions.  Michael Larson is a great guy.  He's got a great outlook on life and testing.  His blog is inspiring.  Doug Hoffman was the Head Instructor for the BBST Foundations course.  What a smart guy.  Nice as the day is long.  We had several very nice chats both at CAST or at STPCon Fall.  If you get a chance to see him present - DO.  Cem Kaner - yes DOCTOR Kaner - the drive behind the BBST Courses.  An ongoing inspiration.

There are more - Michael Bolton, Lynn McKee, Griffin Jones, Nancy Kelln, and many more.  These are the people I look to for inspiration and mental reinvigoration.

And of course, my lady-wife, Connie. 

I do not know what the future will bring.  I will discuss what I hope for the future in the next post. 

Rising From the Ashes or Finding Motivation in Disaster

This has been an interesting year.  There have been many fantastic things happen this year that at times it seemed like I was an observer, and not the one participating.  I've presented at more conferences this year than I attended any year before this.  People write emails asking questions, looking for insight or help with a sticky problem, as if I'm an expert. 

I've written before about not feeling like an expert.  This is not about that. 

While preparing for STPCon this past October I had an interesting in a couple of thoughts.  While working on the presentation, and a couple of papers, I mentioned one of these thoughts to a fellow member of the GR Testers group.  We chatted (cyberly) for a moment on how failure can be a great motivator.  We talked about people who had overcome problems and adversity to rise to great things.

Of course, there are also many examples of people who break under adversity.

I don't know what the differences are in those scenarios.  I don't know why some people crumble, others recover and come back to where they were and others rise to greater success than they have ever known.  The last group, to me, resembles space capsules, like the old Apollo capsules, that would whip around the moon to accelerate even faster than they were going.  Yeah, in Star Trek Kirk did the same thing with the Enterprise around the Sun.  Cool, no?

The second group, I kind of think of as being a bit like a rubber ball.  Not a fancy "Super Ball" that used to be sold with the assurance that it would bounce higher than where it was dropped from (and rarely did as far as I know) but a plain bouncing ball.  Comes back to where it was, but somehow not quite the same.

The first group, like I said.  I don't know why people fail to recover.  The just don't for a variety of reasons. 

Me.  Hah.  I was moving up.  I had left one company where I was simply unhappy, and joined another company as a Test Lead.  There were "issues" there.  I was hired to improve testing and change the way testing was being done.  Well, things were not working out.  I had a series of "those meetings" and the last one was handing me a package and me walking out the door.  (I'll be happy to give more details over adult beverages sometime, if you really want to know.)

So, I went home, popped in a video, cracked an adult beverage and said "What happens next?" 

Short term, I knew what had to happen - I needed to get ready to teach drum lessons that evening.  So, I had a single beer, watched a movie, fried some bacon and eggs and felt sorry for myself for 3 hours.  Then I made a strong pot of tea because I had work to do. 

I made a list of what I was good at and what I was not good at (no PC here, not right then.)  I went through the list of what I was good at that and highlighted those I liked to do and those I wanted to get better at doing. 

I then went through the list of what I was not good at. I split that list into "so what?", "consider improving" and "fix it".  I then considered a list of things I had read about and had done very little with or knew very little about.  I also made a list of things I knew nothing about, but I'd seen mentioned in articles and blog posts and said "this might be worth looking into." 

I then went on and read what I could, learned what I could and did some serious soul-searching on what I really wanted to do.  I then looked at how I would fix the stuff I really needed to fix.  This was hard - really, really hard.

This led me to the next step - Updating the resume, looking at what I wanted to do and where I wanted to do it.  I knew that (at the time) West Michigan was not a hot-bed for top-flite testing jobs, project management jobs and my development experience was not in technology that was in demand.  On top of that, the economy was beginning its downward slide.  So, I figured it would be a good likelihood that I would need to relocate. 

I looked and I looked... and I looked some more.  One month, I applied to 158 jobs. All over the US, Scotland, Ireland and Australia.

I learned a lot.  I've been applying those lessons ever since.

First - Be involved.  Online, locally, within the company, within the team.  Look for ways to learn and improve.  If someone looks for advice, guidance or a sympathetic ear - do what you can.  If something sounds familiar to a situation you were in, talk with them about your experience.

Second - Share.  Now, in some ways, this is similar to the first lesson.  Write.  Blogs, forum posts, responses to posts or online articles.

Third - Learn.  Keep learning, keep reading, keep thinking.

Four - Dare.

Five - Repeat.

Four years ago, the foundations for these really, really simple ideas were where I started.  I landed a job after a stack of interviews.  Some I knew would not be a good fit.  Others, well, they decided it would not fit.  I was ok with that.  When I landed the gig I landed, I talked with people. I learned.  I learned their applications, their methods and their personalities.  I learned how they worked and did things. 

I shared ideas and experiences. I contributed when I could and asked questions when I did not understand. 

Then people began asking me questions - How can we learn more about... Have you ever run into...

As a result of one series of these conversations, I landed at TesTrek in Toronto, where I met Fiona Charles and Michael Bolton in person, for the first time.  I also met a whole slew of people I had never met before, Nancy Kelln, Lynn McKee and slew of other bright folks. 

That week in Toronto resulted in me getting more involved, helping revitalize/reinvigorate the GR Testers, then scrap my drumming blog and move to writing on testing.  That helped with presenting at conferences... and that led to, well, this most astounding year.

Where did this come from?  Getting fired.

You don't need to get fired/sacked/down-sized/happy-sized/whatever to do the same.  If you want to grow, then do it.  If you want to get involved, do it.

The fact is, doing these things may not make you a leader or a superstar or being called an expert.  But, if the world comes tumbling down around you, if you have been doing these things, others can step up and help.  If you have established connections and a reliable cadre of people, they can help just as you can help them.

Back in My Day: Confessions of a Curmudgeon

When I first got into software for a living, the idea of "structured" anything was the red-hot burning idea that was going to save software from the horrible/bad/evil practices of people who were inept/wrong-thinking/clue-less practitioners of hocus-pocus.  Structure was going to save us.  Then it was CAD.  Then it was Object Orientation.  Then it was blah, blah.  You get the idea.

I heard some folks talking about some "New Ideas" that they had heard about.  Fantastic ideas, I thought.  Instead of centralizing everything on a host server, they could have servers in a bunch of different places and have them all talk to the host.  Then response times would be faster and the users would be able to get faster response.  Astounding, eh? 

Anyone else remember that new idea from, oh, 20 years ago?

Wait, that is sounding really, negative. 

Let me try again.

Back when I was heavily involved in bagpipe bands, there was an amused expression that was reserved for folks who had been involved in pipe bands some years before, and no longer were/

"The older I get, the better I was."

The fact is, people's perceptions will change over time as our experiences inform those same perceptions.  In the pipe band world, it seemed to inflate what the abilities were.

In reality, I have learned, now that I am part of the same "club," is that some folks really REALLY don't like change.  Change in any form is bad.  At the same time, things change as they grow, or they wither and die.  You can't maintain existence without change.  Well, maybe you can, but it is not really existence, it is a museum display - almost a "living history" lesson. 

Change is inevitable. 

Once it was suggested that since I was so "set in my ways" I may not like the changes that were coming and I could have a hard time adapting to them.

I resisted the temptation to look around for my cane and wave it about calling that individual a "young whippersnapper."  For one thing, I don't use a cane or a walking stick.  For another, I sympathized with his perception and lack of life (and maybe professional?) experience that would lead him to say that. 

The thought that crossed my mind was "It is this very experience I have that allows me to see how he could have a view like that.  I have been around a while and I like things a certain way.  I have liked things in different ways before that, too.

When comments like the above are made, or when I think on change and flexibility, my mind sometimes wanders back to the companies I have worked for, the shops I have worked in.  No two were the same, even remotely.  Some were happier than others.  Some were more efficient than others.  Some turned out really good work.  Some were just jobs. 

Some are examples of the same things I mentioned before.  My own experiences shaped my perception of each of those organizations.  As I learned more, I wanted to learn more.  My views changed related to that job as I was working there.  I learned and experienced different things in different areas.

What does all this have to do with anything, let alone each other?

Well, simply put, I read a blog entry by The Maestro a couple of weeks ago.   My first reaction was "YES! EXACTLY"  Then it made me think on some things.

What I discerned from that thinking is that each of these "revolutionary ideas" was intended to address a problem.  Or at least, a perceived problem.  The thing is that many are just that - perceived problems.  I think the real cause is that people, myself included, don't want to do the painful self-examination that is required for real improvement.

It is easier to follow the herd and the glossy marketing people when they hold out a promise than it is to dig down and work on the problem we have.  This leaves us the desperate grasping at the just-out-of-reach silver bullet.

This is, I suspect, the core issue with all the trends over the last 30 years in my experience, and more.

Unless you are willing to face and address your real problems, you will never fix them and will keep grasping at quick-fix solutions that are not.

Well, maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon.