Software takes as long to develop as it takes.This is Greg Pope's First Universal Estimating Law, from his keynote speech at Quality Week 2002. His second law reinforces this: "Software development time is not influenced by what [how long] we would like it to take." To drive it home and bring us to the topic of this month's feature article, here's Jerry's Iron Rule of Project Life, from More Secrets of Consulting: "It always takes longer."
Well, here we are again. I hope you'll take the time to browse, and dive in to anything that catches your eye. And as my loyal subscribers have to tolerate hearing every time, if you're not signed up to receive the email edition of the newsletter, please plug in your email address at http://tejasconsulting.com/newsletter/ to make sure you don't miss an issue.
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-Danny R. Faught
faught@tejasconsulting.com
http://tejasconsulting.com/
817-294-3998
I continued my exploration of freeware and open source at Quality Week in San Francisco. It was nice to be back after missing it for a few years. I have posted the materials from my presentations - A Survey of Freeware Test Tools (quickstart tutorial, zipped pdf slides, 420K), The Making of an Open Source Stress Test Tool (track session paper, plus slides in zipped pdf format).
I thoroughly enjoyed giving a tutorial about using the Perl scripting language in a test environment at the Software Test Automation Conference in Boston. It looks like you'll have a few additional opportunities to attend the tutorial in 2003, or you can contact me about setting up an expanded version of the course on your site.
The stress_driver tool (mentioned in some way in all three presentations referenced above) has a temporary home at http://tejasconsulting.com/stress_driver/ while I work on setting up a SourceForge project. You may use it under a modified Apache license, the terms of which are included in the package. Stress_driver is a general-purpose stress test driver that schedule multiple invocations of a test script that you provide. It's a Perl script that should run in Unix-like environments, including Cygwin under Windows.
Regarding my Eric Raymond quote, Ron Jeffries said:
No, tell, tell. What did he suggest?Basically, he suggested going high-end casual. Eric said that a geek wearing a suit would look unnatural if they weren't use to wearing a suit. Personally, I go for eclectic casual, which seems to fit Eric's advice right on. I just need to get more tropical shirts. :-)I often think it'd be interesting to figure out the right costume, and I like his metaphor of a high-ranking member of a social order they don't understand. I'll have to work on that....
Jon D Hagar wrote:
Another reason that I got a certification besides what you voiced, is that I can't criticize something if I don't know what the something is. Now I know, and would voice many of the concerns that your piece articulated. I would like to see education/certification progress (maybe along the lines James envisions), and what we have is pretty poor. Just an FYI.Right, that's part of the reason I did it.
Alan Richardson also chimed in on certification:
I read your article on certification with interest as I have recently been adopting both pro and negative positions about the merits of the ISEB foundation certification. I enjoyed reading your thoughts and Bret Pettichord's and James Bach's comments.Andrew Gardner writes about a newsletter issue from last year that has drawn more comments than all others:I hated the idea of certification when the ISEB certificates were launched. I read the proposed syllabus with disdain and I didn't agree with the definitions. I would prefer that testers did what I did: read as many of the software engineering and testing books as you can, read them more than once, browse the hundreds of testing web sites out there, read the dedicated magazines, speak to other testers, and make up your own definitions and models of testing. And importantly - design software, program software and test, Test, TEST software.
I would prefer that we didn't put as much value on the holding of a certificate, and instead viewed it for what it is, the ability to pass an exam. I do think you could pass the ISEB foundation certificate with good exam technique rather than any ability to test and that training companies which teach exam technique along with the syllabus will have the best pass rates.
I would prefer that employers didn't use it as an initial accept/reject criteria when reviewing CVs, but in the current market where there are so many testers submitting CVs for each job, it is the easy way to limit the number of CVs that they have to review.
I still think that the biggest winners in this game are the training companies and that it will make it harder for companies that know very little about testing to evaluate testers.
As a benefit, it does mean that holders of the certificate have an absolute minimal exposure to basic testing concepts but I would be concerned if the holder's thought the information was absolutely correct.
As a comparison, consider the London taxi driver. The Knowledge is the name given to the set of learning that London Taxi Drivers have to acquire before they can be certified. It generally takes 3 years to become a London taxi driver. Over 450 routes form part of the knowledge and have to be learned by rote. The examination to pass the knowledge is a stressful verbal exam where the examiner gives the student a start place and an end place and asks for the route... quickly. A potential taxi driver might well undergo this process several times. Stress, and the way that the taxi driver deals with the situation, are a part of the exam and a potential taxi driver can be failed for cracking under the pressure or swearing in the heat of the moment.
And yet the knowledge, the defined knowledge for the exam, is only the start. The defined knowledge covers only half of the routes that the taxi driver will have to know. There are many shortcuts to learn and routes outside those covered by the knowledge and they will have to learn those the hard way... on the job, with passengers in the back, with a blocked road up ahead and two tempting side roads off to the left with the potential for more road works once they have changed to a new route.
I've just read your review of The Art of Software Testing by Glen Myers in which you state: "I would not recommend this as a first book to learn about software testing..." I'm interested in getting into testing and I would like to know what your recommendation for a first book to learn about software testing would be.Good question, Andrew. For a very basic but wonderfully well-written introduction, try Software Testing by Ron Patton (ISBN: 0672319837). For a more serious introduction with better references to additional information, the most popular and practical choice is Testing Computer Software by Cem Kaner et al. (ISBN: 0471358460). Both are reviewed in the StickyMinds Books Guide.
More Secrets of Consulting is a follow-on to Jerry's earlier book, The Secrets of Consulting, which was published in 1985. More Secrets is focused on Jerry's specialty, which is software consulting. But the possible applications of the tool kit that he describes go far beyond software, and well beyond consulting in general. Consider that the original tools are based Virginia Satir's self-esteem tool kit, which she developed in her work as a family therapist (and her tools are based in turn on metaphors like those in the Wizard of Oz). In the brief time that I've been consciously using the tools, I've found applications in my work life, but even more significantly in my personal and spiritual life. So unless you read the book with blinders on, be prepared for it to improve the way you interact with people in all parts of your life.
Like The Secrets of Consulting, More Secrets is full of maxims, such as Cary's Crap Caution: "Anything not worth doing is not worth doing right, or, never giftwrap garbage." You have to think carefully to understand how to apply some of them, such as "If it hurts, it must be good for you," which is The Antiseptic Absurdity. The lesson is that this one is absurd, not that you should use this literally as a guide. And there's the law that Jerry applied when deciding whether to write the book in the first place, The Law of Strawberry Jam: "As long as it has lumps, you can never spread it too thin."
I returned from Weinberg & Weinberg's Congruent Leadership Change Shop just a few weeks ago, sadly, the last such workshop that Dani and Jerry ever plan to conduct. They sent us home with the book The New Peoplemaking, by Virginia Satir. But when I got home, I found More Secrets sitting on my shelf still unread. Actually, when More Secrets was delivered, my wife, who is also a consultant, that is, a Mary Kay beauty consultant, took it, and I had only recently managed to get it back. As I thumbed through More Secrets again, those quirky little pictures of the tools suddenly had much more meaning for me. I had just spent a solid week learning about and practicing using these tools. Actually, Change Shop only covered Satir's original six tools, plus one more that Jerry added. But More Secrets covers 16 tools, showing that the concept is easily expanded and personalized. In fact, toward the end of the book, Jerry encourages the reader to do just that, and he also explains how and why he created several of the tools.
I won't try to summarize all of the tools here. Just to give you a taste, here are a few. The Wishing Wand - a wonderful reminder that if you want something, you can ask for it. I have memories from Change Shop of people wielding a wishing wand during the sessions, and even at the restaurant at lunch. The Heart reminds us "of the hopes and wishes and fears and sensitivities of others." I remember wearing a plush heart around my neck at Change Shop. And there's the Courage Stick, which got a good workout throughout the workshop. If you think these tools are too far removed from your work, then you need to go back and learn The Second Law of Consulting, "No matter how it looks at first, it's always a people problem," from The Secrets of Consulting.
The tools are all closely interrelated, and I can imagine that it was difficult to decide what order in which to present them. The chapters are full of backward and forward references to other chapters. There are also numerous references to other books written and co-authored by Jerry. Suddenly, I realize that I have yet more reading to catch up on.
While I found the book a very good reinforcement and extension of what I had learned of Satir's tools, I worry that someone who hasn't studied them before will have a more shallow experience from the book than I did. It's a short book - only 200 pages if you count the index - perhaps not thorough enough to really allow the message to sink in.
There are some casual references to some of Satir's concepts that aren't explained in the book. For example, Jerry uses the term "super-reasonable," though the book only hints at the Satir Communication Wheel where this concept can be understood. Even after going through Change Shop, I'm still struggling a bit with what "super-reasonable" really means. I searched for this term on Google to see how likely it would be that people could find further information about it. I got one or two good hits, and lots of references to "super reasonable rates" from sites trying to sell me something. If you do have some understanding of the term, maybe you'll find this as hilarious as I did. Unfortunately, there are no references to any of Virginia Satir's writings in the book.
Despite some minor flaws, More Secrets of Consulting is a very valuable resource for consultants, especially those who think (almost certainly mistakenly) that their biggest problems are technical in nature. It's also a great introduction to Satir's self-esteem tool kit, which all humans can benefit from. Should you read The Secrets of Consulting first? If you're going to read both, and you should, you might as well start with the first one, which is also broadly applicable beyond the field of consulting. Just yesterday I helped my daughter apply some of that wisdom from the first book to help her with an interaction with her little sister. There are several references from More Secrets to the earlier book, though they're pretty well self-contained, so you'd do just fine reading More Secrets by itself.
More Secrets of Consulting is a quick read that could serve as a jumping off point for further exploration of Jerry's books. With the many references to his other books, you'd be able to make an informed decision about which book to pick up next. What to do if you'd like to learn more about the self-esteem tool kit and other concepts from Virginia Satir, now that Jerry's workshops have been discontinued? There are several options - you can take Satir-based training from Jean McLendon, who is a close associate of Jerry and Dani Weinberg, or hang out with Weinberg groupies at the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference or on Jerry's online SHAPE Forum.
Copyright 2002, Danny R. Faught
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