Software Testing "Popcorn" button

I made myself some microwave popcorn for a snack just now.  Placed the popcorn bag in the microwave, pressed the 'popcorn' button and then 'start'. Someone next to me said: "There's a popcorn button?" Um, yes, there is.  In fact, there has been a 'popcorn' button on every microwave oven I've ever seen.

I explained to my colleague that the recommended time on the bag (in this case it was 2 min 30 sec) doesn't work on every oven.  Different ovens have different power output and so the actual cook time may vary.  If I go with the default time, it might burn or be under-done and leave too many unpopped kernels in the bag.  You could figure out the correct time in a few ways.


Method 1: Math
Start by taking a look at the power output of the oven. Full-size ovens deliver 1,000 - 1,600 watts of power, and mid-size ovens yield 800 - 1,000 watts. Higher wattage heats food more quickly.  If it's not explicitly written on the bag, assume the default popcorn popping time is for a 1,000 watt oven.

Use a time/power ratio along the lines of: ( t_your_micro_oven / P_your_micro_oven ) = ( 150 sec / 1000 W)

I converted the 2:30 recommended time on the bag to 150 seconds for convenience.  The power of your microwave oven should be written on the back somewhere, probably close to the plug.  This leaves your popping time as the only unknown variable in the equation, so it should be straightforward to solve.

That might work.

Method 2: Brute Force/Iterative
Put the bag in the oven and follow the instructions exactly.  Make no changes.  When the time is complete, take the bag out and put the contents in a bowl.

If you are happy with the result, congratulations! You are done.  If not, we will need to change the cooking time for the next bag.

On a piece of paper (or in a document on your computer if you prefer), make some observations to capture things like: time settings used, quality of the popcorn output, taste, number of unpopped kernels, and so on.  Keep a note next to the microwave oven or on the container where you keep more popcorn bags -- a note to reference these 'test results' so that you can have something for comparison the next time.

Basically, you know where I'm going with this.  Pop the first bag with the default recommendations and keep varying the subsequent popping times until you are happy with the result.  This will require "n" bags to iterate through until you are happy with the end result.

This should eventually produce high-quality results.  It may take you some time and will be costly to do it this way as you may have to go through many bags until you get it just right.

Method 3: Popcorn button

Put the bag in the oven, press the 'popcorn' button, serve and enjoy.

I'm not certain how this works.  I shall call it "magic" for now.  I can speculate that perhaps the microwave oven manufacturer has a team of engineers dedicated to the "Perfect Popcorn Production" using their equipment and are responsible for programming the correct power and time settings into their ovens.

Maybe they use Method 1 above.  Maybe they use a combination of methods 1 and 2 above.  Maybe it's something else.

The point here is that someone has already done the thinking for me so that I can focus on the quality of experience of using their oven.

Wow.  I have so many comparisons and analogies back to Software Testing running through my head right now.

One that jumps to mind is development & testing terminology/jargon.

• When is a test not a test? When it is a check. When it is an inspection. When it is a question. and so on.
• Are your [agile] development sprints 2 weeks? No? Why not? That's the default value, so it should work for you, right?

What if software organisations were responsible for their own 'popcorn' buttons? That is, where the 'popcorn button' is a way to communicate the methods and models used within their organisations that produce the desired 'quality' result.

As a consultant, one of the first things I do is watch and listen to the development and project team members. I need to understand their terminology and way of doing things.  That helps set a reference frame for me.  If I want to make an improvement or change somewhere, I need to have an understanding of how to do that on their terms, not terms according to some industry standard or certification terminology dictionary that may not apply.

What would be the point?  Well, I think it would be handy if we could abstract out some of the desired practices from the terminology and implementation details that are specific and custom to every organisation, team or project.

Now that I think about it.  Maybe, we as consultants are the "Popcorn Programming Facilitators."  That is, the company wants to implement an automated regression testing activity.  What does that look like? How can that work for us? What kind of output do we get?

Some days we identify the required popcorn buttons (e.g. Regression Testing, Bug Tracking System, Produce Status/Progress Reports). Some days we help program them.

What do you think?

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Fishing for Wisdom

I just came back from a week at the AYE Conference. My head is full with several new ideas swimming around and stirring up half-baked old ideas - which is a good thing.

One of the thoughts causing my head to spin came from a session one evening where we discussed ideas to improve the conference moving forward. Johanna Rothman led the session and at one point she mentioned that the AYE workshop sessions included pure [Virginia] Satir [ideas, models, etc.] and applied Satir. This got me thinking about some of the subtle differences I had noticed about the sessions and what they meant to me.

In particular, some of the ideas and models I learned from the AYE sessions appear to dwell longer in my mind and apply to a broader spectrum of situations while others seem to be more specific - i.e. an application of a model in a particular context. Don't get me wrong, whether you choose to attend a pure Satir or applied Satir workshop at AYE (and the sessions aren't labelled as such because it doesn't really matter), it's a win-win scenario. :) Sure, different hosts have different styles, but each session is different every time so you sometimes see people attend the same session again to see what new insights they get.

So, what's the big deal here? Why did I get stuck on a small point like this? Well, it reminded me of the time when I was in Teacher's College in the mid-90's, preparing to become a High School Science teacher.

I had 2 main professors in Teacher's College - one for each of my 'teachable' subjects of Physics and Chemistry. Their styles were very different. One professor seemed to keep me busy while the other made me think a lot.

I'll be honest, coming from a university environment to Teacher's College, I expected to be told what I needed to do to be a teacher. You know - I expected a lecture-style learning environment like most of my previous undergraduate courses. What I got didn't match that expectation so I was a bit frustrated at first until I discovered the secret that no one clearly explains to you.

What's the secret? Okay, I'll tell you. The secret is that when you go to Teacher's College, *you* are the teacher, not the student. So, by going there acting like a student expecting to be taught, I had the perspective all wrong.

I don't recall when the paradigm shift happened for me but I'm glad it did. After that point, I didn't consider my professors to be the ones teaching me to be a teacher; I saw them as guides to help me learn the things I needed to be a better teacher.

The real teacher here is experience. And that you can't get unless you are doing what you want to be doing, not sitting in a classroom somewhere talking about what you want to be doing. So what did I get from the Teacher's College experience? I got access to many different 'teachers' to help me deconstruct my experiences so that I could learn from them.

I need to pause for a second and think about that last sentence again. That sounds suspiciously a lot like the AYE conference experience to me. Hmm.

So what was different between my two main professor/guides? I think (now) it was something similar to the difference between the 'pure Satir' and 'applied Satir' AYE sessions. One professor offered tips and ideas that applied in a certain situations - the ones we said mattered to us - while the other discussed models and ideas to help us learn from our own experiences in more broader situations. Looking back, those things weren't clearly stated in that way at the time. I think I understand a bit more now about how they were trying to help us, in different ways, to become better teachers. Of course, both professors provided us with lots of opportunities to practice demos and teaching short topics in an environment where we could safely receive feedback from our peers. (hmm, more AYE conference and PSL familiarity here.)

I recall that someone once mentioned the old Chinese proverb while were at Teacher's College:

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

To me, the quote makes me think of the difference between information and knowledge. I think both professors were trying to teach us to fish (i.e. give us knowledge), just in different ways. They both wanted us to leave the college more confident with knowledge that we could use to help ourselves become better teachers moving forward.

Back to AYE and present day. Reflecting upon the learnings from this past week, I learned new models and ideas that I can apply in many ways - some apply at work and some apply to life beyond the workplace. I think I left with a few fish and a few new fishing techniques.

The old proverb bugs me though. I don't think it completely captures the full experience and feeling of what happened. There's something missing, something meta.

And then it came to me today. It's not the fish. It's not learning to fish either. It's the fishing.

If you pay attention to what you are doing while you are fishing, I think that leads to something other than information or knowledge; it leads to wisdom.

Continuing with this proverb as an analogy, if I learn deep-sea fishing while on vacation, I don't think that will help me very much if I decide to go fly-fishing at a local river. There are many different ways to fish - for the different kinds of fish, the environments in which they live, and the purpose of fishing (e.g. food vs sport).  If we pay attention to more than just the types of fish, their environments and techniques to catch them, we can learn something more, something bigger.  I find it hard to think in broad ideas like that sometimes.  I also find those are the most rewarding moments though.

Attending the AYE conference (and PSL this past Spring) was like that for me.  My head doesn't stop thinking about ways to apply the models and ideas we experience at AYE.  Meeting wonderful, intelligent, kind practitioners from all over the world helps enrich the shared experiences in ways that bring us closer together.  We talk about fish (individual experiences) and techniques to help find solutions to problems we think we see.  And then the hosts/speakers go and show us things that help us solve problems we didn't even think about or see!

For me, attending AYE is an opportunity to meet old friends, learn about myself, learn about how to interact better with others (both at work and in personal life), share experiences and knowledge with colleagues, learn some new problem-solving techniques, make new friends, and pause for a moment to reflect upon where I am in life and where I'd like to be.  It's a moment to notice that I'm fishing - I'm learning and growing.  And that others are fishing too.  And while some are fishing for similar things and others for different things, we all recognise that we are fishing so we have that in common.

It's going to take me a bit of time to unpack all of the ideas I was exposed to this past week because learning happened on many different levels.  I could post some notes, and I plan to, but I don't believe the notes alone can convey the experience of learning that happened there.  Much learning happened between conference sessions too.  You meet so many people with similar or related interests and different experiences that once you start talking in the hallways, over dinner or lounging about somewhere, you can't help but continue to learn and think about things in new ways.

If you want, that is.  If you're into that sort of thing.  If learning, growing, and working better with other human beings isn't your cup of tea, then this conference is definitely *not* for you.

To everyone else, I highly recommend the experience.  This conference, and the PSL workshop, are opportunities that shouldn't be passed up.  It might even change the way you think about things.  It has for me.

To the AYE and PSL hosts, Jerry, Don, Esther, Johanna and Steve, to my Teacher's College professors, Peter and Tom, and to my family, friends, and colleagues who have all provided me with helpful feedback and information to help me grow and be a better person, I thank you.

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Using MS Outlook to support SBTM

Okay, to recap, Session-Based Test Management (SBTM) is a test framework to help you manage and measure your Exploratory Testing (ET) effort. There are 4 basic elements that make this work: (1) Charter or mission (the purpose that drives the current testing effort), (2) Time-boxed periods (the 'sessions'), (3) Reviewable result, and (4) Debrief. There are many different ways that you might implement or apply these elements in your team or testing projects.

Let's take a look at tracking the testing effort from strictly a Project Management perspective. Years ago, when I first became a test manager, I was introduced to the idea of the 60% 'productive' work day as a factor to consider when estimating effort applied to project schedules. That is, in a typical 8-hour workday you don't really get 8 complete, full hours of work from someone. I don't believe it's mentally possible to get that. The brain needs a break, as does the body, and there are many natural distractions in the workplace (meetings, email, breaks, support calls, stability of the code or environments, and so on), so the reality is that the number of productive working hours for each employee is actually something less than the total number of hours they're physically present in the workplace.

That 'productivity' factor changes with each person, their role and responsibilities, the number of projects in the queue, and so on. Applying some statistical averaging to my past experiences, I find that 60% seems about right for a tester dedicated to a single project. I have worked with some teams that have been more productive and some much less.

So what does this look like? If we consider an 8-hour day, 60% is 4.8 hours. I'm going to toss in an extra 15 minute break or distraction and say that it works out to about 4.5 hours of productive work from a focussed employee in a typical 8-hour day. Again, it depends on the person and the tasks that they're performing, so this is just an averaging factor.


4.5 hours is an interesting number. In the SBTM framework, the "Time box" length for the test session revolves around a normalised value. The original SBTM presentation ("How to Measure Ad Hoc Testing") suggests that 1 "Normal" session = 90 minutes (+/- 15 minutes). Your "normal" time box session may be 90 minutes, it may be less. Customise it to suit your team's needs and fit.

I'll use 90 minutes for now because it's the default recommended value to have a focussed test effort to get some solid testing done. 90 minutes. That's 1.5 hours. So 3 * Normal = 4.5 hours.

Therefore, from a project management perspective, 3 Normal sessions is an average tester's target productivity level for completed test sessions in an average 8 hour day.

It doesn't seem like a lot, three 90-minute sessions, but you'd be surprised at the number of distractions that happen throughout the day and development sprints/cycles that can prevent a tester from completing 3 sessions in a day.

Recently, I've been working with a tester on an Agile team who has been facing a high distraction level. As a result of all the interruptions for quick checks, reviews, design meetings, and so on, he has been struggling to complete 3 sessions in a day.

I should mention that I *AM NOT* asking him or anyone else on my team to complete 3 sessions in a day. I am not concerned with the numbers or the math of tracking the sessions completed, especially because the development team environment is very integrated and highly collaborative.

What I am concerned about is trying to find ways to block off his time so that he can get some solid testing done, uninterrupted. One of the powerful aspects of the time-boxed session is to reduce or minimise the distractions so that your brain can maintain the focus on the testing problems at hand. The more the distractions and interruptions, the more likely that something important or interesting will be missed.

Enter MS Outlook. When I look at my Outlook calendar it is riddled with meeting requests throughout the week. I have recurring meetings, impromptu meetings, lunch and learns, scheduled debriefs, sprint planning, retrospectives, demos and so on. I'm the Test Manager/Lead, so that's expected. When I look at my tester's calendar, it is fairly blank/open, save for the daily stand-ups and a few other weekly team meetings. It seems counter-intuitive that someone with an open calendar, so much available 'free' time, should be unable to block off time-boxed periods dedicated to testing specific features and charters.

So I've started to schedule his test sessions in MS Outlook by scheduling Appointments. At the start of the day, we'll sit down and come up with 3 important charters that we'd like to cover in the day. We block off one session/appointment in the morning and two in the afternoon. The "Subject" is a summary of the charter and priority. If the session involves another Dev or team member, they can be included in the appointment, which is now a 'meeting request'.

Outlook is a convenient tool since it (a) is available on everyone's desktop, (b) has built-in reminders, and (c) allows the tester to *see* all the free time available between scheduled test sessions. It's a way for him to try and regain control of the *uninterrupted* test sessions.

SBTM isn't intended to be a time-tracking tool. It's a productivity-enhancing tool. By keeping focussed on the charter, you give your mind time to think about the important things -- to learn about the system and the software, to apply the appropriate tools and techniques, to make the best observations you can in the time you have available. Performing good Exploratory Testing is a delicate and complex thought process.

I see my job as doing whatever I can to help provide the best environment possible for good testing to succeed. I never would have thought that Outlook would factor into that. Who knew?

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Test-Driven Development isn't new

I used TDD as an analogy to a tester today to explain how logging bugs in a bug tracking system drives the development. A bug report represents a failing test (when you verify that it's really a bug that is) according to some stakeholder need/want.

In Test-Driven Development, the programmer writes/automates the test first that represents the user story that the customer/user wants. The test fails. The programmer then writes enough code required to pass the test and then moves on. (refactoring code along the way, etc..)

It's much the same with regular system testing (i.e. in the absence of agile/TDD practices) where a tester identifies and logs a bug in the bug tracking system. One difference is that these bug reports/tests aren't always automated. (Okay, I've never seen anyone automate these bug reports/tests before but I like to believe that some companies/dev teams out there actually do do this.) That doesn't change the fact that a bug report is the failing test. Even if it's a manual test, it drives the development change and then the bug report is checked/retested to see that the fix works as expected.

Bug regression testing, then, is a requirement for good testing and system/software development, not an option.

So, while the agile practices of TDD and others may seem new, I see this one as a retelling of a common tester-programmer practice. If anything, I see TDD as an opportunity to tighten/shorten/quicken the loop between testing feedback and development. With practice, TDD helps programmers develop the skills and habits they need to create code and systems with confidence -- to know that as the system grows, the specific needs of the customers are being met every step along the way. No one gets left behind.

How can we, as testers, help? If your programmers don't practice TDD or automate tests, start investigating ways that you can do this. Investigate Open Source scripting languages. Engage your programmers in discussions of testability of the interfaces. There are many articles and presentations on the internet on the topics of test/check automation, frameworks and Domain Specific Languages (DSL).

Start reading. Participate in discussions (in real life and online). Start developing scripting skills (I recommend Ruby, of course, especially to the tester newbie). If you don't feel confident with your programming skills, help hire someone onto your test team that can help all the testers advance their skills, knowledge, and productivity in that area.

Be the Quality Advocate by putting your words into practice. You want your programmers to start practicing TDD? Show them how you can do it. You are already doing it - scripting/automating the checks that demonstrate a bug failure is just the next step.

Start by automating a single bug failure. Take it from there.

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Why New Year's Resolutions Fail

Someone recently said something to me that made me think. He said that all New Year's resolutions fail because they come at the wrong time.

You know what I mean by New Year's resolutions, right? It's those promises you make to yourself, and maybe to others, right around the end of December that you will change or improve yourself in some way in the new year.

The sentiment may not be wrong, but the timing certainly is. The argument made was that January 1st isn't really the start of the new year - September is. You see, here in North America, whether you are in school or not, most businesses revolve around a "school year" structure of September to June, with July and August being the summer holiday months.

So, if September is the start of the year, we can't make promises to change something in January. That's like starting a 2-week sprint (in Agile Development) and saying half-way through that you are going to have completely new objectives. It doesn't work that way. You already committed to delivering certain goals during the Sprint Planning session at the start.

What's that? What if you didn't set any goals at the beginning of the Sprint/Year in September? Doesn't matter. The Sprint/year started anyway and you are in the middle of it. There's no way you are easily going to shift your life in a totally new direction half way through.

So, the moral of the story is: if you want to make New Year's resolutions, make them in August, not in December. That way you are more likely to follow through with them as the year progresses.

Hm, interesting.

Of course, life changing events can happen any time. You don't need to make a resolution of any kind to change yourself and how you get along in the world. You just need to see yourself how you want to be, and live like you've already reached that goal.

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Testing Software is like Making Love

Work with me for a minute here.

One of the things I dislike about a recent trend in the software testing profession is the lack of analogies and examples that relate to me as an adult. Yes, it's interesting that children are innocent, curious and are natural explorers, but they are also naive, inexperienced and cannot reason or abstract like adults can. I don't find it helpful to me or when training new testers to say you need to be more like children. I'm an adult, so how can you help me now? Do you have an analogy that relates to me as an adult?

Here's an analogy that I think might help.

Testing software is like making love.

What does that mean? For a start, what's the difference between 'making love' and 'having sex'? I think the big difference is caring about the person you are with and wanting to satisfy their needs.

Is there just one way to do it? No. Every person's needs are different, just like every project we help test is unique.

I think people/consultants who specialise in certain things like an automation tool or a process improvement model are kind of like porn stars. They've mastered a technique and go around showing everyone just how good they are. Often, the perceived satisfaction in their results is just superficial and temporary because we are so impressed with their performance and showmanship. Is there real satisfaction or addressing of customer/stakeholder needs in specialists like these? I don't think so. Well, maybe sometimes, but I highly doubt it's the silver bullet/best practice they make it out to be.

Is there a need for specialists? Yes, I think so. We can (usually? often? sometimes?) learn from them. I believe that people (customers, here) fall into high-level patterns and that we (who want to address their needs) should learn from those who have experienced successes in working with certain kinds of customer needs. Does that mean that we should only look to one specialist in our lifetime? That's up to you. That's like saying you only want to learn to use a hammer and will look at all of life's situations with the one tool you know how to use.

Is there value in getting a certificate to show that you've learnt a particular sexual technique? Would you be proud of it? Would you post it up on your wall at work? Would you put it on a t-shirt, business card or advertise that you have this knowledge and/or experience?

There are so many books out there on sex, love and relationships - there are so many different needs and patterns to try and address. If this analogy holds true then the Software Testing industry has a long way to go to catch up on the number of different books published to help people be successful and happy in testing software and systems.

Perhaps we need something like the Kama Sutra of Software Testing. (ooo, I like that. just made it up.)

Does making love involve intercourse? What about tantric sex? What about just cuddling? What if you're alone? Maybe sometimes sex is all you really need at that moment - get in, get the job done, get out. Maybe it's what the customer both needs and wants. Don't think too much about it then. Do your best and move on. Porn stars don't need to build relationships to be famous or successful.

What's the difference between providing someone with what they want compared with what they need? Here's a good follow-up question to ponder: if you provide your customer with what they need instead of what they want, will they still be happy? Will they tell you that? Are you sure that you've really identified what they needed? How do you know? How are you certain about what you think you know?

Talk to your customers. Get to know them. Try to understand both what they are really asking for and what you think they need. Do your best to try and address their needs. Provide everyone on the project with the information they need to be successful in the project constraints. We are only human and therefore make mistakes and miss things sometimes. People can be forgiving too and may provide you with other opportunities to show that you've learned from past experiences and that you care about growing and doing a better job next time.

If the client/organisation isn't forgiving, then take the one-night stand as a learning opportunity and move on. Seek out what you desire. I believe that the best software testers are truly the ones who care about the people we work with and for. They care about doing a good job, about learning, growing and improving their performance and satisfaction level. It's unfortunate that not all of the organisations we work for see that or care. It doesn't stop us though. We're a caring bunch. We're weird that way. ;)

Good software testers are lovers.

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Happy Limerick Day! (May 12th)

The CEO where I currently work sent around the following note by email at the start of today:

Today is Limerick day. A limerick is a five-line poem with a strict form (AABBA rhyming), which intends to be witty or humorous, and is sometimes obscene with humorous intent.

Here is one from me (if you respond in kind let's stay away from the "obscene" part of the definition)!!
[..snip..]

Of course, that challenge went answered and we have had a steady stream of limericks all day!  :)

Here were some of the ones I thought up between meetings and test sessions...


(The first one is on hiring testers:)

What is Quality?
How do you check the functionality?
Provide info in a timely fashion
Prefer those with passion
Most important, you need personality!

Doing good work takes time and thought
If you think testing is easy, it is not
We apply test techniques
To see what reeks
And help the stakeholders know what's hot.

In Exploratory Testing we Learn, Design, Test.
We believe no practices are "the best"
Context helps us decide
Which approaches are tried
Until we solve the problem we do not rest.

Jerry Weinberg is an important man
Of his work and ideas I am a big fan
He helped me to learn
People are the concern
So make helping them succeed the plan

Okay, so I'm not a poet. ;-)

Can you do better?  Leave some limericks in the comments and have fun! =)

Cheers!  Paul.

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