What happened at DEWT1 doesn’t just stay at DEWT1 (June 11, 2011)

Artful Testing

Speaking of which… during our last preparatory DEWT-meet-up, my fellow DEWTees shanghaied me into doing the first talk of the day, which they promptly called a keynote to make it sound like an invitation. I thankfully accepted though, since I wanted to get some feedback on my work-in-progress presentation. The link between art and testing has been consuming me for more than half a year now. I premiered my ideas on it at the second Writing About Testing (WAT) conference in Durango last month (if you haven’t done it already, you should check-out the great WAT write-ups from Marlena Compton, Alan Page and Markus Gärtner).

Ruud (who facilitated the morning sessions) kicked off the conference and invited me to take the proverbial stage. Based on the feedback from WAT, I made some modifications to the presentation and put it out here again for a second time. I don’t know if the subject was really fit for an early morning session, but I received some gratifying feedback that convinced me to pursue my efforts in this direction.

Transpections

Transpections (basically a way of learning and sharpening your ideas by putting yourself in someone else’s place in some kind of Socratic dialog) were on our DEWT wish list for quite some time already. We had been reading all sorts of interesting stuff on it (see James Bach’s post here, some Michael Bolton posts here and here, and Stephen J. Hill’s post here), so we asked Michael Bolton if he would be willing to give us a quick roundup on the subject. Michael agreed and made it into an interactive session, inviting us to pair up to gather information about transpections and then transpect on that. Meta-transpection for the win!

The information gathering exercise was enlightening, and brought up some good food for thought. Michael compared a transpection session with the play between a hammer and an anvil, where the hammer would be the initiator of the transpection, the anvil the person whom the initiator is transpecting with, and the metal the idea being shaped.

In the end, we didn’t get to try an actual transpection session, partly because I artfully exceeded my allotted time in the previous session. Oh well…  It was a valuable exercise nonetheless.

Lightning talks

After lunch there were some lightning talks to fight the afternoon dip:

• Jeroen got started about the hierarchic “testing pyramid” model (testers / test coordinators / test managers) and how he wants to challenge that classical view
• Huib followed, on “the power of knowing nothing”, about how starting with a (mentally) clean slate reduces the chances of being biased. “It’s not about the what, it’s about the “why”
• I touched upon the topic of the Baader Meinhof phenomenon and how testers could leverage the effect by absorbing as much knowledge as possible, on several subjects (a blog about that has been sitting in my drafts since january 2010 – I’ll try to finish that)

Introducing exploratory testing in Dutch projects

Ray then presented an experience report on how he was able to introduce exploratory testing and session based test management in classic, T-Map-style projects, using the principles he learned from Rapid Software Testing. Discussion ensued on how to prove the benefits of RST, and what the major differences between the approaches are. But we ended up talking mostly about “release advice”, and what to do when you’re asked to give it. One take-away phrase for me: “it’s not declining, it’s empowering the product manager”.

Walking break & Positive Deviance

Although we finished the previous topic way ahead of schedule, everyone felt like the last discussion drained our energy (our staying up late the night before probably didn’t help either). Jeanne, who facilitated the afternoon sessions, had the brilliant idea to just go out for a walk in the “Utrechtse Heuvelrug” national park, which turned out to be a conference session in its own right: relaxing, fun and informative. A beautiful spot, too. There was a moment where I thought we were getting lost, but here’s another lesson: do not underestimate the power of nine explorers, without a map.

Back at the hotel, Michael talked about positive deviance and positive deviants (people whose uncommon but successful behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers, despite having no special resources or knowledge). He also showed us a video of Jasper Palmer, a patient transporter at the Albert Einstein hospital (and a positive deviant) who became famous for his “Palmer Method”, which is now a standard life-saving practice in a number of hospitals. A mighty fascinating topic, that I’ll be exploring more for sure.

Credibility

Ruud delivered the closing presentation, on credibility – the quality of being trusted and believed. The main issues Ruud addressed were: how do we – testers – build credibility, and how do we manage to maintain it? After all, trust is built slowly, but destroyed in seconds. Simple questions, but a very complex subject indeed. “Trust” and “credibility” are relations: you can be credible to some person at a certain moment in time, but totally incredible to another. Trying to build your credibility is not always something controllable. Sure, you can do your very best to improve your credibility on a personal level, but you don’t really have an influence on how people will perceive you. Ruud then explained how he tries to build credibility. He impressed me with the personal mnemonic he developed, and the matching artwork as a personal reminder to stick to these principles:

STYLE

• Safety language
• Two ears one mouth
• Yes but
• Lighten up a little
• Empathy

I’m not going in detail here, because I specifically want Ruud to finish that blog post he’s been mulling over for ages now. So, yes Ruud, the pressure is on. You’ve got some great material – time to share it with the world!