Too many cooks, too many managers

Since we are still hiring and going through the interview process, a disappointing trend has emerged. When asked of their future plans, and where they see themselves, people with very little experience make the claim they want to be a "lead" or manager within a year. They don't speak of going deep and being proficient in the role they're interviewing for. There is no mention of being the go-to person for help and information. No mention of being a subject matter expert. Taking this job is merely a stepping stone. After checking off a couple boxes on their mental to-do list they will take on bigger and better. Never mind they only have two years of experience in this field. It's pretty clear their desire is to pretend to be in charge and tell other people what to do, not produce great results they can be proud of and others might emulate. I don't want to work with people like […]

Building Relationships with Developers

From my own experiences and from watching several webinars, there is a less than ideal relationship between Developers and QA engineers. Problem is, it's not hard to see why. By and large, I have a great deal of respect for developers. Elegant and sophisticated code takes a great deal of time to write, but only takes a short time to test. Like writing, painting, poetry, or playing an instrument, writing good code is an art. Developers pour their intellectual sweat into a project then offer it up to their peers for review. It takes a lot of courage to reveal your code to a public audience, day after day, and say "Critique this." It's a big responsibility to take someone's craft and offer feedback. It's a process that should be treated with respect. But, in many cases, I don't think it is. I've seen and heard it too many times, "Ha! I found a bug!" "You're not getting that sort […]

Agile will save us! Not if your team dynamic is shit

I've recently been involved in several meetings regarding our Software Development Life Cycle tool, which is currently Jira. Like other companies, we want to be more "Agile", so our "ticketing system" is part of that process, among other things. From a QA standpoint, my needs are quite simple, give me a ticket with decent requirements, a way to show I am testing it, and a way to show it's been completed. The needs of others aren't so simple. I've heard dozens of comments about: I need a Retrospective board I need Gantt charts I need Kanban If we had a tool that does X If I could follow process Y I need to create stories using this method If I was able to track Z If I could get a timeline of Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc… In many ways it sounded like let's blame the tool for our shortcomings. Problem is, it's not the tool. If that was […]

Townscaper – Beautifully quirky

I found Townscaper the other day and within minutes I bought my own copy from Steam. It’s a game that’s not really a game at all. It’s somewhat of a city builder, but there are no people, no money, no goals, no achievements, just the fun of laying out a gloriously colorful city. But as you will soon see, it’s not the average city builder. Buildings change depending on how they’re placed, how many are placed, if they’re stacked or touching another building. They also change based on how high they are, what they connect to, and several other factors. Also, the grid isn’t square, so you get wonderful curves and angles. It’s like building a 3D puzzle where all the pieces fit no matter how you place them. It’s very easy to play for just a few minutes, or absolutely lose yourself in it for several hours. It’s great fun and I can’t wait to see how the game […]

Quarantine Summer Reading List

With kids going to back to school, such as it is, I thought I would offer up my small, but interesting Quarantine Summer Reading List. I chose a couple of books focused on Steve Jobs, another on Richard Garriott, and one for Jacques Pepin. It's not all biographies as I read most books in the Allan Quatermain series. Quatermain may not be most recognized character, but for many he's known as Indian Jones. For Steve Jobs, I picked up Becoming Steve Jobs and Insanely Great. I've previously read the Walter Isaacson tome, and wanted some other perspectives. First, it's clear that early in his career, Jobs was an absolutely terrible manager. He had to have things done his way, enjoyed creating chaos, believed he was the smartest person in the room and was very quick to call someone a bozo. He is/was ridiculously arrogant and self-centered with all sorts of entitlement issues. Some times his style work. Most of the […]