Testing, TCL and Other Stuff

Farewell 2011 and welcome to 2012

2011-12-22T01:14:00.000-08:00

As we come to the end of what has been a really wonderful 2011 for me personally, I wanted to take a moment to update my blog! There's not been much of this over the year, and I feel that I've missed out.

Sure, the Twitter and the facebook activity has been high, but the blogging is where I let my brain think through some more involved topics and I'm really not doing enough of that. Certainly not for my own liking and certainly not for a person who is in the role of a Chairman.

So, what has been keeping me so busy? On the personal front, the journey this year has included some very happy times:

Graduated from the Exeter MBA course in January
Got married in April
Took a two month sabbatical over April and May - spending loads of lovely time in the US and Spain, with Lisa
The arrival of our amazing daughter, Sofia, in September was a true blessing
Finding, buying and now moving into our new family home in December :)

There's been quite a lot going on really! The business has also been exciting, and we've moved forward in all of the TCL entities this year. Engaging with new Clients, being involved in the exciting journey with uTest and growing as a group to more than 125 people. All brilliant stuff.

I'm just about to go into the final staff review of the year, but before I go I wanted to leave you with a link to the interview I did this year for Global Entrepreneurship week. I actually did the presentation for the University of Exeter via Skype, from the uTest offices in Boston. We put this film together ahead of the day just in case there were any connectivity issues. As it turns out it all went pretty well on the day, but I didn't want the film to go to waste and we've included it on our Youtube channel. Here you go:

And so, last things last.....sometimes people ask me what drives me, and what drives TCL. I don't always share things like this; it's part of my only child approach to communication I'm afraid, but I've been encouraged by others who are more adept in this field than me to 'let it out', and what better place to start than here.

For me, I have a very great passion for testing and for making it a much more professional discipline that it is currently. I believe in innovation & efficiencies, I believe and enjoy creativity and building things - despite my disruptive tendencies - and this brings me to what drives us:

"We want to take testing to a new level. A professional discipline that is consistently recognised for its value."

"Through our endeavours we will ensure that testing is no longer perceived to be the 'Poor Cousin' of the IT industry. It will have a genuine seat at the table."

And with that I want to wish you all a Merry Xmas, Happy Holidays and I look forward to being on here again soon. My topic for January will be: using testing skills in other areas. Some reflections on my work around strategies and board development - both at TCL and other companies.

Stew

EuroSTAR 2011, Europe's Premier Software Testing Event

2011-08-27T02:51:00.000-07:00

EuroSTAR 2011, Europe's Premier Software Testing Event:

'via Blog this'

Are you going to Eurostar this year? It looks like it will be a good one.

James Whittaker will be speaking - keynote - and he's always entertaining and worth listening to. Over the years I have learnt a great deal from James.

If you are going to the event, let me know. Perhaps we can meet up.

Also - check out the great new virtual conference being held on 13th September. This is a very good idea and innovations like this only help the community. Embrace it if you can - it is free after all :)

Sabbaticals!

2011-06-06T07:30:00.001-07:00

Well, despite all the great intentions of my last Blog post I didn't manage that much in the blogosphere over the last few months. One of the reasons being that I have had a wonderful sabbatical for two months. Today is in fact my first day back to work.

In the two months I got married, spent a month in Boston, spent two and a bit weeks in Spain and had some fun at home too along with sorting out the house and garden in readiness for summer. A wonderful experience, all the better for sharing it with Mrs Noakes! I had never thought of taking a sabbatical and I now, in retrospect, really wonder why. It's such a great concept - if managed correctly, and one that has brought a great deal of change, rest and enjoyment.

Two months was a good length of time, but three would have been better! Seriously, while money for such a thing is tricky to manage, a third month would have been amazing. Perhaps 6 months as some people do would be almost impossible to return from - depending on the nature of what you do with the time.

For me, having spent 11 years at the helm of TCL - from bedroom floor start up to where we are now - it was a brilliant opportunity to take stock of life and self, and reflect on aspects good and bad of the journey to date. The next phase of the journey for me and for TCL is not yet fully defined, but there are a lot of thoughts and options working there way into a decent plan over the next few weeks. Let's see where it all goes.

As for sabbaticals, I highly recommend them if you have the opportunity. My learning would be to always budget at least 50% more than you thought in terms of time and cash, and also have a good contingency fund available too! With more time at your disposal it's so easy to spend more money :)

Long time no blogging!

2011-02-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

Well, it's a Monday and I found a surprise gap in my schedule thanks to a lunch cancellation, so I've been looking around at a couple of things including my Blog, which let's face it hasn't been updated since October - and before that for quite a while too. Bad form!

So, what's been keeping it on the back burner? I guess it's bad planning, that's the real answer. I do have time in each week for discretionary stuff, and what I would see as lighter priorities away from the important and indeed the urgent that come along each day (note these are two categories, not one :) ), but these are often eaten up with things that are either a bit out of my control or indeed I choose not to control. As such, the blog never gets done.

Blogs are somewhat replaced in my world now too, with Twitter and Facebook, which get a little update most days. Twitter and Linkedin are nicely linked, so the updates go to both. Facebook I keep much more informal and with a much more social focus. The Blog is kept for indepth thinking, reflections and expressions of future ideas. All too often these types of mental gymnastics hit the skids when a new customer comes along or a new 'crisis' hits one of our operations, the market/environment or indeed one of those new Clients.

Here's a few of the things that have happened since October:

Got engaged!
Spent the first family xmas with new extended family
Planned a wedding - in Boston
Had a vacation, or two - both in the US
Started a leadership exchange via London First, with the Met Police
Graduated on my MBA course - After 5 years!!

Oh, yes, and I've been training quite a bit too. Having lost a reasonable bit of weight over the last two years, we are now - Ian, the trainer, and I - focussed on getting me ready for the Wedding in April. We've only 5 weeks to go, and there's a lot left to do! All going in the right direction though. Overall, since starting with him nearly 2 years ago I have lost around 60lbs. It's made a massive difference to how I feel each day and I am very thankful for all the help - including education and motivation - that Ian has been.

So, where does that leave us? No loose promises or wild sweeping statements, but I hope to be more blog active over the next 5 weeks before my sabbatical starts. Then, a gap of two months will hopefully see a lot more time for reflection, strategic analysis and thought along with time to visualise the future. With that will hopefully come a lot more blogging!

Star Testing - October 2010

2010-10-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

Wow! What a fantastic event. Star Testing Oct '10 was even better than the previous ones.

Take a look at what Fred had to say about it, I think he's covered things pretty well: http://www.fredberinger.com/thanks-to-game-changers-software-testing-is-flying-high/

Three speakers this time, not just two - and a focus for the event around testing in the Cloud made a huge difference. I asked a lot of people what they thought on the day and the big things that they took away, but here are my thoughts.....

Testing is getting a bit funky! We have some game! It's not perfect but we seem, as an industry, to be evolving and innovating. Web and Mobile apps are asking new questions of us. Crowdsourcing cycles done over a weekend? On demand Cloud based performance testing available within 4 hours and ramping up to >= 1.1M virtual users. Where did these all come from? Brilliant, simply Brilliant!

I love working with uTest and SOASTA the are great companies with real imagination. They've helped us to deliver creatively and cost effectively for a number of our Clients already. I look forward to where things are going next.

Zappers = PEST + More Testing Fun!

2009-11-09T05:54:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has been following the migration of the PEST events into the new format Zappers will hopefully have taken a look at the new community website and realised that this is now taking off with a very different flavour of its own.

I was at the last event in Bristol and it was brilliant, competitive and lots of fun. Take a look at the video that Guy and the team published today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D4CllVAgCk

It is my hope that now Zappers has become its own entity, and is receiving support and sponsorship from a variety of places it can go on to become the true community initiative we had always hoped it would be.

Over the next few months I believe we are going to see more from the Universities and students along with the expansion of the calendar for 2010 to include USA west coast and east coast events along with those in Bangalore and the UK. The first phase website is also going to get a big lift in phase 2 to become the hub for the community and the events.

If you want to hold your own Zappers event then please get in contact with Guy or Cat via the main site http://www.zappers-community.com/ and they'll let you know what you need to do!

Zappers = PEST + More Testing Fun! that's for sure :)

The TCL Vision and BHAG

2009-11-09T03:18:00.000-08:00

It's the time of year when TCL starts to think about the challenges it faces and how to align progress and investments next year to the vision for the company.
While we do a lot of things inside the organisation to this effect, I also like to share the outline for our BHAG to everyone - and indeed anyone that will listen ;) - as I feel it helps for everyone in and around the organisation to understand what makes TCL different and why we quest for the World Class status..........

Our company has been founded on a vision. This vision is at the heart of everything we do, and so it's important that you understand it, that you debate it, that you recognise what you do and how you can work in the best ways to advance the company towards its goals.

We've set our biggest goal with a target date of 2020. If we can get there quicker it would be fantastic and will enable us to dream again and set another big goal for the future of the organisation that we want to see go on for a long into the future. It is only when we work together as a team, across all the sites and all the operations, that we will get to the goals we have set out and all get the most from the journey that is TCL.
So let me take a moment to share with you what I see when I think about our company at 2020…….

We have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) to be a world wide, world class, centre of testing excellence. This means that we want to establish TCL as a Centre of Testing excellence that has world class solutions and then be able to deliver them to any industry and in any country.

When we have done this we will see that:
Our company will benefit its employees and their families. They will benefit financially, emotionally, ethically, technically and physically through the way the company is run.
Our company will be financially robust and secure. We will have sufficient alerts and contingency plans in place to ensure we can survive economic peaks and troughs whatever the root cause.
The communities in which we operate will also benefit from TCL. We will actively make efforts to be involved in those communities and the issues that are important to them.
We will also ensure that each year some of our profits are given to worthwhile charities. These are charities that are important to the people in our company.
Our culture will be totally inclusive, with all levels of the organisation being informed and involved. Each person in the company will have a personal understanding and empathy with their colleagues in relationships that demonstrate integrity and respect at every juncture. There will be awards each year for long service and we will evolve a 'dynasty' organisation where people can join as a graduate and go on to have a full and fulfilling career with TCL.
We will gather views from across the organisation and set up a team to regularly introduce new ideas to keep the company aligned with the purpose, values and BHAGs and to be a proven source of information and inspiration around the company. Competition to be part of this forum will be high, and it will be necessary for the participants to undergo three month secondments to the team to get the work done.
The TCL solutions will be aligned and accredited with organisations such as ISO and the BCS. Our method SMaRT will be recognised as a management model and be used as a template and standard in blue chip organisations around the world.
Our employees will be proud to belong to TCL and will contribute to the company progression each day with energy and enthusiasm.
We will be using the latest technology and involved with the strategic decision making process with each of our clients having demonstrated consistently our ability to add value to that process.
Our reputation will be such that there will be healthy competition to join TCL, and the selection process will be rigorous to ensure that only people who display the core values and have the aptitude to support and contribute to the TCL vision are involved.
We want to take testing to a new level. A professional discipline that is consistently recognised for its value and resourced, planned and funded accordingly within all development lifecycles.
Our Research and Development capability will lead the way with innovative and intuitive solutions that are derived from the latest theory, technology and thinking across the world. We will involve and include academic research and consideration as well as commercial best practise.
Our solutions will have been benchmarked with companies in all five continents and proven within more than 10 industries including Defence.
We will be the testing partner of choice for Safety Critical Applications and SIL levels 3 and 4.
We will have offices on three continents and research and development capabilities at each. These will have links to Universities and we will provide some financial support and assistance to these universities in the areas of research that will help further the TCL purpose.
Our presentations at industry forums will be actively sought and solicited and our representatives praised for their credentials, innovation and inspirational style of presenting.
When a project declares that their testing will be conducted by TCL it will be perceived at all levels of an organisation that this is the best way to go and that both cost and quality will be in ideal balance for this delivery.
We will be seen for our Quality and Innovation but we will never be seen as overpriced – simply realistic for the demonstrable value we add.
We will never have been sued for malpractice or incompetence and our relationship with our core clients will span in excess of 10 years.

So, what is our company like now…
We have established a company that has succeeded for nearly 10 years in increasing its capability, Client base and delivery consistency. The company has grown to have a presence on three continents and is in the process of setting up a new operation in Switzerland. Our numbers are circa 100 over all operations, and we are maturing our processes, systems and teams to make a robust and sustainable operation at all levels.
TCL has remained profitable through good times and bad, and continually invested its time, money and energy in looking to the future. We've never stopped investing in our vision or preparing for the challenges of tomorrow, even when the challenges of today have taken a great deal to solve.
We have set up scholarship programmes with universities in the UK and the USA, and have run internship programmes with students from the UK, France, USA and India. We've set up management development programmes that use the best of what we know inside the company and combine it with professional training elements available to us commercially and from academia.
We've placed the needs of our customers and the needs of our people at the front of all our decisions, and evolved an organisation that is diverse and evolving with a strong set of cultural values that bind us all together as a team.
From all of this we can see that the state of our company is strong, despite the pressures and changes in the economy and the impact that this has had not only on us but on our Clients. We must not however be complacent, or for any moment think that this has happened easily or without measure or management. It takes vigilance and discipline to keep a company sustained through turbulent times, and in the long term. We must continuously seek out new efficiencies and innovation to meet the demands of the market and look forward to ensure that we are always ahead of our competitors, in the disciplines and services we chose.
Over the next quarter the company will be building its business plan for next year, and indeed looking out two years in its operational roadmaps. All entities will be involved and engaged, and they will be looking to first meet the basic needs of sustainability and then to move forward with the vision. To that end the following themes will be seen in changes over the next 12 to 24 months:
1. Research and Development
2. Charities
3. Succession
4. Efficiency
5. Heartbeat.
These things will not be easy, but they are exciting and they are the right things to do to move the company forward. This promises to be a very interesting and enjoyable next year, and indeed I view the next 5 years with great optimism.

I look forward to talking about the TCL vision with you, and what it means to all of us. I hope that you can see already how you fit into things, and how what you do at TCL is important and valued. I also hope that you can see ways in which you can make a difference to our pursuit of this vision and will be inspired to go out there to make it happen.

MBA Dissertation : Being part of an Innovation Centre

2009-11-03T02:51:00.000-08:00

I'm currently writing an MBA Dissertation on how being part of an Innovation Centre assists a business in its endeavours. It's a one company case study, of TCL and how we have worked with the Innovation Centre, and the University of Exeter, what we have got out of it, what we have given to it and what else we could have / should have done.
It looks at many aspects of things, including what the innovation centres are there for and how our business fits with that model, along with a perspective on how other businesses work with the innovation centre.
If you are reading this and your business is present in an innovation centre then I would very much welcome your views and response to this survey. All contributions gratefully received, particularly if you are part of the Innovation Centre in Exeter, but also if you are from elsewhere. The comparisons will be very interesting.

Note: The survey closes on Friday 06 November 2009.

NSPCC Annual Council Meeting

2009-11-02T05:16:00.000-08:00

The NSPCC is one of the charities that TCL supports, and our support is more than just some donations of money. It's a charity that is very important to me personally, and one where we try to help them as much as we can. So this year I joined the Exeter Business Group, which helps the NSPCC to raise funds and network in the area. We've got some tough targets to meet, but it's going well. As part of my involvement I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the NSPCC Annual Council meeting in London. It gave me a chance to meet some people, see the launch of the strategy for the year and to get more of an understanding of how things work. It was a great experience.

So, this annual council thing. What is it? It's like a company AGM (annual general meeting). They vote in the new officers. They hear about the performance and successes last year and they hear about the strategy for the year ahead. Members get to vote on things, and there is open floor debate on any issues required. Quite a PLC AGM type thing. There is a huge difference though - it's not about money when you come to the NSPCC, it's about the very deeply held beliefs, values and vision of a huge number of people who believe that cruelty to children isn't right and can be stopped. This is a passion. This is a hugely driving force. It is quite something to see 400+ people in a room with such a passion. It got them from all corners of the UK to a council session in London. It provides them with the inspiration for the fundraising, and the work with children that many of them do. It's quite something to see.

As an observer I was given a brown ticket. This was important because if you have a green ticket - a member of the council - you can vote on stuff. As an observer I could speak if I wanted to - pose questions to the top team etc, but not vote. A weird experience for me - not having the ability to make a decision in the room!

The day was well structured. It had a clear agenda. It's production value and organisation was a little questionable at time - note to TCL team : we do a better job of organising our parties :). It had a diverse group of people presenting including the NSPCC Top Team, The Talk to Trustees group (young people from around the country who are directly engaged at the top level to provide insights) and guest speakers such as Floella Benjamin.

So, here's the top 5 things I learnt on the day:

Purpose - the common purpose that binds the NSPCC is quite something. The behaviours it brings out in people are amazing. The passion and compassion that binds such a large group together is remarkable and quite inspiring to experience. While a great many people are paid to work as part of the NSPCC a lot also do things for free and happily donate of their time and energies to further a cause in which they strongly believe.
There's not enough money - £160million is what the NSPCC raised last year. A lot of cash. The UK government spend >£6BN on child services each year though, and that shows how little the NSPCC can do with their £160million. Most importantly both lots added together, along with all the money spent by other childrens charities, is still not getting the job done, and everyone agrees they don't know what it would take to do it all. All they do know is that they can make a difference for some people and some children with what they do, and so they get on with it.
Charity vs Business - The NSPCC seems to be very well run, and a high percentage of its money goes directly into work that helps children. They run it like a business and have a high calibre top team to keep it under control. Interestingly, the top team are all equally passionate about the work of the charity.
Floella Benjamin is a legend - Giving the closing address Floella was an absolute legend. Employing all her skills and training as an actress she commanded a room of 400+ people with emotion and energy. No notes for the talk that lasted about 20 mins. It was told as all good presentations should be, in the format of a story - with a begining, a middle and an end. But Wow! what impact! Everyone left the room engaged and inspired and amazed. I was lucky enough to meet up with her a few days ago here at the University and was able to tell her how cool I thought the presentation was.
We can do more - there's a lot we can't do for the NSPCC here at TCL. We aren't trained counsellors for instance, and indeed some of us couldn't or wouldn't enjoy that kind of task. We can do more though. We can donate some time to help them with IT issues. We can go to more events and raise more money. We can volunteer to help at different things and we can, as they encourage us to do, take personal accountability and if and when we see things like cruelty to children we can report it and we can help stop it.

The most difficult part of the day for me was in listening to the new strategy for the NSPCC for the year. They said it like any business would....they said ' we recognise that we can't do everything and that we have a cause we believe in. We therefore want to do the most with what we have available to us, and to that end we recognise that some of our services and operations are not efficient enough, and by changing what we do, removing some services and re-organising the way we operate we can have more impact. So, next year we are closing or relocating some centres, phasing out some services and diverting our resources to several key campaigns. We are going to concentrate on awareness and education, and removing the root causes of child cruelty.'

So, I'm sitting there and I hear this, and I am split. One part of me - the businessman - thinks this is all very reasonable and the right thing to do. It will achieve greater results and that is very valuable. The other part - let's call him the human being - thinks this is not good enough.

If there is one place you should be able to do everything it should be when it comes to protecting children. Removing services leaves kids at risk and can lead to disasters. Closing down centres takes vital volunteers out of the loop and asking people to do more than they are already doing is probably going to prove to be difficult. I want them to seek out the wrong, and to shed light into the darkness for children who can't stop what is affecting them, and to do so with infinite vigilance and infinite capacity. But it just can't be that way.

So, I am left with a dilema. I finally see a charity running itself very professionally, but it doesnt make me feel good to see what it has to do to achieve that!

Then comes the engagement. The open panel of the top team. The open debate. The voicing of concerns. You start to appreciate that these decisions have genuinely been hard. That people feel the same anxiety that I had done. That the top team had felt the same anxiety too. But they could see that to do more with what they had was better than doing the same, or in believing that it would get better without them changing. They knew how far they could stretch £160million and they knew how much of a gap it left. They had found what was realistic for them to achieve. It was a very good session. I still didnt 100% feel comfortable with it all, but I did clearly recognise the value they were trying to create and that their intentions were good.

And so where does this leave me? I've come from the annual council meeting inspired to help them more. In understanding their needs and vision for the NSPCC I have seen ways in which I, TCL and indeed everyone can help them and I intend that we do so.

I've already engaged with someone to join our team to specifically own and drive new initiatives with the NSPCC and St Michaels Small School and I've stepped up my committments in 2010 to helping them raise funds. Part of the new Charities Officer role that Cheree O'Melia will be taking on will be to engage more with both the charities and everyone in TCL and to facilitate more endeavours across the organisation that support the works of the charities. She'll also be getting more information out to everyone and publicising more of what we do, and the benefits it brings. I hope too that by the start of next year we will also have updated our policy on Corporate Social Responsibility.

I hope that when reading this you recognise some ways in which you too can help, and look forward to speaking with you about those. I'd like to thank those of you that have already signed up for events like the Great West Run, and also to those who have expressed interest in getting involved next year. It is much appreciated.

GTAC 2009 - Brilliant!

2009-11-02T05:02:00.000-08:00

So, I've just got back into the office from a week in Switzerland and I wanted to take a moment to share some of the experiences I had while away at GTAC 2009, the annual Google conference on test automation. It was an incredibly enjoyable, dare I say it almost inspirational event!

To start to get some understanding for the richness of content at this conference, take a look at the site http://www.gtac.biz/ and the agenda. An opening talk by Prof. Niklaus Wirth, one of the founding fathers of modern computing, and talks by people like Simon Stewart (of webdriver fame) and Jason Huggins (of Selenium fame). This wasn't a conference just about experiences of using tools and doing automation, it was where you got to meet the people that designed and wrote the tools themselves. Very geeky, but very cool! Lets call it 'GeekChic' ;)

So, what else is different about an experience at GTAC compared to other conferences? Here are some top moments for me:

Engagement - everyone I met there was smart, engaged and engaging. They had a passion for their profession and the work they do. They openly shared their knowledge and experience without hesitation or resistance. Everyone seemed very open to learn from each other too. This could be seen really clearly in the open forum session at the end of day 2 which ran from 5pm to 6pm. Open mic. Rotating panel of four people at the front, with people joining randomly from the main audience as they had something to say. Could have gone on for days - in a good way!
The Google experience - these people love to solve problems, and they do it for kicks. The whole place just makes you think differently. It could be the sugar rush from all the free choccies. It could be the slides or the fireman's poles between floors. It could even just be that they have a free bar, and a geekfest of a library to hang out in. It could be a lot of things....
The way you get in - Google had too many applicants to the conference, and they wanted to restrict it to 100 - so that everyone got a good experience, and they could keep it to a single track over two days. So they set up an automated voting system and the Googlers around the world voted for who should be there. Over 50% of the people attending were from various google offices around the globe. The rest of us were the lucky ones that got the highest % of the 2200 votes cast around the company. Knowing that makes you feel different about a conference.
The international and diverse nature of things - we're in Zurich, which is pretty international anyways, but the conference wasn't Eurocentric. A great many people from australia, USA, israel, etc etc. Very diverse. Very interesting. Great collective experience and perceptions.
No cliques - The one big turn off for me at the big conferences is the vested interests that strangle the sharing of knowledge and information. You see groups of independent contractors holding onto the 'power' and creating revenue streams for themselves over many years of talking about the same old stuff. It stifles our industry and it frustrates me. At GTAC they don't allow that in the door and they don't let it happen. As a result you see people from all companies - from Microsoft to the BBC, attending and also giving talks. It's about sharing knowledge and experience and helping people to do stuff. To get what I mean take a look at the videos-and-slides

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think that the world starts and stops at the beat of a Google drum, but I do think that they are cool, and that the people I have met there are quite impressive to say the least. I think that they have some interesting ideas and approaches to testing of web and mobile applications and I think it is clear that a great amount of the future for TCL and for the industry as a whole is in these fields so we can do well to keep a listening ear out to what Google do and say. With that in mind, take a look at: http://googletesting.blogspot.com/

The conference was not cheap. Well, it was free to attend, but the costs to go there were high. Flights and hotels and subsistence quite a bit, but the time - that's the big thing. I spent 4 days out there, including the travel. That is a lot. Nothing else would get that amount of time except going on holiday!

So what did we get for our investment:

Knowledge - a lot of things to share, and I'll be getting on with that soon enough. This article is the start of that work.
Ideas - I've had some inspiration to do some things differently and to introduce some new things over the next quarter that we should all find very interesting and exciting. Some are testing related. Some are cultural and organisational
Network - I've met 5 or 6 new, important, and interesting people that I have now connected with. With networks its not just about them knowing you, but how they know you. The GTAC conference is a great context in which to meet people and to grow a network. You get to know them, and they you, in the context of a mutual passion. That can't be any better!

Despite being a seasoned pro at conference attendance, I didn't do all that I should to make the most of it. I got on the Google Wave, I Tweeted and I shared, but I didn't manage to:

Get a presentation slot - only 10 people did. My submission didn't make the cut :(
Take loads of pictures - helpful with the sharing and bringing things to life for people
Set up specific meetings before I got there - this is something I would normally do for a big conference and helps to build the network faster.

I hope that we get more opportunities to go to, and present at, conferences like GTAC in the future. If you get the chance, then grab it with both hands and make the most of it. It will most likely be something very special.

Huge thanks go to Dr W for his guidance and inspiration to attend the GTAC. It's not something I would have made time for had he not made such a convincing case and indeed, as always, he was very right!

Crowdsourcing hits the headlines

2009-08-21T06:03:00.000-07:00

Crowdsourcing slashes software testing time. That's what the title of the article says on Computer Weekly :) Fantastic!

It's good to see the concept getting the sort of press that it deserves. Case studies like those for IWOOT.COM really show what can be achieved.

Testing has a reputation for being slow, process driven, expensive stuff - particularly at a corporate or enterprise level, but if its a web, mobile or desktop app then this crowdsourcing stuff really shows us a total oppositve approach.

Doron, Roy and the team at uTest have received a huge number of accolades for their adoption of crowdsourcing into the testing space, and for the company that they have set up. I can see why, with such an incredible experience for the Clients and the testers this really is a win-win for everyone.

I'm in Boston soon, and we're running a PEST event with uTest out of the Kinsales bar. Roy is going to include some crowdsourcing as part of the evening, so if you are in the area and arent sure about this stuff yet then come along and see what its all about. Should be a lot of fun.

Here's the flyer for the event: Flyer.

Crowdsourcing Success stories in the UK

2009-07-24T02:46:00.000-07:00

There's a growing trend of crowdsourcing, in all sorts of creative and productive spaces such as translation, design, development and software testing. We've brought this crowdsourcing into the PEST events with some 'software smackdown' sessions using the utest portal as the focus and it's been great fun.

Two websites have been very open minded and introduced their latest releases to a software smackdown session at PEST, and received a very intense and focussed three hour crowdsource experience as a result. They've interacted with the team in real time, and signed off the defects as we go. This gives great feedback (both ways) during the testing, and enables the pace of things to be quite amazing.

Huge kudos and thanks go to trustedlets.co.uk and iwoot.com for taking part and providing the opportunity for us to see the power of crowdsourcing. Of particular note was that the sessions not only found lots of great defects which needed fixing but also some real consumer style feedback which helps the companies to improve the customer experience on the sites.

Don't take my word for it! Here's what trustedlets.co.uk had to say..........

"After a year of successful operation with our launch site, we carried out a major refresh and wanted to test this. We carried out traditional systematic User Acceptance Testing, however decided to incorporate the techniques of PEST as part of the testing. We found the process very valuable as a means of getting a significant number of very capable people to interact with the site.

We received excellent feedback that not only covered design and technology issues, but also gave us some great ideas in how to develop the commercial and business aspects of the site."

Charles Peak-Smylie, trustedlets.co.uk

PEST Bangalore - Thursday 6th August 2009

2009-07-13T05:52:00.000-07:00

I have great pleasure in annoucing that our next international PEST event will be:

• Event: Peer Sharing event on Software Testing

• Date: Thursday 6th August 2009
• Location: Central Park Hotel, Bangalore -> www.royalorchidhotels.com/
• Start time: 6pm
• Expected end time: 9pm
• Cost: Free to attend
• Forum: Mixture of discussion groups and experience share alongside practical testing via the uTest platform.
• Who should attend: Anyone with an interest in software testing.
• Hosts: Stewart Noakes, Manoj Chandrappa and Andrew Coggins from TCL
• To book your place: Send an email to Lisa.Ray@tcl-global.com

More information can be found at: www.pest-global.org

This is the first event that we have run in India, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing how things compare and contrast. Learnt some great lessons last time in Boston, and the format is developing and 'internationalising' into something very exciting.

If you are in Bangalore and fancy joining us then please register your interest. The venue booking will limit the number of people we can host, so it's important we know that you are coming along!

Look forward to seeing you there.

Holidays are good!

2009-07-09T05:28:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm nearing the end of my first week back, after a lovely two week vacation in Cyprus. All I can say is: Holidays are good!

At Xmas, I made some reflections on the year and recognised that there hadn't been enough breaks last year, and that when they arrived they weren't when I needed them e.g. they were reactive rather than proactive. When the holiday started I was very tired, and the entire trip was about recovery rather than relaxation and recharging and fun!

So this year the plan is different. Three vacations were booked before January had even started -> one every three months. March saw a trip to Portugal. June a trip to Cyprus and September sees a trip to Spain. The benefits are already showing. The trip to Cyprus came at the right time for me. I was able to enjoy it all the more because I was less tired, and even in returning to work I know the next break is only 12 weeks away.

Malcolm is very fond of saying: "breaks help you go faster", and he's right. (How fast would you drive a car without brakes???) I feel that I've achieved a lot more in the first quarter of the business year, and have greater clarity of mind and purpose. I do hope that it continues into the next quarter too!

Holidays are good!

Exeter University hits top 10 in UK

2009-06-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

It was fantastic to read this week that Exeter University has just been ranked as a top 10 university in the UK.

Take a look at some of the stuff the TIMES has to say about it.

This is great news for the University, who have been working hard over the last few years to update the research, approach and culture here at Exeter. The place has always had high student satisfaction, but some of the academic and research achievements have lacked behind other universities such as Durham, Oxford and Cambridge.

One of the big differences I've noticed is how the University engages with business. They see it as important now, both as a way to create research revenues and also a way to ensure employment and employability for students. An increasingly international focus from the University is also good to see, as this brings a much more cosmopolitan feel to the campus, the courses and the city.

The business school has seen significant changes in the last few years, and the recent makeover has shown the students and the campus that the school is taking itself much more seriously. It attracts a much more diverse set of students now, and has some real talent in the teaching ranks - particularly for Entrepreneurship (but then I guess I would say that!).

We've worked closely with the University since 2001 when we established an office on campus at the Innovation centre. I also did my undergraduate degree here, and my MBA (still in progress). Several members of the TCL team have, are or will be studying here too. It's therefore great to see the University as a whole reach this point of success and I hope that the goal of top 5 in the country is only a few years away.

TCL work with Exeter, along with Bristol University, Boston University and now UCL to bring the world of software testing into the minds of computer scientists and to ensure that our commitments to the areas in which TCL does the majority of its business see reciprocal benefits and investments from us.

Back in the USA

2009-05-27T13:57:00.001-07:00

It's time for another trip to the US, and this week I'm in Burlington, MA.

We've got a PEST event happening on Thursday 28th May, in Marlborough. Thanks to the kind efforts of Nancy O'Leary, the event will be held at the HP Campus. Huge thanks go to Nancy for sorting this out.

Of course, this means the event wont be in a pub, but hey! There'll be Pizza :)

It's always interesting being back in the US. Business is done differently here. Its an approach I like. Direct, but open. Honest, but with messages that are shaped for the customer. It's good stuff.

I'm also very excited this week to be meeting up with various people from uTest. We've got some thinking and planning to do about the work we do together. I'm hoping to see the uTest involvement in the PEST events take us to new places over the next year. Who knows where it could all end!

More to follow later in the week......

Donating Time to the Innovation Centre in Exeter

2009-04-20T03:48:00.000-07:00

Since 2001 TCL has had a presence at the Innovation Centre at the University of Exeter. Great place for us to work. Amazing campus and of course fantastic links and relationships with the University.

Exeter was the place that we started our scholarship programmes from, and where we have worked the most in terms of join ups with any institution. In addition to our academic scholarship programmes we are also involved in a sports scholarship programme. We have several members of our team on MBA courses with the University and we are active participants in student projects, placements and knowledge transfer exercises.

Today, I will start my first of a series of engagements with the Innovation Centre. I've 'donated' a 1/2 day session every month for the centre to use as they wish. For mentoring and support of young entrepreneurs, for presentations, for business planning, for bringing together different groups or just as a sounding board. I'm very much looking forward to it, and the new challenges it may bring.

The dreams and aspirations I have for my future are around entrepreneurship and helping people to start, and bring, businesses to the South West. This feels like another step on that journey.

uTest and TCL

2009-03-25T11:31:00.000-07:00

Crowd sourcing anyone? Not sure what I mean?

Well it was new to me, but when I tried it I thought it was fab!

There's a very interesting company out there. It's called uTest, and if you are a tester then you should really go and have a look at them. Take a look at: utest

So what's so cool about them? Well firstly it's speed. When I retained utest to test our website we went from talking about it in a conference call to fully complete within 24 hours. Now that's cool.

Secondly -> you can make money!

The crowd source community of testers at utest is over 14000 people, and its global. As a tester you get paid by utest for the defects that you raise, which are subsequently accepted by the Client. What does this mean to you and to me? Come home from work, want to make some spare cash, pop on and do some testing from utest. 30 mins, 5 hours, its all up to you. You only get paid for the defects!

Now, why would TCL and uTest form a partnership, I hear you ask (uTest press release) (tcl press release). Community was our first common theme. uTest love testers and the testing community, and of course so do TCL. So, we've been working with uTest to make a special portal that can be used at our peer sharing events. That means that from April onwards when you come to a TCL peer sharing event the products under test will include stuff from utest. You'll therefore be able to earn some money while at the event! Free beer, Pizzas, have some fun, learn something and earn some money!! I don't think that these events can get much better ;)

The next thing we joined up on was speed. High speed. Diverse testing teams. Quick to ramp up. Quick to do the testing. Quick to get the defects into a form that we can work with. Quick to respond to issues. With so many deals done already uTest are showing the way forward for a whole new style of testing. It doesn't work for every app. It doesn't work for every situation, but when it is the right thing to do wow! does it work.

So, uTest and TCL are bringing on demand testing to a peer sharing event and a project near you. Come and ask us about it. (peer sharing events in 2009)

Like Minded People V Event 17th April 2009

2009-03-22T08:37:00.000-07:00

In May 2008 I took a couple of people to lunch with a view of networking them with each other. They were (and indeed still are) entrepreneurs, they all worked in or near Exeter and none of them knew each other before the lunch. I thought it would be beneficial to each of them that they met. It was a bit of an inspiration to bring them together, but it seemed like the right thing to do and so I gave it a shot.

The session went well. The 6 of us had lunch together, and then after a couple of hours I left them to it. Several stayed on for another couple of hours and some new contacts and even friendships were formed. I named the event 'Like Minded People' and we agreed to meet up again in a few months and where possible to bring a buddy, with a similarly entrepreneurial mind, along.

Our 6 became 14, and the lunch went on for quite some time. I left them to it again after a couple of hours, and I think several people stayed for another 3+ hours. The dialogue was quite far reaching, as you might expect from such a diverse and interesting bunch of people.

So, feeling that something was really starting to develop, we agreed to give it another try and this time we used the Bristol Golf club, and invited some people from different walks of life, and different markets, all with that entrepreneurial spirit. The original 6 became 25 and when Simon Fox did his (shortish) presentation on TBI Connect we found that the group openly had ideas and inspiration for him, along with contacts and help. Not only did this help TBI but it gave Simon some personal inspiration and it gave me a big lift that these people, these entrepreneurs, were in it to help each other too. Rare in such a 'dog eat dog' world and rare amongst people who had all achieved so much.

Like Minded People IV was different again, with a much large contingent wanting to get involved, a donation of venue from the Innovation Centre at the University of Exeter and some sponsorship and contributions from members of the network to help pay for everything. Our 'show and tell' session had someone looking for funding, an announcement of a joint venture from two of the members and a very interesting 'apprentice' idea from Henry at Circle Recruitment. Some 35 people came along, and it all seemed very different to the 6 people out for a quiet lunch that happened at LMP I. We pulled in some group activities at the end of the lunch for those that wanted to stay, and had some external hosting for some Action Learning Sets. Many people got a great deal from the adventure, and indeed it is now something that I have incorporated into the Management Development of our Senior Team at TCL.

And now to 17 April 2009, when we will be holding our fifth event, in Exeter at the Innovation Centre. Robin Jackson has kindly provided the venue for us in his sponsorship of entrepreneurs in the south west. The event is being organised by Vicky Sheppard, out of our Exeter office, and so if you are interested in coming along please book your place with her on +44 (0) 845 869 6070. Numbers are limited this time, so its first come first served. Ideally all attendees will have come through by referral, and the key prerequisite is that each person is entrepreneurial by nature e.g. started a company or running a division or venture in a way that requires entrepreneurialism.

The agenda for the session will be simpler this time. Networking, Lunch, 'Show and Tell' and exit. Starting around 11:30am and going on formally until about 2.30, informally for as long as people want.

So far the event has proven to be fun, useful, stimulating and a learning experience. I had never expected it to take on such a life of its own, but it is great to see how it has. The network will continue as long as people get so much from it, and it supports itself as it has been doing. So, if you want to be part of it in April, please give Vicky a call ASAP. I look forward to seeing you there.

PEST on Tour - the SIGiST experience March 2009

2009-03-20T11:00:00.000-07:00

Following on from our inaugeral SIGiST experience in December, we were very excited to be asked back for a further session in March - where we took the PEST experience on tour!! We got great feedback from the attendees - either 4/5 or 5/5 responses from everyone. I guess that means we did the right kinda stuff in the right kinda way.......

The February PEST event had a bond theme, so we brought some of the trimmings with us to give the SIGiST event a bit of a lift. Richard wore his Dinner Jacket for the occassion to add a certain something, and of course we had the bond cut outs, movies and a little casino going on too.

In the session we had three teams who each tested the same bug ridden Bugzilla instance against the clock, and at the same time.

The first team had nothing to support their work -> they just got stuck in and did some prime exploratory testing.

The second team had a specification for the application which gave them something to test against.

The third team had a business analyst who sat with them and gave them guidance.

Over a forty minute period the teams battled it out, and the results were very interesting.

The most defects were found by the team with the BA present. They also found the most 'out there' stuff, including testing in French.

The most impactful and technical defects were found by the team that was purely focused on exploratory testing. This included a security defect and a field truncation issue.

The team with the spec found a lot of defects with the spec itself, as well as with the application and while the spec had helped them it also created problems for them in that they had to try to understand the spec before they could really test anything and there wasn't anyone to ask when things didn't make total sense.

Our mission was to demonstrate how different techniques yielded different results, and indeed this was true on the day. In a world where we are feeling quite a squeeze to budgets, time available, staffing available, we need to pick the right approach for the context of the project and the system under test and indeed as our SIGiST session showed one approach does not fit all.

I really enjoy the SIGiST events, there are some great people there, and some real names are coming along quite regularly now so it is not as dry as it has been in the past. That they are open to our test offs and activities like PEST is also very encouraging. Stephen Allott seems to have his head screwed on right, and he's brought a great deal of innovation to the forum already.

Hopefully things will continue in this vein, and more sessions will become practical and show you how to do stuff, rather than just talk about it. I know the talking has its place, and some of the heavyweight stuff just wont get done if we all spend our time 'playing', but I like the fact that testers do stuff, and it seems unlikely that we can share our knowledge all that effectively without showing people what we do and doing more of it in environments where the collective community can get involved too.

In my opinion there are too many process experts around and not enough test experts. To get more of these, we need forums where we practice our craft and get shown by real experts how to do stuff. We also need places where we can try stuff out (in a micro fashion) to see how it might work when we used it on a project. A day spent at somewhere like a SIGiST, experimenting and learning from others could save us weeks on a big project, maybe even longer. Now that has to be good investment.

To see more about the SIGiST go to: http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.9262

Come along to the next one. Hopefully we'll be doing test off stuff again -> that is if the BCS still think its a good idea.

TCL Scholarship Students 2009

2009-02-11T08:12:00.001-08:00

Over the last few years we have evolved a scholarship programme, which now has take up at three different universities. This year I am very pleased to see that we have three scholars at each of the universities, in addition to our involvement with the sports scholarship programme at Exeter. This makes a total of ten students at the Universities of Exeter (UK), Bristol (UK) and Boston (USA) who are benefiting from the programme this year.

From the University of Bristol TCL have awarded scholarships to three Computer Science students, they are:

· Aleksej Stolicyn (1st year)

· Bridget McErlean (2nd year)

· Adam James Marable (3rd year).

At Boston University TCL have selected three scholars majoring in Computer Science:

· Shailendra Khemka (freshman)

· Yasmin Akbari (junior)

· Justin Williamson (senior).

At the University of Exeter TCL have awarded scholarships to four students. Three of the students are studying Computer Science:

· Ronan Hannigan (1st year)

· Sam East (1st year)

· Mingjie Leong (2nd year).

A fourth scholar from Exeter is Lucy Boulton - who is on the sports scholarship programme. Lucy is a volleyball star who is aiming to compete for Britain in London 2012.

For TCL the investments we are making into the scholarship programmes are all about the future of our industry. Rather than be the 'poor cousin' of the IT world, we want Testing to become the choice of great people who bring real value to the industry. We pick our scholars for their academic excellence and also their ability to contribute to the future.

I really enjoy the programmes, and meeting the people that get involved. It's particularly cool when they come along to our PEST events and also take part in the internship programmes over the summer. That is where things really start to get going.

UK Peer Sharing Events in 2009

2009-02-06T06:59:00.000-08:00

As a reader of this blog, you are most likely aware of the peer sharing events that we run at TCL.

You can get a lot of the info you need on these at our linkedin group via www.pest-global.org.

For 2009, we have expanded the number of events that are are running. Here are the dates:

12/02/09 Bristol
17/03/09 London: beingrun as part ofSIGISTwww.sigist.org.uk
30/04/09 Bristol
14/05/09 London
25/06/09 Leeds
16/07/09 Bristol
13/08/09 Leeds
15/10/09 Bristol
12/11/09 Leeds
03/12/09 London

If you would like more information about the events TCL are running during 2009 please contact Clare Batten on: +44 (0)845 869 6070

I love Boston

2009-02-04T09:19:00.001-08:00

I really like Boston. I can't quite work out what it is, but it ha

s some magic to it, and the more I get to know the place the more I like it.

Our trip this time had many special elements. The snow being one of them!! My My is it cold in Boston in January??!!@!

A second element that made the trip special this time was running a PEST event at BU. This

was not our first PEST USA, but it was the first for a while and it was the first in conjunction with BU themselves. I hope that we are able to continue their involvement goi

ng forward.

Attending the event were several members of faculty,

including Prof. Sclaroff who had set up

the venue for us and got the others along. Huge thanks to Stan :) Also there were scholars from the TCL programme of 2008 and 2009. Great to see these groups interacting and sharing the experiences that they have had. There were also some people from local companies such a utest.com and Security Innovation. Overall, an excellent blend.

Our event was hosted at the BU Bar, the official bar of the Boston University. Great little place, ticked away from the main street, in the castle building. Well worth a visit if you can get someone from BU to let you frequent the place. Check out http://www.bu.edu

if you want to know more about BU.

What I was stunned about, really pleased and amazed about, was the way the faculty speak with, interact with and generally work with the students. It is so very cool. They nurture the learning experience. They treat the students as equals and with respect. They ask them questions and they listen, really listen to the minds at work. It's very cool.

I hope that we will get many more chances to go to Boston, to work with BU and our scholars and to build the business of TCL USA with its home and heart in MA. I want to do this for many reasons, and at least one of them is because I love the place :)

James Whittaker - 19th & 20th March 2009

2009-01-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

We're just putting some of the finishing touches to the plans, but I am able to confirm that James Whittaker will be visiting TCL on the week of 19th March, 2009.

As part of his trip, James will be doing two events with TCL:

Thursday 19th March 2009, Harrison Building, University of Exeter -> public forum, all welcome
Friday 20th March 2009, Hotel du Vin, Bristol -> Private function. Invitation only.

These are both great opportunities to hear James speak, and I believe his topic will be a Testers view on the future of software.

I personally find James to be a very inspiring speaker, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing him again.

I'm particularly passionate about what we are trying to do with the Thursday event at the University. We've invited some local schools as well as the University and of course local businesses and people we know that will be interested. This should hopefully give a great spectrum of perspectives.

If you want to be involved in either of these events then please drop me a note, or speak with our lead organiser: Clare Batter on +44 (0) 845 869 6070.

Is Citizenship dead?

2009-01-09T02:39:00.000-08:00

From the business world I have read a number of articles about corporations being the 'new religion'. These articles propose that for a large portion of the western world religion is no longer what keeps the fabric of our society together. They surmise that corporations now take this space and that corporate & social responsibility is all about companies being active participants in the community and bringing benefits and taking responsibility for what they do.

Jack Welch, the former GE Chairman and CEO states a very clear case for the benefits that successful companies bring to society - and in his drive and ambition there seems to be a great deal of personal commitment to this, even when making redundancies and closing factories. His belief is that to be successful brings more benefits than perhaps a more 'European socialist model' that might favour 100% unemployment regardless of productivity. (Jack Welch)

Plastered across the news though are plenty of examples of bribery, corruption and fraud. People and corporations exploiting opportunities for individual gain and significant cost to others.

Weak enforcement of regulation and controls around these sorts of activities have enabled things like the Parmalat scandal, ENRON, the
recent issues with a fund managed as a kind of pyramid scheme with hundreds of millions being plundered. Articles like: bbc news really bring it home.

So what would it mean to be more of a citizen? Our friend wikipedia gives us some insights: Citizenship and of course also a bit of a role model.
"Active citizenship" is the philosophy that citizens should work towards the betterment of their community through economic participation, public service, volunteer work, and other such efforts to improve life for all citizens.

I think that the key thing to emphasise there is to improve life for all citzens.

I take a look around TCL and I see some great citizens of the company and I see people that are great citizens in general (usually the same people). But I look further afield and I see a lot that doesn't look like citizenship, a lot that isn't helping everyone, a lot that isn't giving back and a lot that is just plundering.

If corporations are the 'new religion', this doesn't look so great. It makes me wonder: is citizenship dead, dying or maybe just not getting all the press it deserves?

***** Post comment Video *****

Off to the US of A - 28, 29, 30 Jan 2009

2009-01-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

Well, its official! I'm off to the USA on 28th, 29th and 30th of Jan 2009.
While I am there, I am hoping to do a number of things, of which I am most excited about going to Boston University and running a PEST event there on campus :)

There are a new set of scholarship students to meet - and I am hoping that these people will also be part of the internship programme in the summer. There is also a chance to meet Prof. Scolaroff for the first time (face to face), who has been so supportive of the TCL initiatives in the US.

TCL USA is a personal ambition of mine - something that I hope to see restarted in the next couple of years. We've maintained our commitment to the Mass. region and to BU in particular, because its part of our overall vision to be part of the tech community in the US. I'm not sure that the economy is going to allow us the opportunities to restart things this year - but who knows.

One things for sure, I spent an entire year without visiting the US - even for holidays - and it felt a bit weird, so I am very pleased to be heading back there so early in the New Year.

If you are around the Boston area on the 29th Jan and want to come along to the PEST event, then you can read more at: http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestions=&gid=1214687&sik=1231261321068

Things went very well at the last event we ran in Bristol and also the event at the SIGIST (thanks very much for coming along and introducing yourself Phil). I hope we can do everything as well this time!!

Sessions like PEST are brilliant in my opinion because they help bring software testing into a new phase. One where people share information and knowledge without boundaries and commit to the solving of problems and the development of all involved. We need this kind of participation in the software testing community and we need to see people move the industry forward.

Take a look at what James Bach has to say on such stuff:

We need to see software testers testing software - not just sitting around taling about it. It always seems weird to me that as testers we do stuff, we break things, we play with software, we get involved in designs and architecture and code and gubbins of all sorts and we help solve problems and we find new ways of doing things and we are part of the creative cycle that is software development but when we go to conferences there is a lot of sitting and talking and listening and slides and well where is all the doing????

Anyways, enough ranting, except to say that PEST combines a lot of stuff (practical)(theory)(coaching)(mentoring)(experience)(doing) - into one big bundle behind this motto: none of us is as smart as all of us.

Boston! Here we come!

Happy New Year & Welcome to 2009

2009-01-06T09:06:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone :)
Hope that you have had a super Xmas vacation and have enjoyed yourselves.

With our New Year first days back came a chance to pull together a short movie/introduction to TCL.

Take a look at:

Well done to Clare for pulling this together.

Stew

P.E.S.T. is moving

2008-11-14T06:06:00.000-08:00

Our peer sharing forum PEST has a portal for the community to share ideas and thoughts on, and this is now moving to be part of the LinkedIN platform.
You can get access to it, and information about the events, at the following link: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1214687

We originally developed the portal as part of an internship project and it has served us well up to now - helping to develop the community and provide a neutral space for testers - not just TCL people - to share ideas and grow new thoughts.

The decision to move was not taken easily, but we recognise the need for the peer sharing side of things to get a life of its own, and to do this it needs to be a bit more independent and open to all. The linkedin platform provides such a space and the recent changes to linkedin have improved the site incredibly - it now does all that we were doing with our own bespoke portal - and even more.

With the extension of PEST into the next BCS SIGIST event on the 9th December we wanted to ensure that we had a suitable and appropriate platform for people to collaborate on. Our peer sharing is about developing knowledge - and opening it up to everyone who is interested.

Look forward to seeing you at PEST soon

The Sports Scholarship Scheme

2008-11-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

Last week we were invited to attend the Exeter University Varsity Rugby match, which this year was against the Cardiff Medics. (http://xmedia.ex.ac.uk/sport/2008/10/29/exeter-cruise-to-victory-over-a-lighter-cardiff)

The invite for TCL came as a result of our involvement with the sports scholarship scheme at the University. It was a fun event, and what seemed to be an easy win for a strong Exeter side, but most importantly for us there was an opportunity for us to meet our scholar for this year.

TCL has been involved with this programme for the last three years, and in that time we have sponsored a young Rugby player, a Tennis Player and now a Beach Volleyball player. Over the years we have got increasingly involved with this programme and got to know and understand our scholars more - involving them in company functions and including them in our company newsletters etc.

Many people ask me why we would be involved with the sports scholarship stuff, and what the point of it all is. For my part, I have a great passion for people who aspire to be great at what they do. The scholarship programme enables people with this kind of aspiration and talent to get facilities and coaching and opportunities that they might not otherwise have had. It helps them to grow and to reach their full potential.

There is more information on the programme at: http://www.sport.ex.ac.uk/index.cfm?fuseaction=c_pages.showPage&pageID=33

Getting involved with this stuff has been great fun and very rewarding and its done something which I hadnt expected. It's broadened my horizons. Learning from sport and applying to business is a bit of a cliche - but there are lessons to learn, and there is a spirit & drive to atheletes of this kind of standard that is a model to us all. They choose their sport, they dream their dreams and they chase them as hard as they can. The ones that succeed are the ones that don't give up and despite failures and set backs continue to chase with all the passion and enthusiasm they can muster.

Do you read books?

2008-10-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a dumb question, doesnt it? "Do you read books?". But it's my observation that people can surprise you.

Over the last few months I have been interacting with a wider and wider circle of people through my professional engagements and its been an interesting benchmark question - to ask them what they are reading. Some of the people I hadn't expected to be doing so where not only reading something very interesting, but something I was also interested in - and nothing related to software or testing! Some of the people I had expected to be on the case and reading something quite refreshing were nowhere need anything like literature.

So, does it make someone a bad person because they aren't reading books? No! But they are missing out, I feel.

As professionals, there is a requirement on us to stay current. We can do this through many e-sources, but the paper based, and the book based should not be ignored. There is absolute gold in some of the books written to date and ignore them at your peril that's what I say.

As both professionals and explorers of our profession there is also a requirement on us to extend the knowledge of our profession and to help others to do the same. A first step on this journey is gaining an understanding of what has come before us.

Lee Copeland has reminded us time and time again about the nine forgettings and the amount of times he has been asked to present this talk, and the number of hits his google video gets, tell us that people are keen to know - but do they learn! Do we as a profession move forward?

It seems like a dumb question - " do you read books" - but do you? And if you do - how can you help yourself, your colleagues and your profession to gain from this knowledge?

Why don't we?

2008-09-29T02:54:00.000-07:00

Who is the smartest person you know? Who is the smartest person you know that does what you do for a living? How much time do you spend with them? How much time could you spend with them? Why don't you spend more time with them?

From our very earliest learnings we pick up things from the people around us. From our parents, our siblings and our peers and yet when we come along to our work environment we forget that and look for knowledge in other sources.

How does it stack up if you compare the number of days you have spent on training courses, e-learning or reading journals in the last year with the number of days you have spent being mentored or mentoring others?

Personally, I feel that sharing information is essential and I encourage it everywhere I can. The most powerful expression of this sharing (for me) is mentoring and my experiences to date have included some amazing mentors who have accelerated and opened my thinking, my networks and my career.

If you don't have a mentor at the moment, I encourage you to look for one. Take a stroll around your organisation and seek out the smartest person you can find in what you do or what you want to do and then ask them to be your mentor. You'll be amazed how keen some people are to take on that role and also the results that a great mentor can help you to achieve.

PEST - September 2008

2008-09-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

Fantastic Stuff! PEST this month was another great event.

Huge kudos go to Dan, Jess and Rachida for putting together such a fun event.

The team tested the PEST portal, the new internal job board and the new facebook application.

We also got a chance to use the new wiki - and the testing nuggets that have been posted on there by the experienced testers in the company.

The thing I enjoy most about these events is the good spirit in which they are conducted. We all came over to the PEST venue yesterday after our working days. The event started at 7pm and we didn't leave before 10 - and we had a blast along the way :) If this wasn't so much fun, we really wouldn't do it!

We're looking for some new ideas for products to test next time. Qwerky stuff. Out of the norm stuff. Hardware. Coffee Machines. Anything goes. If you've got some ideas then let me know.

In the interim: Long live PEST! I think its brilliant :) https://pest.tcl.eu.com

The things we learn when we look around a little

2008-09-08T00:33:00.000-07:00

I've added a new thing to my Firefox browser - to see how it works. Its called stumble upon! Take a look at it here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/

The point of it is that it profiles your preferences and then looks for random stuff for you that might be of interest. A way to break the chain of going to the same old pages each day - without much thinking involved.

I wanted to see how it profiled things, and to date its doing OK, but it hasn't had much chance to learn my profile yet so I am holding my judgement back for a week or so.

Anyway, the point of this blog article is to say that when you look around a little sometimes you learn something new and today I was pleased to be directed towards the following essay......

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."

A prize for the first person to contact me via this blog or email with the name of the author :)

What this stumbling experience reminded me of this morning was that there are some great minds out there. Some from the present, some from the past and some developing for the future. It's impossible to keep up with all of them, its almost impossible to keep up with some of them, but its absolutely essential to keep trying! Knowledge is life.

Dinner with the Stars

2008-08-18T05:09:00.000-07:00

TCL has grown from very humble beginnings to a size now where not all the pieces join up as easily as they used to. A big part of this is how well we know each other, and can subsequently develop the futures of the people in the company as well as the company itself. These two, of course, being intrinsically linked.

At TCL we have a strategy for the development of our people which is rooted in gaining an understanding for their capability and future potential within the organisation.

Through their line management reviews and the interactions we have with each member of staff we pull together a measurement of these two areas, and using a boston matrix we plot out where people are.

The results provide us with four quadrants:

High Potential and High Capability - the Stars - the future of our company. The people who will work harder, achieve the most and ultimately be key to the future success of the company. For these people we seek to find regular rewards and opportunities that stretch them and develop their potential.
High Potential and Low Capability - the Rising Stars - people who could be key to the future, but for now we must focus on training them so that their capability aligns with their potential.
High Capability and Low Potential - Experts - for these people they have reached a role in the company where they are likely to remain, perhaps with some sideways changes in the future. They are normally experts in what they do, and happy with it. For these people we seek to find opportunities for them to train others, share their knowledge and employ their skills in the most challenging environments
Low capability and low potential - the question marks - for these people we have a question mark. We seek to understand them better, to be sure that we have assessed them correctly. Then we seek to either change them - through training, coaching and mentoring or lose them from the company. When someone becomes a question mark we have a target to have resolved the situation within 3 months.

This strategic view on people is starting to show some real success, and its overall effectiveness is key to us mitigating a principle risk to company growth & long term sustainability.

Recently, I have introduced a dinner with the stars event, where the senior team sits down to 'break bread' with these stars. Its a relatively informal time, where conversation ranges from 'when are we getting our new business cards' through to 'I'm really interested in working in America' and along the way includes things such as ' I really don't like my current assignment - when can I go somewhere else / do something different'.

We do it partly as a reward - the evenings are very enjoyable - and partly as an opportunity. The opportunity is that the senior team are all in one place, and can be engaged with on a one to one basis, or as a group. Everyone then gets to know each other a little better, and we can exchange information of various types that perhaps may have been otherwise inhibited.

We've held two of these events so far, and they have been pretty successful in engaging people and getting dialogue going. I am very happy about that as dialogue is the foundation stone of effective team working and that is my #1 objective within the company.

On a personal note, I find the events very enjoyable and valuable. It seems strange, but for the first few years of the company I recruited each person, or was intimately involved with the recruitment and induction of each person and got to know them all quite well. As the company has grown and responsibilities have changed there are fewer opportunities for me to get to know people, their values and their heritage despite such things as company parties etc.. These dinner events help to transcend a bit of the gap - which I guess can be a two way perception and potential problem.

The vision for TCL is clear. We strive to become a world wide, world class centre of testing excellence by 2020. To make this happen we need to recruit, train and retain some amazing people and with them to create an amazing team.

The next event will be taking place in October / November. I'm already looking forward to it :)

Growing up and taking holidays

2008-08-11T01:35:00.000-07:00

I am very pleased to be able to say that I have had a great holiday for the last two weeks and am well rested :)

This may not seem like a big deal, but since the start of TCL it has been notoriously hard to take a decent break at any point in the year. There has always been project considerations, client commitments, staff emergencies, business issues etc that have a habit of making it very difficult to either plan or take a vacation.

It got to the stage where we used to have a little joke about booking vacations - set it for the go live date of a project. They always slip and you'll always get your vacation!

I guess its a good sign that we have now reached the stage where we have enough of the right people around the place and that things work well enough in enough areas that I was able to take this vacation and enjoy it uninterrupted. Or maybe I'm just not needed anymore?

Either way, the result is good :) The holiday was lovely and I'm already planning the next years worth of breaks to ensure that this isn't a one off fluke - and that there are many more special times ahead.

Maybe its not just the company that's growing up, maybe its me too.

Certification & Accreditation

2008-07-22T09:03:00.000-07:00

Before you read too much of this article take a look at a couple of other blog entries:
http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/126
http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/127
http://www.bcs.org/server.php?show=nav.5732
http://www.istqb.org/
http://www.astqb.org/
http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org

The discussions on certification have been raging for quite some time, and no definitive stance has been taken by the industry on whether it is good or bad and how it should be administered. Despite that, things go from strength to strength in terms of people who do the courses, employers that ask for it and companies that make money from the delivery of courses - including my own company.

We invite our scholarship students to attend a Foundation certificate course for free as part of their scholarship. I had a very interesting question from one of them the other day when he asked, after passing the course, if I could now show him how you do testing. It hadn’t really been covered on the syllabus.

So, given that the courses themselves have some questions hanging over them in terms of content and in particular with regards to PRACTICAL TESTING SKILLS (I’m sorry for the capitalisation there, but it drives me nuts!) how come things are moving this way?

Well, its not because the BCS or ISTQB shout the loudest - in fact they are quite quiet about things really. Certainly I see more aggressive marketing campaigns at companies like SQS and Sogeti and indeed the reach and influence of people like James Bach and other speakers at Star conferences is more powerful than the ASTQB stand that I saw last time at StarEAST.

I think that there is a need out there - and the market is telling us something pretty fundamental. They want us to be better!

The market is possibly feeling like testing could be important enough to get a proper seat at the table - certainly we’ve all been telling them that for quite some time, but they want us to do it better. The ‘new believers’ want to be able to say -I’ve decided to do something about our testing, I’ve found some new people who are well trained and can do a good job.

I asked myself this question: If I don’t know about testing - lets say I’m in HR or procurement of some big company - but I know enough to know I need it to be different / better / in my company, where do I go?

How do I know I am getting a good tester or useful test team? Where’s the standard? Where’s the governing body? Where’s the education? How do I model it, reference it, measure it, value it? Where’s the regulation? Where’s the professional body, associations or ombudsman? I got stuck. I couldnt answer it. I couldnt find it. But when I looked - the closest things I could find were the ISEB, ISTQB, the ASTQB, the BCS.

So, I think that the market wants us to be better and I dont think we’ve found the answer yet - but to feed that market, and to grow our industry, we need to find an answer that gives us all a platform of credibility going forward.

Three things that totally drive me insane about the current certification:
• No practical skills are taught at the foundation level – which is where I believe that practical skills are the most important
• Many consultancies that offer and promote the certification courses are on the certification boards or were involved in the creation of the syllabus – I find this to be a conflict of interest and don’t appreciate it. I think that there should be a clean line between people that define education programmes for an industry standard and people who are paid to deliver them
• Certification stops at the certificate – but the new knowledge is only valuable when it is put into practice, and new behaviours are re-enforced by mentoring and coaching.

Given these views, James Bach has asked me why I continue to promote and teach the certification courses. I’d like to engage with you and explain my position on this stuff and why we offer the courses at all.

Firstly - we exist to meet the needs of our Clients and they tell us that they want this stuff. I can find no suitable alternative to help them on the scale that they need and desire so I work with what I’ve got.

Secondly - I recognise certain flaws in the current courses - namely the practical skills - and encourage people to realise that certification is only a start to their education, not the be all and end all.

We offer a great deal of stuff at zero cost that can help people develop further - including our community portal and our peer sharing events which are open to everyone who wants to learn and share. (http://pest.tcl.eu.com)

Thirdly - I want to encourage people into our industry. I’d rather get involved with people and get them exposed to some inspirational trainers and some different ideas during their certification than leave them out there in the cold.
In the example of our scholarship student there was great resonance - he came on the course and then wanted to know more. Before the course he had very little appreciation for testing. His experiences at our latest testoff - with more than 40 testers who are passionate about testing and putting their skills into action, gave him great insights into what its all about.

I recognise the need for change, I’m totally up for finding new solutions and I’d like to work with people who can develop an accreditation programme for testers - one that starts with some uniform and consistent education, then develops practical skills and works with people in their use of those skills in real life situations to then develop practical, skilled and competent testers. I’d like to see this kind of stuff included in University level education programmes and I’d like to see a common approach around the globe to make a sea change in our industry.

It’s such a task though and its going to take a lot of us pouring positive energy into the situation to make it work.

The last few months have seen some encouraging writing from the AST and around CAST – and I think that this could be a potential source of solution. It’s certainly got some promise.

I’m very interested to hear thoughts from all quarters on where you feel we could start creating change and moving things forward.

Becoming an Expert in Software Testing

2008-07-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

TCL is a consultancy in software testing. That means we are invited to see Clients when they have problems of some kind - and they are seeking us to provide solutions that in some way or other they can't provide for themselves.

It could be that they can't resource, or can't resource at the right time. It could be that they have a problem but they really don't know how to solve it - and they need our knowledge. It could be that they need us to look around and find some problems and to help them improve their organisation.

In all these cases there is an assumption - that as a consultancy, we are experts in testing. Hmmmm. Are we?

Take a look at this stuff from James Bach:

He makes some great points about what makes an expert and what experts do to stay as experts. He also asks questions about the education for testers and things that don't yet exist.

Now, I can tell you that we research and develop new solutions every year. I can tell you that we train a lot - we train each other, we share ideas with everyone that likes to learn and to share in return. We go to conferences and we learn from our peers and other experts and world leaders - people like James B. We go out there and we challenge ourselves and we seek new ways and innovative ways of doing things. We mix things up and involve Universities and Scholarship students and interns to challenge us and rechallenge existing knowledge as well as developing new ideas and furthering the cause of testing as a professional discipline. If this stuff makes us experts then super. But how do we measure it?

Tony and I have a vision for TCL to become a world wide, world class centre of testing excellence by 2020. We're doing pretty well, but there is a long way to go - and I feel like we have some serious thinking to do this year about how we move forward a bit faster. We are in 2008, and our ninth year of trading as a company. It's time to get a new gear, and move this stuff forward even faster.

I'm a bit stuck on this right now. In particular how to measure in absolute terms that we, a consultancy in software testing, are indeed experts in it. Some thinking to be done. Watch this space for more of my thoughts as I progress ideas.

We need better understanding of where we came from

2008-07-19T01:53:00.000-07:00

Hmmmmm. Several months with no posts and now here I am going mental, with three in two days!

James Bach has an interesting article at: http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/128

He says we need better bloggers about testing - and I think he's right, and I think its only the start of things. We need a better understanding about where we came from.

The poor cousins, that's what some people think of us as. Testers are still seen as some of the lowest forms of life in the software world. And why? Because we havent changed their minds, thats why.

Take a look at some of the debating on certification: http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/126, http://www.testingreflections.com, and some thoughts about how to get into testing at: http://www.workroom-productions.com/blog/2007/05/question-how-do-i-get-into-testing.html

For all the efforts of so many people, there is still very little taught about, researched about or published about testing that is coherent, mature and built on a basis of proper rigor and analysis.

Few PhDs, few Degree programmes, research grants or so inclined academics to move us forward. Few historians or references sources. Few knowledge communities that move us forward. How can we learn? How can we avoid going through the same infinite, futile loops of reinventing the wheel and going through the same old mistakes as people 20 years our senior have already learned to solve?

As a community we cant answer simple questions like this:
When to automate and why?

We teach people endless process styles and then we miss off practical testing skills from our accreditation programmes.

We deal in the currency of defects, but then when we teach our junior people about testing we dont start with the defect report, and we overcomplicate and teach them that the defect ID is as important as the steps to recreate the problem. We certainly don't tell them that it isnt.

No wonder there are still people out there that think we arent good enough to play in their game.

I dont have the answer yet - but JB has started me thinking. Perhaps we should be searching a little harder for the answers....

Post Script: here's the video mentioned in the comment from Phil K

Software and Politics

2008-07-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a thought that has been ringing round my head since talking with James.......

Democracy - a hugely important part of the life as we know it, has three fundamentals that define it: 1 - a free and fairly elected government, 2 - a free press, 3 - the rule of law.

But something is bugging me. In an age of information and the knowledge economies is software and in particular access to the internet fast becoming a defining property of a democracy?

For sure, the power of software, and what can be researched, analysed and created using modern technology now fast becoming an asset that leaves developing nations at a serious disadvantage and makes it a hugely political issue.

When the 20th Century saw the birth of atomic energy and the atom bomb it created a segregation that changed the face of the planet. It created special 'clubs' where those that had the advantage restricted it from others, and controlled economies, held the upper hand in heated discussions and caused tensions around the world.

But what of countries without the right infrastructure now? Without the ability to adopt or to grow the technology that changes lives? How will they embrace these visions of the future where software not only makes life better but helps to solve some of the biggest problems facing humanity?

For many of us software is a job, a hobby and sometimes a passion. Do we really understand the evolution that is going on around us though?

James Whittaker visit and presentation

2008-07-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

Well, its been a whirlwind couple of days - which I am pleased to say have been a lot of fun.

James Whittaker has been with us for a couple of days, and today gave a presentation that knocked some socks off, and gave everyone a number of opportunities for belly laughing. (http://www.transitionconsulting.co.uk/news.html )

What was he talking about? The future of software and the evolution of testing! What did I think? I'm still trying to work it out!

Some stuff that was very cool: The ideas that Microsoft have for the future of software and how things will look, feel and integrate with the world. Interfaces on computers, embedded sensors, RFID on steroids and a seamless integration of it all into a world that reduces geography and improves our lives.

Some stuff that made me think: How to take the role of testers and testing into being part of solutions for the wider world.

Take a look at: http://blogs.msdn.com/james%5Fwhittaker/ for some more insights from the mind of Dr W.

Something I want to start giving some serious thought to is the topic of visualisation. How to visualise how code is changing, how defects are clustering, how test coverage is developing and where things need to be done. That was a fantastic part of the talk today - with examples from all over the place include xbox games, that really brought the point home. I can see some huge advantages to our industry from moving down this route. I wonder if these new MS test tools will do it?

It was a pleasure to host James for this event, and great opportunity to catch up with him, meet Sharon (his wife) and to hear about his latest visions.

There was a great attendance at the event, with people from (no particular order to this list):

Vodafone
Orange UK
O2
Neural Technologies
Shelter
The Exeter University Innovation Centre
Scholarship students from Boston University and Exeter University
Quick find IT recruitment
Independent contractors
workroom productions (http://www.workroom-productions.com/blog/blog.html)
Labscape
Circle Executive Recruitment
tbiconnect
mirifice
Sound in Theory
Test and Verification Solutions
Flybe
SNS Systems
SQS.

It was brilliant to see this group mingling, networking and building a community. It wasn't forced - it just happened :)

We also had a great time at our latest PEST (Pub Exploration of Software testing). What a PEST it was too.

Over 40 testers competitively testing four apps for over 3 hours. It was brilliant!
We tested our PEST portal - developed by interns during their summer internship, we tested a digi makeover kit - a commercially available toy, we tested a wordpadlike application in which we had set up a dozen defects, and we tested a large coffee vending machine which had been picked up on e-bay for just £1. Defects galore!!!

Seeing Dans face (the intern who had a big hand in the PEST portal) as all these testers crawled all over his site was absolutely priceless - but most impressive of all was the energy of everyone involved.

Passion for testing. Passion for the teams. Passion for finding defects. A brilliant event! Huge kudos to Martin Mudge for setting up the best PEST so far, by far!
Check out http://pest.tcl.eu.com for more information about future events and to share knowledge with people at PEST.

If you are wondering about what sort of stuff we were doing then take a look at this video of Jon Bach who explains about Exploratory Testing

I'll post some pictures of our event when they have come through from Kate and Clare.

Also, take a look at: http://www.utest.com if you get chance. This is quite an interesting idea and is pretty exciting if you are an exploratory tester or someone seeking some variation & new challenges.

The TCL Vision – Where will we be by 2020?

2008-02-08T06:05:00.000-08:00

We have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) at TCL, which is to say that we have a dream. A dream of what the company will become and we've set out to achieve it by 2020. It's not the only dream the company will ever have, but for now it's the priority one and it's the one that is very personal to the founders, shareholders and owners of the company.

So what does this dream look like? The short answer is that there is no short answer to that question. Like most dreams it's a little hazy when you wake up, but the outline looks something like this:

We want TCL to become a world wide, world class, centre of testing excellence. This means that we want to establish TCL as a Centre of Testing excellence which has world class solutions and we are able to deliver them to any industry in any country.

When we have reached that goal, the company will look something like this:

Our company will benefit its employees and their families. They will benefit financially, emotionally, ethically, technically and physically through the way the company is run.

Our company will be financially robust and secure. We will have sufficient alerts and contingency plans in place to ensure we can survive economic peaks and troughs whatever the root cause.

The communities in which we operate will also benefit from TCL. We will actively make efforts to be involved in those communities and the issues that are important to them. We will actively demonstrate in our social conscience and encourage it in our team and the Clients and Suppliers with whom we engage.

We will also ensure that some of our profits are given to worthwhile charities. These are charities that are important to the people in our company.

Our culture will be totally inclusive, with all levels of the organisation being informed and involved. Each person in the company will have a personal understanding and empathy with their colleagues in relationships that demonstrate integrity and respect at every juncture. There will be awards each year for long service and through this long service we will ensure a continuity of culture and corporate memory at the foundation of the company.

A team that supports and focuses on the vision will regularly introduce new ideas to keep the company aligned with the purpose, values and BHAGs and will be a proven source of information and inspiration around the company. Competition to be part of this forum will be high, and it will be necessary for the participants to undergo three month secondments to the team to get the work done.

The TCL solutions will be aligned and accredited with organisations such as ISO and the BCS. Our method SMaRT will be recognised as a management model and be used as a template and standard in blue chip organisations around the world.

Our employees will be proud to belong to TCL and will contribute to the company progression each day with energy and enthusiasm.

We will be using the latest technology and involved with the strategic decision making process with each of our clients having demonstrated consistently our ability to add value to that process.

Our reputation will be such that there will be healthy competition to join TCL, and the selection process will be rigorous to ensure that only people who display the core values and have the aptitude to support and contribute to the TCL vision are involved.

We want to take testing to a new level. A professional discipline that is consistently recognised for its value and resourced, planned and funded accordingly within all development lifecycles.

Our Research and Development capability will lead the way with innovative and intuitive solutions that are derived from the latest theory, technology and thinking across the world. We will involve and include academic research and consideration as well as commercial best practice.

Our solutions will have been benchmarked with companies in five continents and proven within more than ten industries including Defence.

We will be the testing partner of choice for Safety Critical Applications and SIL levels 3 and 4.

We will have offices on three continents and research and development capabilities at each. These will have links to Universities and we will provide some financial support and assistance to these universities in the areas of research that will further help the TCL purpose.

Our presentations at industry forums will be actively sought and solicited and our representatives praised for their credentials, innovation and inspirational style of presenting.

When a project declares that their testing will be conducted by TCL it will be perceived at all levels of an organisation that this is the best way to go and that both cost and quality will be in ideal balance for this delivery.

We will be seen for our Quality and Innovation but we will never be seen as overpriced - simply realistic for the demonstrable value we add.

Now, there are lots of things left to think about with regards to how TCL will look in 2020, and each year we challenge the dream and things become progressively clearer as to what we can achieve, what the market wants us to achieve and where things are all going. I hope from reading this article you can already see that some of the things are here now, and some are on there way - in fact you may be involved in making it happen. The spirit of the vision is alive and well. But I suspect that you might also see that some things around the company aren't quite there yet - and from reading this today you will know that we don't want them to stay like that. It just isn't our dream.

I truly believe that if you understand this dream, then you will understand the essence of what TCL is about and what the founders of the company are trying to achieve. As the "custodian" of the vision, I welcome any thoughts you have on this dream, this BHAG, of ours and warmly invite you to call or email me to discuss things. You can also take advantage of my time at roadshows, company parties and promotion days to talk to me in person.

Stewart Noakes

Chairman

Transition Consulting Limited

£2000, a qualification and a job opportunity, not bad for three sides of A4!

2008-02-01T06:58:00.000-08:00

Ok, here goes, my name is Dan Geater, second year scholarship student from Exeter University and the "blogmaster" for TCL. Now thats a bit of a mouthful, so lets break it down:

First things first, as I said I am currently a student at Exeter University doing my second year of BSc Computer Science, and so far its going well. I first heard mention of TCL last year during my Frehser's week, when - on an introductory lecture; we get a visitor offering £2000 to anyone who could answer a question in an essay. Well one night out led to another in Fresher's week so that essay never got written. However the opportunity arose again at the end of the summer term, and this time I went for it. Choosing a question on "how much testing is enough?" I wrote my 960ish words on a subject I knew almost nothing about - however I had recently completed a legal module that pointed out some of the issues, and had books to fill me in on the rest; and submitted three nicely stapled sheets of A4 paper to the University of Exeter External Affairs office.

After that, silence for months, believing myself inadequate and unknowing enough, I resigned myself to write a better essay next year, but hey, like I said, wasn't a strong point for me anyway, so not too surprised. However on my birthday of all days a letter arrives from Exeter innovation centre saying, yep, you guessed it, I had won. A nice clap on the back for me and a nice day to receive a gift.

Well summer went by and during the first semester of this year, I was contacted by TCL asking me to meet with them informally so they could see what their prize winner was like. During a very relaxed and informal meeting with them I decided that not only are they very generous to provide these scholarships but they are also down-to-earth, genuine, friendly people.

After a couple more meetings I was offered a chance on an ISEB/ISTQB foundation course in software testing, well who am I to refuse, especially after chastising myself for not knowing enough about my essay subject. The course was a refreshing and eye-opening look at testing, coupled with a chance to meet a fellow scholarship winner, Nick. So now I have a nice prize, a new qualification and am hoping to take on a work experience placement here over the summer.

But they don't stop there. Two weeks ago I was contacted asking if I would like to work as the "blogmaster" for TCL's three major blogs, this one, the US one, and the India one. Well it seemed like a good opportunity, so here I am, having already altered colour-schemes to match the main site, and now letting the readers know what the students think of the scholarship scheme. Plus more ideas for the blogs in that little collection of grey matter I call a brain, so lets see how it all works out.

The following link points to TCL's press release regarding the scholarship students:

2008 Scholarship Students press release.

In short the scheme is a brilliant idea, from one essay, I suddenly have a much more impressive CV, I have found a job opportunity - albeit a minor one; to help me through University, and I have met some great people. Thanks guys

Dan.

2008 is here!

2008-01-11T10:19:00.000-08:00

Its been a little while since my last

posting, and that's just not good form, so I thought I would take 5 minutes to start 2008 off right and put some updates on.

TCL has started 2008 in a very positive way. We're doing some excellent business planning right now - with the largest group ever involved in the running of the company, which shows that the continuous development and succession planning is starting to work and that is excellent.

This is also shown in our top line growth - in that we had 6 different record revenue months last year - and have started 2008 with a very similar run rate. Although we dont expect to get into the Tech Track 100 two years in a row you never can tell what might happen.

Our customer footprint is growing and becoming more diverse, with even the charitable (probono) work from our management consultancy arm growing to include St Michaels Small School in Truro. In addition to our Clients in the telco sector we have seen good growth in the Public Services sector and have started to branch out into the media arena too.

Our scholarship schemes have grown this year to include Exeter, Bristol and also Boston (USA) Universities and we have some 9 students on the scholarship programmes as well as interns coming from France, UK and hopefully the USA in 2008.

We're moving offices soon - into Phase 2 of the Innovation Centre at the University of Exeter. A much nicer building with some amazing views. Will give the R&D, Management Consultancy and Marketing teams some inspiration - as well as some more room. We've had a presence at the University since 2001 and our offices there have been getting a little cramped.

For me personally 2008 starts with a very differet look to 2007.

With Paul Bradbrook coming to the company as UK & European MD we are now seeing a different shape to things, and after just a few short months he's got settled in very well and is now taking the company forward to meet our goals and visions. I love his enthusiasm and passion for people. (If only I could get him to sing a little less in the office!)

Paul taking up the reigns of the main company gives me some lattitude with the expansion of the group, has allowed me to get more involved with our management consultancy arm and I've also just started as a Non Executive Director post with a venture capital backed software start up company.

So, 2008 is here and if it carries on like this, it could be a lot of fun :)

PEST Boston II - 18 July 2007

2007-07-20T07:53:00.000-07:00

PEST BOSTON II - Brilliant :)

So here we are in Boston, and its PEST II at the Naked Fish restaurant.

Everyone who came last time was here, and we had some new friends too in the form of colleagues from HP Bangalore and Monstor.com.

I was very excited about coming to this PEST. Partly because I was looking forward to seeing everyone again - last time was a lot of fun, and partly because I wanted to tell everyone about our new scholarship scheme which is just starting up at Boston University. Our first outside of the UK, which will start in September this year, and have interns with us in summer '08. Its a very personal passion of mine to invest in the future of our industry, and its wonderful to see the scholarship schemes starting all over the world.

Although we still havent cracked the venue side of things - it was a bit noisy even in this seperated out area - everyone contributed well and we had some great discussions right from the start.

With such a mix of hardware/software experience along with the international flavours from the background of those attending US (7 people), India (2), UK (1), Iranian (1) we had some amazingly different view points as well as a lot of synergy.

The session started with an experience report from our own Don St Pierre, who was taking part in PEST as his last official act with TCL USA. He's off to join EMC from next week, and it was great timing that he could do this before he left.

Dons experience report focussed mainly around the experiences he documented in his white paper last October - about the need for seperation between QA and development reporting lines, and we were lucky to have Steve with us who had worked with Don on the same project and could add his ideas and recollections too.

We drew on these experiences to look at how we report from testing, and particularly how a set of metrics such as DRE can be used to create an 'apples with apples' comparison across projects. Across the group there was also a lot of experience of how metrics and measurements can hurt you as much as help - with the 'what gets measured gets done' approach that we see a lot with teams.

We also recognised that you can generate 'behaviours that exactly meet the metrics, rather than make sense' - things like if you measure a team on numbers of bugs raised then you get every little typo raised as a seperate entry and lots of time wasted.

Now as you can see I remembered my camera so we have a couple of pictures which is great!
(Watch out for this lady at the front of the table - shes a trouble maker ;) )

Don did some great prep work for this session and gave out copies of his white paper and some definitions of DRE. We also shared some best practices from TCL in terms of using the DRE metrics at gateways and to help create measurement of process maturity.

Some other things that we learnt between us across the session included:

There is a job website called Dice which costs only $60 per posting, compared to Monster.com which is circa $360
QA can often be mistakenly seen as the root cause of defects
Root cause analysis on defects is very important in a continuous improvement environment. How can we set up our defect tracking to then generate suitable reports to do this? Perhaps a topic for next time.
Common performance issues are missed when environments do not represent live in a quantifiable / scalable way
Upper management can often try to micro manage QA - and when they do they look at things they understand rather than (perhaps) the things that are actually important
Date and budget driven objectives that dont include quality - and particularly post live quality metrics generate very unhelpful behaviours on projects
Bringing customer found bugs into the post implementation review and post live defect tracking is very important in a continuous learning environment
Release specific scorecards are very useful - particularly when they track DRE
Public vs Private metrics - what can you track and what can/should you publish. A difficult balance
Reporting to senior managers, VPs and Presidents means finding things that both interest them and help us - you cant just talk quality, you need to talk value.

A lot of stuff came out from these discussions, and I'll be very pleased when our PEST website is up and running so that we can all share and discuss things online - and keep much better records. Hopefully that will be in September, just in time for the next PEST in Boston - week of 3rd September.

Thats about all for now, except to say:

Im hoping to have a private room, with a round table for the next PEST Boston - probably at the naked fish restaurant again
Steve Govednik (monster.com) and Dan Downing(Mentora) have voluntered for giving experience reports/challenges to the group next time
Nadereh (mathworks) and Nancy (HP) have agreed to do stuff for the session after/ be alternates for the session in September
Im going to look to bring some of the scholarship essays along for the group to have a look at - some of them have been really brilliant
Don will be coming along to the next PEST, and has promised Matt hes going to bring a few people from EMC too!

Big thanks to everyone who came along this time, and who made it such a great event. Look forward to seeing you next time.
Stew

The point of PEST: None of us is as smart as all of us!

Boston Trip - July 2007

2007-07-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

Well, its been a while since I posted anything on here and having negotiated the barriers placed by Google in getting to my blog I am happy to resume things!

Im out in Boston this week, visiting Matt, going to PEST Boston II and meeting with sales people etc.

Its been a good week thus far. Particularly excited about the new scholarship scheme which we are starting with Boston University. This is the first (of many) non UK scholarship schemes and a real landmark in our commitment to the future of software testing around the world.

I'll post tomorrow about how PEST Boston II goes - maybe even some pictures if I can remember my camera, unlike last time!

Stew

WOPR @ Exeter

2006-10-13T01:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a little weird and a lot brilliant!

WOPR is here in Exeter, and what was weird was walking out of my MBA study class to have lunch and realising that WOPR was taking place in the building next door. What was brilliant was meeting everyone and seeing how much they were all getting out of it.

Knowledge sharing is so important to our industry, and to our growth as a profession. It's fantastic that real practitioners want to share their experiences and to help other practitioners. Lots of new ideas come out of these types of events - and to be honest I dont think that there are enough of them.

It would be great if the organisers at SQE and Qualtech took a look at what has been going on at WOPR, LEWT and other events like PEST and aimed to incorporate elements of the approach more into StarWEST, StarEAST and EuroSTAR. It would really change the dynamic - and I think people would come out with a greater set of practical testing skills as a result. After all, Testing is about doing stuff!

Stew

Sharing Knowledge and Experience

2006-09-29T01:03:00.000-07:00

We have a goal at TCL to become a world wide centre of testing excellence by 2020. Its a lofty goal, and one that we are perpetually seeking new ways to move towards - new ideas, experience, innovation and practices.

A big part of this is process is our knowledge sharing around the community. Its very much a two way process, but when we develop new ideas, or meet excellent people in the industry, we try to share the knowledge and experience whereever we can.

In that vein there are several events taking place in October which are particularly exciting. James Bach, known world-wide as an expert in the field of Software Testing and Rapid Software Testing techniques, is coming to Exeter University to deliver a (free) day seminar on Rapid Software testing on the 11th of October 2006. James will be discussing his experiences in Rapid Software Testing, and outlining the possibilities of Exploratory Testing.

The seminar will take place at the Xfi building of the University of Exeter - see http://www.ex.ac.uk/about/streat_large.shtml for a detailed map of the University. Places are limited, so if you would like to attend please send an email at training@transitionconsulting.co.uk.

TCL is also supporting WOPR - the Workshop on Performance and Reliability - which is taking place at the University of Exeter this year, from the 12th of October to the 14th of October. This is the first time that a WOPR conference has happened outside of the United States, and it is a prime opportunity to meet some of the best known experts in performance testing and learn in a sharing environment. For more details on WOPR, please visit http://www.performance-workshop.org

We also have people from across the company attending the SQS (ICSTEST) conference in London, StarWEST in Anaheim and later in the year we will also be EuroSTAR in Manchester.

All very exciting. Excellent opportunities for people to share and learn.

Things we can learn from History - Textiles in the 18th and 19th Centuries

2006-05-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

As a reader of my Blog you are probably aware that I am in the middle of a part time MBA course. Its hard work, lots to balance with business and personal life commitments but its really worth it as I am learning a great deal of relevant stuff and coming up with lots of new ideas for how TCL can develop, broaden and strengthen.

In our current course we are looking at the making and integration of management. It's an interesting approach to bringing together all aspect of management with a view to understanding how we got to these approaches, why we are using them, who were the key people involved in getting us there and seeing what we can learn from them.

I found our recent short project on Textiles in the 18th and 19th Century very interesting and have copied an extract from my short paper on workforce management below. Hope you enjoy it.......

.....In the 18th century there was a manufacturing revolution within the textiles industry which brought it from ‘cottage industry’ where there were many small scale producers to a much more significant scale through the introduction of mass production. This revolution was facilitated by technological innovations in terms of the equipment that was developed to process the raw materials involved in textiles production.

Large volume production created a lower per unit cost, and thus enabled lower prices to the consumer, with better profit margins for the producer. This created mass markets which generated large profits for owners, and fuelled a period of intense competition.

Manufacturing plants brought people into unfamiliar environments which were crowded, noisy, unhygienic and in many cases unsafe. There were many issues related to staff recruitment reflective of the environment, and this was particularly seen in the countryside where a majority of mills were located.

When workforces were successfully recruited and trained they were likely to become transient, primarily in search of better wages but also in search of better working environments. They chose to suffer the individual problems of one factory for only short periods.

In the early stages of the manufacturing boom the owners and managers were faced with a very militant workforce. The harsh conditions spurred large scale demonstrations and unrest. Physical violence against managers, owners and overseers was common place and this in turn fuelled counter behaviours such as beatings and even shootings.

At the centre of a great deal of the unrest was the sentiment that this ‘new way of working’ was about concentrating capital at the expense of the labour force. It had made the owners and managers incredibly wealthy which magnified the situation, and created a social divide.

Over time things had to change. There was no way that the industry could continue in this way and in particular the owners had the following drivers:
• Factories being burnt down by militant workers caused massive disruption
• Couldn’t get workers into countryside factories
• Massively transient workforce created knowledge and skill difficulties
• Mass markets were creating large amounts of money and potentially large profits – people like Richard Arkwright were among the wealthiest people in the nation
• Heavy competition.

Recognition began to evolve that there was inherent value in the Human Component within the manufacturing process, and that as great investment was being placed in the technology of large scale manufacturing artefacts so should there be similar investment in the people.

A preliminary step forward was the offering of better wages. This is a natural market force, in that as the workforce became hard to attract the cost of those workers became higher. A plateau was soon reached on this approach though, as the market would not sustain perpetual advancement in this area.

The most consistently successful entrepreneurs were the ones that stamped their personal culture and values on the company and thus created a common unity and drive to their organisation. While not all these cultural models were utopian, they did create more ‘team working’ and generated greater efficacy from the human component of the process.

Within the more utopian models a great deal of social engineering took place, in that the companies:
• Built villages around the factories to house the workers
• Developed education and healthcare programmes
• Hired people with large families – and looked to employ most of them within the factory creating communities with the factory at the centre.

These approaches created dependencies between the workers and the company and effectively tied them to the location and to the specific factory. It also raised the standard of living for a great many people and this was something that other fields of endeavour would be unlikely to match.

There was a great diversity between the individual models used. Some seem to be derived from placing the workers at the centre of the process, others by military backgrounds or personal values. Examples of these include:
• Arkwright – A system of Industry, order and cleanliness
• Sir Robert Peel – Order, arrangement and subdivision – like a military drill
• Pollard – methods to institute and Maintain the regime – corporal punishment, fines and threats of dismissal

Towards the end of the 19th century great stock was placed in the notion that it wasn’t enough to drive the workers, but that it was more effective to motivate them. Related to this idea the concept of splitting ownership and control of companies started to carry more favour. It allowed the management to find a solution to meet the goals of the owners, without the owners themselves dictating what it should be.

In today’s working environment within the western, more knowledge based industries there are significant challenges around recruitment, staff retention, efficacy and motivation of the workforces. The solutions to these challenges seem most likely to be found within the cultural models and social frameworks which the companies themselves form.

A great deal of time and effort is expended on creating good team working. It is a firmly held belief that as organisations mature they need to continually re-invent themselves to create the right environment – and thus generate effective team working. At the root of this is that teamworking is contingent on shared goals. With Ownership and Control being increasingly differentiated under the ‘best practise’ governance around listed companies this brings us to the concept that the people within the company need to share the goals of the owners and thus ensure the longevity of the company.

Examples of this can be seen in:
• Semco – where it is run very democratically, even electing the senior management team
• TCL – where the company is run in part along the lines of a ‘mutual’ organisation, ensuring a very transparent organisation and recycling a high percentage of profits back to each employee.

I draw much inspiration from the idea brought forward by Robert Owen that:

‘managers who managed solely for pecuniary gain were destructive of the happiness of the nation and of society’.

To me, this shows us very clearly the reason as to why companies have to continually reinvent themselves and their organisations in that for only a few people, and for only a short time, will the destruction of a society or nation be tolerated and after that the people involved will force a change. This has been seen with industrial, political and civil unrest across the world and across history. Within a company if the people aren’t at the heart of the organisation and receiving value from their contributions then they will look to change it, enhance it or even destroy it.

A long term, successful company will therefore be a vehicle whereby capital is concentrated to be shared amongst those that help to concentrate it. The social and cultural frameworks put together by the company will therefore act in the best interests of the people, and thus overall for the company as a whole.

In this regard the socialist models along with the tools and methods introduced during the textiles industry revolution have a place in our thinking and management methods today. While our contemporary implementation of these models may be driven perhaps more by self interest and less for socialist reasons, the reality is that for businesses to exist and to have a long term future they must keep people at the centre of their thinking. Where they do not, they are likely to fail.

Can a benefits based testing approach be used in Safety Critical areas?

2006-05-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

Here at TCL we have a benefits based testing approach, which we use to try and ensure that projects deliver their anticipated benefits and add strategic value to their organisations.

It’s a good technique - borne out of a very simple concept that testing, and indeed the project should be driven by a business need; that need can be expressed in terms of benefit - normally fiscal - and we should take a holistic view of the project which is led by that benefit.

This enhances and possibly even opposes the resource based logic that we would normally take through the more risk based approach.

My question today though is: Can a benefits based approach be taken to safety critical environments?

When I first started thinking about this I started to join up the idea that even in a safety critical environment there are tangible business benefits. Safety critical applications are focussed on not having defects that cause harm - and indeed that is a valuable thing to ensure is ok. Can that value be quantified though? Can it be transposed to fiscal terms? Should it be?

In the UK our culture aligns closer and closer to the US, and in so doing we see a more legal orientated approach to business. Perhaps, like Ford and their factory recall of a few years ago an evaluation could be done of the cost to make something compliant with safety critical requirements and the cost of a defect in terms of law suites? This approach doesn’t sit well with me ethically, but am I just nieve?

If we don’t take this kind of approach then I get a little lost in terms of how to quantify the business benefit of something being safety critical, how we would then link this into a business case and then in tern link to requirements. The answer is out there, but I think there is some more work for me to do before we can get this to work.

My colleague Barry is putting together a white paper on benefits based testing and if you get chance to read this it would be great to hear your thoughts on it, and indeed how benefits based testing could work in a safety critical environment.
Stew

How are we going to get Strategic Value from Testing

2006-04-11T04:09:00.000-07:00

As the time to market for software products continues to decrease, the need to maximise the return we get for the money invested in development projects has never been greater.

As testers we are faced with a special kind of challenge - we dont write the code, we dont design the code, we dont belong to the business who will benefit from the code - so where do we fit in?

I think that we know the answer to that, but a lot of people around us dont. We need to find a way to speak their language, and transcend the barriers and perceptions between us. By approaching testing in a mature and professional way we can realise value to the teams around us, get a better product out the door and also generate unique management information on which to monitor and further refine the development processes.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently and also how I as a user of software products am becoming increasingly fault intolerant. The proliferation of systems and devices into every day life means that inherent defects can impact us in a very personal way e.g. cant get to my diary, recorded the wrong TV programme etc. I mean have you ever tried to use Salesforce.com diary facilities - there's a system with a need for some serious testing commitment.

I notice that seemingly trivial bugs frustrate a great many people and as an end user community the only real power we all have is to show our feelings by finding an alternative product - its not like my mobile phone comes with a defect tracking tool, or even a very helpful customer service portal!

With this in mind I think that significant competitive advantage can be secured for the organisations that can test their software well and thereby deliver products:
Faster – bringing them to the market first, or at least earlier than the majority of their competitors. Getting them to the front of the innovation queue.

Cheaper – perhaps increasing the efficacy of testing earlier in the lifecycle to reduce costly re-work and help improve the total cost of product development

With higher quality – being the product of choice, with a reputation for quality and resilience will ultimately secure long term market share.

At TCL we recognise that a challenge exists to find these kinds of strategic value on every project and our solutions are focussed on providing innovative, structured and professional ways to engage with organisations to meet their unique challenges. But is this enough?

Where can we get more strategic value from? Who do we need to convince that testing has more to offer than it is currently doing? Why are so many testing projects making the same old mistakes, and delivering so little value? (not ours I hasten to add!)

Difficult questions - with no short answer. I'll share my thoughts with you as they develop....
Stew

Six Sigma and Vision, Values, Goals.

2006-02-22T05:28:00.000-08:00

Went to a fantastically interesting and enjoyable presentation as part of my MBA programme yesterday. A representative from Vodafone came to the University and presented on Vodafone strategy (the module we are doing right now is on strategy) and in particular the use of six sigma across their organisation.

Very interesting to hear about the challenges and impact of six sigma - and that they have actually succeeded in making things happen and delivering real tangible worth within 2 years of starting the programme. Also very interesting to hear about how things fit into their vision.

For anyone that came to Anaheim or has read my presentation on aligning test strategies with corporate goals you would have seen that I used Vodafone as an example of a company with Vision. In March last year I was lucky enough to attend a conference in London where Arun Sarun (CEO of Vodafone) spoke about the Vision, Values and Goals of the organisation. I felt quite inspired and impressed by his talk which is why they became my worked example.

In his talk he talked about the vision to be:

The world's mobile communications leader - enriching customers' lives, helping individuals, businesses and communities be more connected in a mobile world.

Under Values he talked about:

Passion for customers: "Our customers have chosen to trust us. In return, we must strive to anticipate and understand their needs and delight them with our service.“
Passion for our people: "Outstanding people working together make Vodafone exceptionally successful.“
Passion for results: "We are action-oriented and driven by a desire to be the best.“
Passion for the world around us: "We will help the people of the world to have fuller lives – both through the services we provide and through the impact we have on the world around us."

and under goals he talked about:

Provide superior shareholder returns
Delight our customers
Leverage global scale and scope
Expand market boundaries
Build the best global Vodafone team
Be a responsible business.

Now for me here's the interesting bit. The Six Sigma approach being used at Vodafone meets up with all of this. They are trying to drive out wasted costs, improve service, get things better understood so that they can then yield advantages of scope and scale, create bigger market share and a whole host of things on the back of the way Six Sigma will improve their operating efficiency and ways of working.

As a tester, I also gained great encouragement from the focus they have in their Voice of the Customer campaign. In essence this is one big TTRM /VCRI where they get the Grumps and Grumbles from the customer (e.g. I went into your store to buy the new whizzy bang handset to find it was out of stock. So now I am on TMobile instead!) and reviewing their systems and processes that lead to that result e.g. Stock control, marketing, logistics management. By reevaluating these, and putting the six sigma approach at the heart of the improvements they look to remove the issue.

Lots of work, lots of process, lots of Testing. All good stuff :)

As I say a very interesting presentation. If you are interested in knowing more about it or perhaps getting the contact details for the presenter so as to ask them some questions please drop me an email.

TCL Scholarship at the University of Exeter

2006-02-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

I am really very excited to be able to tell you about our new scholarship scheme at the University of Exeter. As you will know from the previous entries in the Blog, TCL has an aspiration to become a World Wide, World Class Centre of Testing Excellence by 2020. Part of making this happen is a commitment we have made to involve academic institutions in the development of software testing as a professional discipline.

This year we have developed a scholarship scheme for undergraduates at the University of Exeter designed to encourage people with the aptitude and passion for software testing.

Details of the scheme can be found at: http://www.secam.ex.ac.uk/applicants/tclscholarship.html.

The University of Exeter has been a superb partner in our recent endeavours and we are all really excited about this new scholarship scheme.

By taking this approach, and getting involved in other things like R&D and Masters by Research projects we hope to see many expert testers of the future coming through the Exeter Degree programme. This is good for Exeter, Good for TCL and Good for software testing as a whole. A real win-win.

Very interested to hear any comments on our scheme, ideas for new innovations or from Universities that would also like to embrace software testing into their Computer Science departments.

The Future of Software Testing?

2005-12-20T09:23:00.000-08:00

Well it’s Xmas, and there are a lot of programmes on the TV about the best of 2005 as well as people speculating about the market trends, house prices and economics of 2006. Who am I to leave a good band-wagon behind.......?

Part of my role as a Managing Director is to look forward and see what 'might be', where TCL could fit into it and where we can add value to our clients. For the last 6 years we have done relatively well in this regard, but I am posed by more of a challenge this year...in fact I would say that my answer is still a work in progress!

Primarily, my views are that the convergence of Companies, Commercial Propositions and subsequently systems is driving a lot of the IT change we are involved with. It seems to be a world wide, multi sector trend, and areas such as VoIP, Mobile, Data, Fixed line and ISP convergence is a good example of how things are unifying. Let me give you a highlight from BT. You can now take out a Mobile tariff and join it with an ISP, landline and VoIP bill. The systems you have at home enable you to have a wireless (and wired) LAN, and when you come home your mobile will act as your home (fixed line) phone - routing calls through VoIP or your fixed line as desired. It’s brilliant because its simple (almost seamless) for the user, it’s cost effective and it’s easy to buy (online).

The challenges we face as testers of this kind of technology include:
The size of it all - things are getting smaller. Usability requirements are very different. The scale of the interfaces and joined up thinking across the organisation though is much much bigger. Needing good solid design work to make it a reality rather than a travesty.
The Complexity - lots of things in the same place. To test it you have to know a lot more, about a lot more things
Time to Market - the competition is fiercer than it used to be and time to market drivers are more acute in a lot more of the sectors. A statistic I was given at a recent networking dinner was that a new software product is outdated/superseded or competitively out priced within 16 months of its launch. Projects cannot last a year or two in domains like that
Data - lots more data in even embedded systems. The performance of the systems handling this data and the security / integrity of the data in the system and more often now across the Internet is on everyone’s minds - although not necessarily in the design!
Price - Excessive pricing is no longer tolerated. Quality and Innovation may be differentiators but in markets such as mobile telcos where there is near customer saturation the cost mark (even for very innovative products) is essential to get right.

So how does this shape the future of testing? It would point towards a necessity for more Non Functional Testing, for better, quicker design and for testers that can do more and know more about a lot more things. The future of software testing therefore is rooted in proactive, professional development. Significant specialism in some areas and amazingly competent all-rounders for others.

The thing is though; there is a doubt in my mind generated by History. Love it or loathe it, you just can’t ignore history. You see when I first started in testing I was lucky enough to work in defence. We had a very mature product, in a very mature industry and the testing processes had been evolved over 20+ years to something akin to clockwork. Many of the key features brought up at today’s conferences were already common practise even then. Regression testing, testing of requirements, TTRM/VCRIs etc all sorted. So where's the new stuff? Where's our evolution? How are so many people working in 'testing' by doing exactly the same thing every day?

We thought that automation was the key to the future, and indeed I have heard that said many times in the last ten years. But look around and you see that circa 85% of all testing is still manual. So what happened? Were there no market drivers to encourage time to market initiatives, innovative approaches or change? Did no-one do this? Well a lot of us did, but why didnt it become a uniform approach?

And finally, we have all seen the need for better professional development within testing but after all this time there are still very few Universities who even mention it as part of a Computer Science Degree let alone Research and Develop it. Certification courses really are in their infancy and we spend a great deal of time reminding people that testers have to be able to test not just push paper. There isn’t an industry body, a globally accepted and common practise standard and there are commercial interests getting in the way of the true development of better tools, techniques and practises.

So if History has taught me anything its that Software Testing has been pretty much stagnant over the last 10 years (In a way like the surface of the earth seems flat from space) . An industry of silos for a long time and in fact the last 10 to 15 years haven’t really got us substantially further forward as a community.

This leads me to an interesting thought....
For me Software Testing will only have a different future from what we do now if there is a period of commercial consolidation and consistent governance/control of standardisation. This isn’t needed just in the UK, but worldwide. There is enough financial reward in software testing for this to start happening, and indeed some companies in software testing have now floated - generating capital to invest in such consolidation. When this starts to happen we might just see the merging of practices across industries and sectors generating a new level of collective competence and standards which will drive the way we work, the skills we need and the development of people that the industry needs to get on a par with other areas of IT, and perhaps start to lead the way.

The future of Software Testing in my eyes is in Unification and collective advancement. Let's see if 2006 proves me right.

Merry Xmas 2005 Everyone. I wish you all the best for 2006, and look forward to meeting up with many of you at StarEAST in May.
Stew

Certification Programmes

2005-12-09T14:10:00.000-08:00

Well my colleagues seem to be debating the pros and cons of certification programmes at the moment, and I have a couple of views on that so here goes......

I feel that the primary reason certification programmes exist is to set a standard, and this is a good thing. Testing has historically been seen as the IT backwater - where you go if you cant do anything well, or they cant think where else to put you. This is / was a reputation that was not good for testing as a whole, and any move to systematically remove that poor perception of what we do is something I welcome.

There are three areas that I feel are a bit astray at the moment with regards to certification:

Practical Skills - Most importantly testing is a practical subject. It can be argued therefore that any certification programme without practical, useful, applicable skills is not really good enough. At present exams like ISEB Foundation and Practitioner don't seem to contain any 'hands on' stuff - and this diminishes the value of the qualification and thus the very standard (or 'bar') we were trying to set is perceived as lower.
Standards Body - Any standards body will be having a headache trying to make a one size fits all programme that incorporates aptitude, practical and theory across development methodologies, industries and even countries. The key here however is consultation and I don't know how you can get involved in influencing and changing the certification programmes for the better.
Commercial Interruption - My feelings on free trade and the removal of commercial barriers are very positive in general, but when it comes to certification and qualification programmes I feel that commercial interests should take a back seat. The current state of our market place, the money to be gained from training programmes and the commercial interests of some people who are involved with the certification side of things has, in my opinion corrupted areas of the usefulness of the current courses. There are areas of study within these courses devoted to commercial, trade marked methods and this goes a long way to creating an improper social construct of reality that these methods are a standard in their own right. Also for a majority of training providers the focus is on churn rather than quality of delivery and this generates content to the courses and behaviors in teaching that are improper.

So, what I would like to see happening is for the certification programmes to be more deeply routed into a more academic mind set. One where the standards would be set to achieve the right balance between Aptitude, Practical Skills and Theory - and they should link directly to / or perhaps from - qualifications such as University Degree courses. This will help to set a uniform bar without as much commercial influence.

Most importantly though, it must be time for the certification groups to extend consultation groups into centres of testing excellence and get some practical skills and measures into the programmes. Let people learn to test and show how good they are. Lets build on the idea of being an expert tester and show people how to approach anything, absolutely anything, with a testing mindset. Lets see more people adopt the tactics of James Bach, John Bach, James Lyndsay, Mark Garnett and James Whittaker in bringing people down this path and lets see some measure of this skill that shows how valuable it is. After all it isn't everyone that can do it!

In summary then, I feel that these certification programmes are a good start,
but they just aren't good enough right now. Time for a change. Time to
prove that testing is BRILLIANT and Expert Testers have a real,
valuable place in the IT landscape.
What do you think? Let me know your opinion - or take a look at the Blogs of Mark Garnett and/or James Bach to see some more opinions on this topic.

Security Testing Training - Public Course (March 2006)

2005-12-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

Just spent the day out in Paris today, which has been good fun.

This time of year seems to agree with Paris. Lots of hussle and bussle and the Xmas lights look great.

While I have been out here I have made a provisional agreement for TCL to host a public training course in Security Testing, located in London (UK), in March 2006.

If anyone is interested then there will be something on the TCL website early next week (www.TransitionConsulting.co.uk) and if you are really keen to get involved then you can contact Katie at our Exeter office (+44 1392 262 343) to register your interest and provisionally book a place.

I am very excited about the course because it is something we are putting together as part of a joint venture, and it is the first part of our journey into the security testing space in 2006. Its an area I personally find very interesting, but dont currently have much ability in :) Hopefully I will learn something as the course will be delivered by experts!

A public course means that there will be a mixed group of people to meet with and share ideas. With a bit of luck it might feel a bit like a mini conference, over two days.

Who am I?

2005-11-30T08:04:00.000-08:00

Here's a bit from my resume ......

Founder and now Managing Director of Transition Consulting Limited (TCL), Stewart has experience from consultancy in the Defence, Gas, Electricity, Telecoms and Media markets. After completing a Masters Degree in Physics Stewart joined GEC Marconi CIS as a Graduate on a development programme to be a tester and has thus a relatively unique background in that he has always been a tester.

TCL now has circa 50 consultants, working with clients across Europe and Stewart is leading the development of the company, training and thought leadership towards its BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) of becoming a world wide centre of testing excellence.

Stewarts first industry presentation was at StarWEST 2005 and has previously attended STAREAST and EUROSTAR.

And here's a suitably cheesy picture :)

More information on Stewart and TCL can be found at http://www.transitionconsulting.co.uk/

What Value in Values?

2005-11-30T03:40:00.000-08:00

The StarWEST presentation on Aligning Corporate values and Test Strategies brought out some thinking in my mind about values - particularly personal values and how they fit into every day life - and in the work place.

'Society as a whole has lost its focus' – it’s a statement in a lot of MBAs and a lot of articles in places like the Harvard Business Review. They postulate that for a lot of people – particularly in the west - there is no Church to centralise their morals, values or community. Nor does the state provide this function. In fact after school age there is very little out there except the company/corporation in which we work.

Now this poses a bit of a paradox. Corporations by their nature are set up to deliver shareholder value – not necessarily value to the employees so in effect what we do (and the dollar value of that) is more important to how we do it. But if these organisations are the last bastion of social integrity then surely the how, the moral, the ethical should be much more joined up than this? When considering this idea for each CEO the question will always be ‘what value are values?’ and for each of us the question is 'How do my values fit into every day?'

A first level summary is that effective team working is contingent on shared goals, and a key part of this being an alignment of values around those goals. Sharing positive values such as truth, trust and integrity will bring with it more open dialogue and effective communications. It will also open up the team to innovate and change – hopefully for the better – and create a more evolutionary organisation.

At a higher level it is important to recognise that we are spending an increasing amount of time at work, making sacrifices and decreasing time in other parts of our lives as a result. The time spent at work should therefore be something that we want to do, not just have to do, as well as enjoy. This isn’t going to happen everywhere, and it isn’t going to always happen as a direct function of the organisation. There is a lot we can do as individuals to make it real and make it work for us.

Now there are some people out there who would question a lot of this, and talk about corporate brain washing and the effect a 'McDonalds like mantra' can have on individuals. I feel that those people have a valid point, but have missed the essence of what I am trying to convey.

For me the value of values comes from embracing the positive side of your own values and finding an organisation that shares them. Then by proactively adopting those values each day within the organisation and encouraging others do so as well we create an environment that we are all part of, want to be in, enjoy and get something out of. We will be more effective as a unit, more passionate about our work and know that each day we are contributing positive energy to the achievement of goals. This means we are making the organisation work for us, not the other way around. There is no need for a McDonalds like Mantra unless it fits to your own values and goals to have one.

The longevity of organisations both large and small is dependent on this being understood throughout the cultural programmes and by everyone in their own way making conscious decisions about how they take their values to work.

I understand Edward de Bono has done some work in this area and am off to look for his book. If you have any really interesting stuff that would be useful in my research please let me know.

The TCL Vision

2005-11-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

Transition Consulting Limited (TCL) has been founded on a vision, which has three constituent parts:
Core Purpose
Values
BHAG

The Core Purpose of the company is: ‘To Deliver World Class solutions in software testing that are Innovative, Structured and Professional’.

The Values of the company are denoted by the T.I.G.E.R. acronym which stands for:
T- Truthful
I – Independent
G – Good Willed
E – Energetic
R – Realistic.

The Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) for the company is to become a world wide, world class centre of testing excellence by 2020. By this we mean that we want to be a centre of testing excellence that can (if required) deliver to any industry, in any country.

When the company was established, the share holders identified that true value to them was less delivered in fiscal terms but more in the work that they do and the enjoyment of the opportunities that it led to. This vision is therefore something that is very personal to the founders of the company and to maintain it during periods of growth is critical to the overall success of everyone involved.

TCL take the vision to the heart of everything that goes on in the company and to this end has set up an action team of Key Stakeholders and representatives from across the company to help define, document and action tasks that will contribute to its advancement. The team is managed by the Managing Director and output from the team is fed into an agenda item on the Management Team meetings. It is also published on the company extranet.

This Vision Key Stakeholder Team operates as a ‘think tank’ within the company with objectives as follows:

Clearly define the true meaning of the vision
Identify how T.C.L. can change
to align more closely with the vision
Run, and contribute to, internal
projects at T.C.L. to facilitate these changes
Carry the message of the
vision to each site and provide a conduit for information and feedback from
other members of T.C.L. and clients.

To understand the vision is to understand where TCL has started from, and where we intend to go. The clients we work with, the way that we set up our teams and deliver are all reflections of the vision and how well we are moving in line with it. The business plans each year reflect strategic objectives that will bring the company closer and closer to the 2020 goal. This should be defined and clearly communicated so that everyone can understand what TCL is hoping to achieve with each change and idea.

The biggest single key to the success of the TCL Vision is involvement. Information is published on the extranet, presentations are given at each party and the vision team themselves are present on site for discussions to take place. In addition to this, guests are invited to the vision meetings (monthly) so that additional feedback and contributions can be gained. More involvement is needed though and ideas are welcome from every part of TCL.

STARWEST 2005

2005-11-22T19:30:00.000-08:00

STARWEST 2005 was brilliant.

About 900 people attended. Some for the whole week (like us) and some just for the main conference days. Everyone I met was interested in testing, open to learning and open to sharing experience, knowledge and ideas. BRILLIANT!

At this conference I was privileged to be asked to speak, and my topic was 'Aligning Test Strategies with Corporate Goals'. It was a topic close to my heart. An area I am very passionate about and it was incredibly exciting to get the opportunity to share my ideas with such a large group. I presented on first day of the main conference (Wednesday) on track W6. If you take a look at www.SQE.com you can get some details on the presentation. If you want a copy of the presentation then send me an email and I'll see what I can do.

The primary message from the presentaiton is that Organisations seeking long term success need to create good strong team working. Team working itslef is contingent on achieving shared goals between the organisation and the people involved (in the team) and to do this is difficult. In taking responsibility for our position in the organisation as testers, we can look to the company Vision, Values and Goals to shape our testing effort and gateway criteria. This helps to join up the thinking around new products and services, generates the shared goal approach and also delivers targetted strategic value to the organisation in a way that senior managers, Executives and Board members can understand.

It was my first presentation at a STAR, and there are a number of lessons learnt from the experience - not least around the logistics and set up of such a large room. There were also lessons to be learnt around the idea that to present to a STAR conference, and particularly to large audiences (like at the Key Note speaches) you need to be part entertainer as well as a subject matter expert.

You also need to be open to debate and constructive criticism about your ideas. Only by accepting all of these can you hope to achieve what I regard as success: That someone comes up to you afterwards and says 'I feel inspired by what you have said and am going to give these ideas a try'. I was lucky enough to get this response from a number of people at this, my first presentation. But dont get me wrong, I would have loved it if everyone who attended had said it.

So, what else could I do? If you were there at the conference I would be interested to hear from you on the presentation content and style. Good? Bad? Constructive feedback all warmly welcomed.

So what are we doing here?

2005-11-22T19:04:00.000-08:00

I have just come back from STARWEST 2005 in Anaheim, and while I was there someone asked if I was blogging yet? The answer was 'no', but I had no reason as to why that was.

Then I gave it some thought and realised there were two very important reasons as to why I should be and they are as follows:

At TCL we have a set of values, which we hold dear and look for in everything we do. The foremost of these values is Truthful, and by opening up the thinking and discussions around the company to a public domain I can demonstrate the true commitment to this value
Sharing of knowledge is essential to the development of software testing as a community. I enjoy the experience of conferences like STARWEST, and wanted to ensure that the sharing, confering and learning is continuous.

So here we are.

I have set the Blog up to cover Software Testing, TCL and the vision for the company. There's a lot going on in all three of those areas and I hope that you gain value from reading about things. I also look forward to comments, ideas and sharing that come as a result of this effort.

Stew