I've written on this idea before. Here in fact. Many other people have written passionately about it as well. As I am fresh from presenting at STPCon Fall 2011 in Dallas and am getting my notes and reviewing my presentation for TesTrek 2011 (http://www.qaitestrek.org/2011/) in a couple weeks in Toronto, I wanted to take a moment and beat this drum one more time.
When you are at a conference, CONFER with people. Talk with them, ask question. Answer questions. Express opinions. Be open to learning. If you disagree with someone, let them know politely - and why. Maybe you are closer than you might realize and simply are stating the same thing different ways.
One really important point.
When the "official" sessions wind down and the "official" "networking opportunities" wrap up - look around for people just hanging from the conference. Then ask if you can join them. Ask what they do, where they do it, what they like about it. You may well learn really valuable ideas you can take back to the boss.
If you see a group of people from the conference sitting in the hotel bar/lounge/whatever, a quick scan will give you some idea of the conversation(s) going on. If it is vaguely related to software and/or testing, ASK IF YOU CAN JOIN THEM!
I know from my own experience, that if I have ANY energy left and no absolutely pressing duties elsewhere, I like to talk with other test professionals and learn. Yeah. I learn a lot just from talking with people. This last conference, I had some fantastic conversations with Doug Hoffman, Fiona Charles, Tony Bruce, Scott Barber, Dawn Haynes, Lanette Creamer, Catherine Powell, Robert Walsh, Dani Almog... the list goes on - Those are the folks that popped into my mind immediately. Testing Heavyweights all - and I gained insight, if not actionable information, from each conversation.
So, I invite any TesTrek Symposium attendee. If you see me sitting in a chair in the hallway sipping the web, or in the conference center lounge, please feel free to join me. Really. I like meeting people and sharing ideas, experiences and viewpoints.
I'm there to learn, too. Please help me learn.
Showing posts with label STPCon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STPCon. Show all posts
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Fun and Games at STPCon 2011 - Part 3.
Thursday at STPCon in Nashville was an interesting day for me. It was certainly the shortest as far as conference stuff went, which was probably a good thing. When I woke up, with the body still on "Eastern Time" and not "Central Time" I knew it was going to be a physically rough day. The head cold I was fighting was not letting up and the voice was threatening to simply go away.
So, I sucked down a couple cups of coffee, some juice, some cold-tablets to try and lessen the "ick" feeling and carried on.
First order of business was the "Speed Geeking Breakfast Bytes" - The topic I had submitted was "Stepping Up to Leadership: Lessons Learned from Harry Potter." Yes, I found a way to work Harry Potter into a testing conference. This was a "test" run of a longer presentation I was working on around technical leadership, or becoming a leader without having either "Lead" or "Manager" in your title. I'd had an outline and a set of talking points in place and took the opportunity to squeeze this into an 8 minute presentation (complete with Power Point slide deck!)
The idea of the "breakfast bytes" was to give the same 8 minute talk to three different groups. I made it though it - made reference to the other tables and their presentations and almost had a voice by the end. I think folks like the ideas and saw later there were tweets on some of them - Cool! Thanks Tweeps!
I fortified myself with yet more coffee and a couple more glasses of juice then caught Selena Delesie's presentation "Showing the Value of Testing." I really enjoyed the core of the presentation and the lively discussion during and after. Much tweeting from this session!
As the conference ended at Noon, and I was not leaving until the next morning. I decided that the wisest course of action was a nap. I never take naps. So, the boss and lady-wife (who had come down with us and had managed to see sights around Nashville and go to the social events with us) went shopping for the elusive boots and I stretched out.
A couple hours later, feeling much refreshed, I checked email, dealt with a couple of lingering day-job items then went to see what kind of trouble I could find.
Lo and behold! Here was James Bach with dice with Michael Czeisperger and Gabe Wharton. Being the un-shy person I have become, I joined in. It was interesting watching how James handled the interactions and compared the "results analysis" with other folk I have seen do the same "introductory game." It was enlightening in many ways.
Additionally, as the idea of observing and not participating is one I do not particularly care for, I soon had a set of dice as well. So, James deftly handled this newcomer with an interesting variation. I knew something was up when his notebook came out and was written in quickly. It turns out that my initial behavior gave him an idea for a new set of rules. When that was resolved, we compared my definition of the new game with his written note. Close enough to say they matched - a slight change in phrasing was the only difference with no change in meaning.
On a related note, I brought the same game to the first team meeting after the conference. Volunteers only, mind you. Three folks dove in and gleefully experienced the frustration and learning and critical thinking that it takes to solve these types of puzzles. In the end, they each reached the same conclusions by unique methods. That is a topic for another blog post, however.
Gabe was flying out shortly, however, James and Michael were not leaving until the next day. The boss, the lady-wife and I had plans to have dinner with Michael, as James was also unattached for the evening, we invited him as well.
The five of us had one of the most enjoyable nights I can remember with a bunch of testers. The conversation ran from education to schooling to un-schooling to testing to philosophy to learning to heuristics to beliefs back to testing (briefly) to the qualities of various red wines (we were in a steak house for dinner) to boots and the benefits of the various materials boots can be made from to the difference between hats and caps and jackets and coats and how cultural norms and more's can be touched by those definitions and impact what is considered "proper" behavior.
Needless to say, the evening flew by.
So, I sucked down a couple cups of coffee, some juice, some cold-tablets to try and lessen the "ick" feeling and carried on.
First order of business was the "Speed Geeking Breakfast Bytes" - The topic I had submitted was "Stepping Up to Leadership: Lessons Learned from Harry Potter." Yes, I found a way to work Harry Potter into a testing conference. This was a "test" run of a longer presentation I was working on around technical leadership, or becoming a leader without having either "Lead" or "Manager" in your title. I'd had an outline and a set of talking points in place and took the opportunity to squeeze this into an 8 minute presentation (complete with Power Point slide deck!)
The idea of the "breakfast bytes" was to give the same 8 minute talk to three different groups. I made it though it - made reference to the other tables and their presentations and almost had a voice by the end. I think folks like the ideas and saw later there were tweets on some of them - Cool! Thanks Tweeps!
I fortified myself with yet more coffee and a couple more glasses of juice then caught Selena Delesie's presentation "Showing the Value of Testing." I really enjoyed the core of the presentation and the lively discussion during and after. Much tweeting from this session!
As the conference ended at Noon, and I was not leaving until the next morning. I decided that the wisest course of action was a nap. I never take naps. So, the boss and lady-wife (who had come down with us and had managed to see sights around Nashville and go to the social events with us) went shopping for the elusive boots and I stretched out.
A couple hours later, feeling much refreshed, I checked email, dealt with a couple of lingering day-job items then went to see what kind of trouble I could find.
Lo and behold! Here was James Bach with dice with Michael Czeisperger and Gabe Wharton. Being the un-shy person I have become, I joined in. It was interesting watching how James handled the interactions and compared the "results analysis" with other folk I have seen do the same "introductory game." It was enlightening in many ways.
Additionally, as the idea of observing and not participating is one I do not particularly care for, I soon had a set of dice as well. So, James deftly handled this newcomer with an interesting variation. I knew something was up when his notebook came out and was written in quickly. It turns out that my initial behavior gave him an idea for a new set of rules. When that was resolved, we compared my definition of the new game with his written note. Close enough to say they matched - a slight change in phrasing was the only difference with no change in meaning.
On a related note, I brought the same game to the first team meeting after the conference. Volunteers only, mind you. Three folks dove in and gleefully experienced the frustration and learning and critical thinking that it takes to solve these types of puzzles. In the end, they each reached the same conclusions by unique methods. That is a topic for another blog post, however.
Gabe was flying out shortly, however, James and Michael were not leaving until the next day. The boss, the lady-wife and I had plans to have dinner with Michael, as James was also unattached for the evening, we invited him as well.
The five of us had one of the most enjoyable nights I can remember with a bunch of testers. The conversation ran from education to schooling to un-schooling to testing to philosophy to learning to heuristics to beliefs back to testing (briefly) to the qualities of various red wines (we were in a steak house for dinner) to boots and the benefits of the various materials boots can be made from to the difference between hats and caps and jackets and coats and how cultural norms and more's can be touched by those definitions and impact what is considered "proper" behavior.
Needless to say, the evening flew by.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Fun and Games at STPCon 2011 - Part 2.
At STPCon in Nashville, Wednesday, the second day of the conference itself, I was rather torn.
My day started with the "Power-up Issues" discussions. I found myself at a table with people passionate about testing and building teams and expanding team roles - the great regret I had was that it ended far too quickly. Another 30 or 45 minutes would have been great from my perspective, but, the breakout sessions were starting.
I knew Lynn McKee was speaking on a topic I was interested in that morning - metrics and how not not get trapped into abusing them. Well, actually her presentation title was "Deception Dangers of the Numbers Game." As it was, I had a conflict. Stuff at the day-job needed attending to and I was also dealing with a developing head cold and laryngitis. (Not a good combination for a conference. Oh, and for the Day-job stuff? I'm tentatively working on a paper called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Conference.")
So, as much as I would have liked to be there, I did appreciate the tweets (the many tweets) about what she said by Nancy Kelln and others who were present.
Another presentation I would have liked to see was Jim Hazen's on Automated Testing. I have known Jim cyberly for some time. As it was, he was speaking at the same time as Lynn - so again, I had to take a pass.
Selena Delesie's "Thriving as an Agile Test Manager" and Michael Czeisperger's "Wishful Thinking and Poor Planning: Load Testing in the Real World" both looked interesting to me in the next block, yet I was still not in a place to get there. While there were some interesting hallway conversations, I was kinda bummed that these presentations were opposite each other.
Another presentation I really would have liked to see was Catherine Powell's "Agile in a Waterfall World." As it was, I was doing a joint presentation with my boss at the same time. We were speaking on our experiences in creating testing groups for companies where there had not previously been one.
The title "No Box Mixes: Building a Test Group from Scratch" was drawn from that idea. It seems that at every conference I've been at for some time, there is at least one lost soul wandering about looking for ideas or help or something because they were expected to create a test group. The gist of our presentation was that there may not be a single "right" way to go about it, but there were things to keep in mind, like understanding what your mission is and being patient with yourself, your new team and your bosses. Kristin, my boss, and I had each been through this and we quite simply compared our experiences at different companies.
Much of Wednesday afternoon I spent in hallway conversations with a number of people. The one that stands most clearly in my memory was with Karen Johnson. We spoke for nearly an hour - AN HOUR! - on a variety of topics including strategy (one of my favorite topics) and empowering and encouraging people beyond their own norms and expectations and books and silly interfaces with airline registrations on smart phones. Mind you, my phone (like me) was clearly the luddite of the conference and so I relied on my trusty laptop to keep me connected to the world. We also exchanged slide decks and talked about the idea of presentations and presenting and how people perceive our respective, if very different, methods of delivery. What an amazingly enjoyable time for me. I came away from that discussion feeling refreshed and ready to take on the rest of the conference, if not the world.
That evening, the "conference party" was at the Wildhorse Saloon, downtown. This is owned by the same organization that owns the conference center where we were meeting. An interesting buffet selection (unless you were a vegetarion or vegan) with some interesting beverages and line-dancing and mechanical bull riding - Selena Delesie recorded some folks riding the bull and generally having a good time (you can find them on YouTube if you search diligently.)
After a brief foray to find my lady-wife some boots (the store was closed, hence the "brief" part) we settled in to a grand time before heading back to the conference center.
Interesting people I met that day included Neil Fitzgerald, Tonia Williams, Corey Anderson, Bill Bennett, Eric Pugh and Todd Miller. I know there were others, please don't be offended if I've left you out of this list.
Come to think of it, if I have, drop me a note and refresh my memory!
My day started with the "Power-up Issues" discussions. I found myself at a table with people passionate about testing and building teams and expanding team roles - the great regret I had was that it ended far too quickly. Another 30 or 45 minutes would have been great from my perspective, but, the breakout sessions were starting.
I knew Lynn McKee was speaking on a topic I was interested in that morning - metrics and how not not get trapped into abusing them. Well, actually her presentation title was "Deception Dangers of the Numbers Game." As it was, I had a conflict. Stuff at the day-job needed attending to and I was also dealing with a developing head cold and laryngitis. (Not a good combination for a conference. Oh, and for the Day-job stuff? I'm tentatively working on a paper called "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Conference.")
So, as much as I would have liked to be there, I did appreciate the tweets (the many tweets) about what she said by Nancy Kelln and others who were present.
Another presentation I would have liked to see was Jim Hazen's on Automated Testing. I have known Jim cyberly for some time. As it was, he was speaking at the same time as Lynn - so again, I had to take a pass.
Selena Delesie's "Thriving as an Agile Test Manager" and Michael Czeisperger's "Wishful Thinking and Poor Planning: Load Testing in the Real World" both looked interesting to me in the next block, yet I was still not in a place to get there. While there were some interesting hallway conversations, I was kinda bummed that these presentations were opposite each other.
Another presentation I really would have liked to see was Catherine Powell's "Agile in a Waterfall World." As it was, I was doing a joint presentation with my boss at the same time. We were speaking on our experiences in creating testing groups for companies where there had not previously been one.
The title "No Box Mixes: Building a Test Group from Scratch" was drawn from that idea. It seems that at every conference I've been at for some time, there is at least one lost soul wandering about looking for ideas or help or something because they were expected to create a test group. The gist of our presentation was that there may not be a single "right" way to go about it, but there were things to keep in mind, like understanding what your mission is and being patient with yourself, your new team and your bosses. Kristin, my boss, and I had each been through this and we quite simply compared our experiences at different companies.
Much of Wednesday afternoon I spent in hallway conversations with a number of people. The one that stands most clearly in my memory was with Karen Johnson. We spoke for nearly an hour - AN HOUR! - on a variety of topics including strategy (one of my favorite topics) and empowering and encouraging people beyond their own norms and expectations and books and silly interfaces with airline registrations on smart phones. Mind you, my phone (like me) was clearly the luddite of the conference and so I relied on my trusty laptop to keep me connected to the world. We also exchanged slide decks and talked about the idea of presentations and presenting and how people perceive our respective, if very different, methods of delivery. What an amazingly enjoyable time for me. I came away from that discussion feeling refreshed and ready to take on the rest of the conference, if not the world.
That evening, the "conference party" was at the Wildhorse Saloon, downtown. This is owned by the same organization that owns the conference center where we were meeting. An interesting buffet selection (unless you were a vegetarion or vegan) with some interesting beverages and line-dancing and mechanical bull riding - Selena Delesie recorded some folks riding the bull and generally having a good time (you can find them on YouTube if you search diligently.)
After a brief foray to find my lady-wife some boots (the store was closed, hence the "brief" part) we settled in to a grand time before heading back to the conference center.
Interesting people I met that day included Neil Fitzgerald, Tonia Williams, Corey Anderson, Bill Bennett, Eric Pugh and Todd Miller. I know there were others, please don't be offended if I've left you out of this list.
Come to think of it, if I have, drop me a note and refresh my memory!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Fun and Games at STPCon 2011 - Part 1.
I can hardly believe that it has been a month since I wrote a blog entry. It has been a remarkably busy month.
STPCon, the Software Testing Professionals Conference (as it is currently branded) was held in Nashville March 22 through 24. As has become common for many conferences, there were also workshops and tutorials on Monday, March 21. I was fortunate enough to have been selected to speak at the conference, along with my boss. So, we headed down on March 21, driving to Nashville. We are close enough that was a feasible option.
We had some interesting adventures on the drive down, but that will be a different story at another time.
We arrived Monday evening, checked into our rooms and collided with a variety of people we know. Monday evening was a nice relaxed evening with Nancy Kastl and Dan Mish, just chatting and talking about testing and enjoying each other's company.
Tuesday was the day of my first presentation. Before that, however, James Bach gave an astounding presentation on test coaching. I had seen recordings of James speaking, but this was the first time I heard him in person. I was impressed and inspired.
The first breakout session I went to was Karen Johnson's presentation on Strategy. What I thought interesting was her take on Strategy, as opposed to a document called a Test Strategy. It was interesting and, for me, very thought provoking.
This was the two great presentations I heard before I spoke. What an inspirational way to start my day!
My presentation was a session, as opposed to a workshop, on Test Process Improvement. The room was quite full, and most of the folks were interested in the ideas I presented. The gist of these, which I've written about before, focus on improving the skills and abilities of the test team, rather than a fixed process, to realize improvements in testing. It led to conversations that lasted through the week.
In the afternoon, Nancy Kelln gave a great presentation on working with and leading Business Testers. I hate to say it, but I was stopped by a couple of people who asked questions and wanted to chat, so I only caught the last 20 or 30 minutes or so. What I heard, I thought was very good, and I regret being delayed. and missing the start. I then heard Jon Bach's presentation on Threads - He called it "My Crazy Plan For Responding to Change." I had read some blog posts on the idea and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I then had an interesting hallway conversation with Jon and James Bach. It was brief, yet very enjoyable and informative.
The evening was a meet-and-greet where I got to catch up with people I had not seen in some time or had not had a chance to talk with much before in the day. For me, it was a who's-who list: Catherine Powell, Scott Barber, Dan Downing, Dawn Haynes, Jim Hazen, Lynn McKee, Nancy Kelln, Selena Delesie, Kristin Dukic - I know I'm forgetting some folks...
I kept running into during the day incliuded Abbie Caracostas. All in all, it was a great day and a good way to start a week of learning and thinking!
STPCon, the Software Testing Professionals Conference (as it is currently branded) was held in Nashville March 22 through 24. As has become common for many conferences, there were also workshops and tutorials on Monday, March 21. I was fortunate enough to have been selected to speak at the conference, along with my boss. So, we headed down on March 21, driving to Nashville. We are close enough that was a feasible option.
We had some interesting adventures on the drive down, but that will be a different story at another time.
We arrived Monday evening, checked into our rooms and collided with a variety of people we know. Monday evening was a nice relaxed evening with Nancy Kastl and Dan Mish, just chatting and talking about testing and enjoying each other's company.
Tuesday was the day of my first presentation. Before that, however, James Bach gave an astounding presentation on test coaching. I had seen recordings of James speaking, but this was the first time I heard him in person. I was impressed and inspired.
The first breakout session I went to was Karen Johnson's presentation on Strategy. What I thought interesting was her take on Strategy, as opposed to a document called a Test Strategy. It was interesting and, for me, very thought provoking.
This was the two great presentations I heard before I spoke. What an inspirational way to start my day!
My presentation was a session, as opposed to a workshop, on Test Process Improvement. The room was quite full, and most of the folks were interested in the ideas I presented. The gist of these, which I've written about before, focus on improving the skills and abilities of the test team, rather than a fixed process, to realize improvements in testing. It led to conversations that lasted through the week.
In the afternoon, Nancy Kelln gave a great presentation on working with and leading Business Testers. I hate to say it, but I was stopped by a couple of people who asked questions and wanted to chat, so I only caught the last 20 or 30 minutes or so. What I heard, I thought was very good, and I regret being delayed. and missing the start. I then heard Jon Bach's presentation on Threads - He called it "My Crazy Plan For Responding to Change." I had read some blog posts on the idea and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I then had an interesting hallway conversation with Jon and James Bach. It was brief, yet very enjoyable and informative.
The evening was a meet-and-greet where I got to catch up with people I had not seen in some time or had not had a chance to talk with much before in the day. For me, it was a who's-who list: Catherine Powell, Scott Barber, Dan Downing, Dawn Haynes, Jim Hazen, Lynn McKee, Nancy Kelln, Selena Delesie, Kristin Dukic - I know I'm forgetting some folks...
I kept running into during the day incliuded Abbie Caracostas. All in all, it was a great day and a good way to start a week of learning and thinking!
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
On Learning and Enlightenment and Software Testing
This has been a remarkable week for me.
Over the weekend, I finished the "Lesson" portion of the Black Box Software Testing Foundations course from the Association for Software Testing. I wrote the exam Monday night. I'm not sure how to describe this experience. It was a massively intense (as opposed to mildly intense?) experience where there was a lot of information poured out. On top of that, the conversations in discussion forums around the lessons, quizes and whatnot tended to sometimes take on a life of their own. All in all I found myself in an intense learning experience where ideas did not so much flow as rush at you. (My lady-wife compares this to trying to drink from a firehose.)
I can safely say that there was more information about testing that came at me over the course of this class than I can remember having in some time. Invigorating does not begin to describe it.
So, as I'm catching up on other things, and decompressing from the experience, and dealing with work stuff and trying to keep up with that. I come across tweets about the EuroStar Testing Time Out. Then I realize that the first time out speaker is Lynn McKee! I've mentioned Lynn more than once in blog posts. She is really good and takes a fresh look on things. THEN, I see she has a blog post on the experience. Way Cool!
Then today I was working with the boss on polishing the presentation we're doing together at STPCon. She asked me what I thought I could apply from the class right now. I began listing off ideas where some of the concepts from BBST could be applied right then. There were others where some of the ideas would take a bit of work to explain, then maybe experiment with, They may have to wait a bit (we are pressed for time right now.)
This evening I looked at what was coming up and got all excited all over again. CAST is coming up in August. The main track sessions look amazing. I'm excited about the emerging topics track. There have been some interesting proposals submitted already. (We set some up as examples - and several people have submitted really good, interesting ideas.) If you have something you're passionate about, and are going to CAST, why not try your hand on an idea that you're passionate about? More information is here.
So, yeah, the more I learn, the more things I find interesting and the more I realize I want to know. Amazing, isn't it?
Over the weekend, I finished the "Lesson" portion of the Black Box Software Testing Foundations course from the Association for Software Testing. I wrote the exam Monday night. I'm not sure how to describe this experience. It was a massively intense (as opposed to mildly intense?) experience where there was a lot of information poured out. On top of that, the conversations in discussion forums around the lessons, quizes and whatnot tended to sometimes take on a life of their own. All in all I found myself in an intense learning experience where ideas did not so much flow as rush at you. (My lady-wife compares this to trying to drink from a firehose.)
I can safely say that there was more information about testing that came at me over the course of this class than I can remember having in some time. Invigorating does not begin to describe it.
So, as I'm catching up on other things, and decompressing from the experience, and dealing with work stuff and trying to keep up with that. I come across tweets about the EuroStar Testing Time Out. Then I realize that the first time out speaker is Lynn McKee! I've mentioned Lynn more than once in blog posts. She is really good and takes a fresh look on things. THEN, I see she has a blog post on the experience. Way Cool!
Then today I was working with the boss on polishing the presentation we're doing together at STPCon. She asked me what I thought I could apply from the class right now. I began listing off ideas where some of the concepts from BBST could be applied right then. There were others where some of the ideas would take a bit of work to explain, then maybe experiment with, They may have to wait a bit (we are pressed for time right now.)
This evening I looked at what was coming up and got all excited all over again. CAST is coming up in August. The main track sessions look amazing. I'm excited about the emerging topics track. There have been some interesting proposals submitted already. (We set some up as examples - and several people have submitted really good, interesting ideas.) If you have something you're passionate about, and are going to CAST, why not try your hand on an idea that you're passionate about? More information is here.
So, yeah, the more I learn, the more things I find interesting and the more I realize I want to know. Amazing, isn't it?
Sunday, February 20, 2011
On Drumming and Learning and Testing
I really don't have time to be writing this blog entry. I should be working on the exam study guide for the Black Box Software Testing (BBST) course I'm taking through the Association for Software Testing (AST.) If not that, I should be finishing answers submitted some time ago to Ask the Tester through STP. I'm getting there, but a couple of the answers I wrote I'm not really satisfied with. I also should be polishing the slides for the presentations I'm doing at STPCon next month. ALMOST done, is not DONE. Right?
I needed to come up for air after having a bit of a break in my schedule though.
One of the commitments I have that is fairly long-standing is teaching drumming. Since July, I've been working with a group of absolute novice drummers with a pipe band on the East side of Michigan - about two hours from my home. So, we got together once each month in July, August and September, then twice a month since then. We met on Saturday afternoons for four hours.
The youngest student is eight years old, the oldest is in his late 30's. The goal was to teach them enough where they could play with their band. Two students had some drumming experience outside of the world of bagpipe bands: one is a middle-school student learning drums through school; the other is his dad. Dad had some drumming but no formal training. The lesson in July consisted of "This is a drumstick. This is how you hold a drumstick."
The first week of December, one of the students made a comment that he felt like they were doing a lot of exercises but bot really getting what they needed to actually play with a band. I asked what he meant. He said "We do all this stuff, I'm learning a lot but I'm not sure how it applies to me playing in the pipe band." My response was "You all are closer than you think. There is no reason why at least two of you will not be able to play with the band at the band's ceilidh (a party/celebration - lots of music and dancing and bagpipes) in February. Everyone else will be able to play with the band by May." They looked at me in complete disbelief.
The next lesson, shortly before Christmas, I passed out a new exercise, a full sheet of music. I told them, "This is a drum salute that you will all be playing in February. All of you can play everything on this page."
Their performance was last night. My lady-wfie and I, grandson as well, drove across the State to go to the band's ceilidh, which is their biggest fundraising event of the year. The place was packed - hundreds of people in a hall. A short introduction and the drumming students came out first - before the full band. Then they played. They did really well. I was terribly proud of them and what they had done.
When they finished as a group, the pipers marched into the hall and joined them. The students who were not quite ready stepped back and moved off stage while the other drummers played the rest of the performance. At the end of the night, this band came out again along with the two guest pipe bands and played together. Some of the stiudents went out to play with the other bands, some did not feel comfortable doing that. No worries. No pressure. The idea was to have fun.
All of them are reinvogorated. The most consistent comment I heard from them was how much fun they had playing. Even the ever-so-cool teenage boy smiled and said that was a lot more fun than his school stuff.
So, after driving back across the State this morning (hoping to beat the nasty weather predicted) I was thinking about the drumming students experience and my own with BBST. Part of the opening lecture was about reading carefully. I muffed two questions on the last quiz and one on the one before because I did NOT read carefully enough.
In working on answers to the essay questions in the exam study guide, I find myself challenging my own statements, thinking hard about the answers and running through them in my mind. I am finding myself more challenged than I have in some time to look at how I think about things, testing in particular.
In the current project at work (yeah, I'm trying to keep up with that as well) I find myself thinking about concepts I've just read or re-read from the course. (If the boss thinks I was passionate about how testing can be better at the company before this course, look out!)
It IS more work than I expected. I knew it was going to be a lot of work; it is simply more than I thought it would be. At the same time, I'm also having fun learning and stretching how I think about things. That is very rewarding in itself. So, yeah, like the drumming students, I'm having fun.
Oh. I forgot to mention that STPStanley came along with us. We took a lot of pictures and will be posting some of them shortly.
I needed to come up for air after having a bit of a break in my schedule though.
One of the commitments I have that is fairly long-standing is teaching drumming. Since July, I've been working with a group of absolute novice drummers with a pipe band on the East side of Michigan - about two hours from my home. So, we got together once each month in July, August and September, then twice a month since then. We met on Saturday afternoons for four hours.
The youngest student is eight years old, the oldest is in his late 30's. The goal was to teach them enough where they could play with their band. Two students had some drumming experience outside of the world of bagpipe bands: one is a middle-school student learning drums through school; the other is his dad. Dad had some drumming but no formal training. The lesson in July consisted of "This is a drumstick. This is how you hold a drumstick."
The first week of December, one of the students made a comment that he felt like they were doing a lot of exercises but bot really getting what they needed to actually play with a band. I asked what he meant. He said "We do all this stuff, I'm learning a lot but I'm not sure how it applies to me playing in the pipe band." My response was "You all are closer than you think. There is no reason why at least two of you will not be able to play with the band at the band's ceilidh (a party/celebration - lots of music and dancing and bagpipes) in February. Everyone else will be able to play with the band by May." They looked at me in complete disbelief.
The next lesson, shortly before Christmas, I passed out a new exercise, a full sheet of music. I told them, "This is a drum salute that you will all be playing in February. All of you can play everything on this page."
Their performance was last night. My lady-wfie and I, grandson as well, drove across the State to go to the band's ceilidh, which is their biggest fundraising event of the year. The place was packed - hundreds of people in a hall. A short introduction and the drumming students came out first - before the full band. Then they played. They did really well. I was terribly proud of them and what they had done.
When they finished as a group, the pipers marched into the hall and joined them. The students who were not quite ready stepped back and moved off stage while the other drummers played the rest of the performance. At the end of the night, this band came out again along with the two guest pipe bands and played together. Some of the stiudents went out to play with the other bands, some did not feel comfortable doing that. No worries. No pressure. The idea was to have fun.
All of them are reinvogorated. The most consistent comment I heard from them was how much fun they had playing. Even the ever-so-cool teenage boy smiled and said that was a lot more fun than his school stuff.
So, after driving back across the State this morning (hoping to beat the nasty weather predicted) I was thinking about the drumming students experience and my own with BBST. Part of the opening lecture was about reading carefully. I muffed two questions on the last quiz and one on the one before because I did NOT read carefully enough.
In working on answers to the essay questions in the exam study guide, I find myself challenging my own statements, thinking hard about the answers and running through them in my mind. I am finding myself more challenged than I have in some time to look at how I think about things, testing in particular.
In the current project at work (yeah, I'm trying to keep up with that as well) I find myself thinking about concepts I've just read or re-read from the course. (If the boss thinks I was passionate about how testing can be better at the company before this course, look out!)
It IS more work than I expected. I knew it was going to be a lot of work; it is simply more than I thought it would be. At the same time, I'm also having fun learning and stretching how I think about things. That is very rewarding in itself. So, yeah, like the drumming students, I'm having fun.
Oh. I forgot to mention that STPStanley came along with us. We took a lot of pictures and will be posting some of them shortly.
Friday, December 31, 2010
2010, A Retrospective
This year is drawing to an end. I know it is a tad lame to have a "look at the year that was" or any of the other cliche laden phrases that tend to be used to introduce these things.
The thing is, it has been an interesting year for me personally and professionally.
Let's see. General stuff. I retired the blog attached to my defunct drumming with bagpipe bands website. I replaced it with, this one. It had been in the "thinking about" phase for a long-time, and finally I decided to do it. Ya know what's interesting? As I think about other stuff - often Non-Testing stuff - something pops into my head about software development or testing or SOMETHING. Sometimes, that results in a blog post. Other times it leads to sitting in my big green comfy chair sipping a brandy and thinking.
Interesting work stuff at the day-job with interesting challenges early in the year. With a flurry of emails I found myself and the boss registered to attend QUEST in Dallas, Texas. This was a huge surprise to me as I was not expecting it at all, given limited budgets and going to TesTrek in Toronto the previous October. QUEST was interesting in that I met a number of people whose writings I had read, and had not met in real-life. I also got to connect with people I had met before and get back in touch in real-life.
May I received confirmation that I COULD attend CAST, which was being held around 15 minutes from my house - then in June it became clear that the scheduled release would conflict with attending CAST, so the company would neither pay the conference fee (something I was not too worried about) nor would they grant time-off. That one was a problem. July rolled around, schedules shifted again. I could be granted the time to go to CAST IF I was available during the conference. COMPROMISE! COOL!
Sunday evening of CAST had a great dinner and conversation with Fiona Charles and Griffin Jones and the lady-wife at a neighborhood Italian place. Recipes from Sicily and friendly folks and good wine and great conversation, little of it around testing, but all of it applicable to testing. What a great night.
Another night had a fantastic dinner out with a bunch of folks - Yeah, I know I blogged about that shortly after the event - it is still a great memory.
Dragged the boss in one evening to meet some of the great ones of the craft who would be there. Had a fantastic evening out with Nancy Kelln and Lynn McKee and the boss - more good wine (notice a trend?) and a great conversation.
Then, a bombshell was dropped that left me gob-smacked. It seems one of our dinner companions had a conflict and could not fulfill a speaking commitment in Toronto, would I be interested in being suggested as a an alternative speaker? Holy Cow. I thought about it briefly... and said Yes. One thing led to another and I did indeed speak at TesTrek in Toronto that October. Yeah, I blogged about that, too.
Stuff at the day-job continued to be interesting - meaning, really, really, busy.
So, things progressed. Talked with the boss about some interesting emails. The result of those chats was submitting proposals to a couple of conferences. I submitted proposals for a session similar to the session at TesTrek, but with a more advanced perspective than the general view there. The exciting thing was that the boss and I submitted a proposal for a joint presentation based on our experiences starting a QA/Testing team from scratch.
One conference said "no thanks" (although the boss was asked to consider a presentation in a different area) the other accepted both proposals! Yeah, that rocks. I get to hang with the cool kids at STPCon in Nashville this coming March.
More projects were successfully rolled out at the day job. There are some interesting things that seem to be happening there, they may lead to more ideas on blog posts.
The local testing group and its attempts spread its wings and fly has been great fun to watch and be a part of. Through it, I've met some terrific people, like Matt Heusser and Melissa Bugai , and have had fun sharing the adventure with them.
At home it was a good year in the garden. We had a good crop of strawberries and peppers and tomatoes, although some of the others were a little surprising in what were less prolific than expected. Several big projects got done - and inspired thoughts about, then blog posts about, software and testing.
We had some sadness in our lives this year. Stuff that led to serious rounds of soul-searching for "what is this all about." We also have had some great joys in our lives this year. For that, I am grateful. I don't know what 2011 will bring, but I am looking forward to the next year.
The thing is, it has been an interesting year for me personally and professionally.
Let's see. General stuff. I retired the blog attached to my defunct drumming with bagpipe bands website. I replaced it with, this one. It had been in the "thinking about" phase for a long-time, and finally I decided to do it. Ya know what's interesting? As I think about other stuff - often Non-Testing stuff - something pops into my head about software development or testing or SOMETHING. Sometimes, that results in a blog post. Other times it leads to sitting in my big green comfy chair sipping a brandy and thinking.
Interesting work stuff at the day-job with interesting challenges early in the year. With a flurry of emails I found myself and the boss registered to attend QUEST in Dallas, Texas. This was a huge surprise to me as I was not expecting it at all, given limited budgets and going to TesTrek in Toronto the previous October. QUEST was interesting in that I met a number of people whose writings I had read, and had not met in real-life. I also got to connect with people I had met before and get back in touch in real-life.
May I received confirmation that I COULD attend CAST, which was being held around 15 minutes from my house - then in June it became clear that the scheduled release would conflict with attending CAST, so the company would neither pay the conference fee (something I was not too worried about) nor would they grant time-off. That one was a problem. July rolled around, schedules shifted again. I could be granted the time to go to CAST IF I was available during the conference. COMPROMISE! COOL!
Sunday evening of CAST had a great dinner and conversation with Fiona Charles and Griffin Jones and the lady-wife at a neighborhood Italian place. Recipes from Sicily and friendly folks and good wine and great conversation, little of it around testing, but all of it applicable to testing. What a great night.
Another night had a fantastic dinner out with a bunch of folks - Yeah, I know I blogged about that shortly after the event - it is still a great memory.
Dragged the boss in one evening to meet some of the great ones of the craft who would be there. Had a fantastic evening out with Nancy Kelln and Lynn McKee and the boss - more good wine (notice a trend?) and a great conversation.
Then, a bombshell was dropped that left me gob-smacked. It seems one of our dinner companions had a conflict and could not fulfill a speaking commitment in Toronto, would I be interested in being suggested as a an alternative speaker? Holy Cow. I thought about it briefly... and said Yes. One thing led to another and I did indeed speak at TesTrek in Toronto that October. Yeah, I blogged about that, too.
Stuff at the day-job continued to be interesting - meaning, really, really, busy.
So, things progressed. Talked with the boss about some interesting emails. The result of those chats was submitting proposals to a couple of conferences. I submitted proposals for a session similar to the session at TesTrek, but with a more advanced perspective than the general view there. The exciting thing was that the boss and I submitted a proposal for a joint presentation based on our experiences starting a QA/Testing team from scratch.
One conference said "no thanks" (although the boss was asked to consider a presentation in a different area) the other accepted both proposals! Yeah, that rocks. I get to hang with the cool kids at STPCon in Nashville this coming March.
More projects were successfully rolled out at the day job. There are some interesting things that seem to be happening there, they may lead to more ideas on blog posts.
The local testing group and its attempts spread its wings and fly has been great fun to watch and be a part of. Through it, I've met some terrific people, like Matt Heusser and Melissa Bugai , and have had fun sharing the adventure with them.
At home it was a good year in the garden. We had a good crop of strawberries and peppers and tomatoes, although some of the others were a little surprising in what were less prolific than expected. Several big projects got done - and inspired thoughts about, then blog posts about, software and testing.
We had some sadness in our lives this year. Stuff that led to serious rounds of soul-searching for "what is this all about." We also have had some great joys in our lives this year. For that, I am grateful. I don't know what 2011 will bring, but I am looking forward to the next year.
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