Exeter University hits top 10 in UK

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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?

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?

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

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

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

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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
3. 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
4. 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 :)