An Idea Please, Bob

Conceptual Blockbusting by James L. Adams is subtitled A Guide to Better Ideas. It tackles the problem of lack of creativity by suggesting and categorising blockers and then proposing ways around them. I reviewed the book recently, and was left with bunch of quotes I enjoyed but didn't have space for. Here they are:

If the problem is not properly isolated it will not be properly solved. (p. 23)

In [Stream Analysis, Jerry Porras] claims that people, especially people in organizations, tend to work on getting rid of symptoms, rather than solving the real problems ... Not surprising, since core problems are more difficult to solve and their solution often creates greater controversy. But perhaps not what we would like to think. (p. 24)

The fear of making a mistake is, of course, rooted in insecurity, which most people suffer from to some extent. Such insecurities are also responsible for [an] emotional block, the "Inability to tolerate ambiguity; overriding desire for order; 'no appetite for chaos.'" ... The solution of a complex problem is a messy process. Rigorous and logical techniques are often necessary, but not sufficient. (p. 48)

The "Preference for judging ideas, rather than generating them" is also the "safe" way to go. Judgement, criticism, tough-mindedness, and practicality are of course essential in problem-solving. However, if applied too early to too indiscriminately in the problem-solving process, they are extremely detrimental to conceptualization. (p. 48)

Another cultural block [is] "Problem-solving is a serious business and humor is our of place." [But] Arthur Koestler ... explained comic inspiration, for example, as stemming from "the interaction of two mutually exclusive associative contexts." As in creative artistic and scientific acts, two ideas have to be brought together that are not ordinarily combined. This is one of the essentials of creative thinking. (p. 61)

No matter how talented the problem-solver, frustration and detail work are inescapable in problem-solving. (p. 69)

Often the degree of difficulty induced by [the block of inadequate language skill, and reluctance to draw to help overcome it] is not even appreciated, since the describer knows exactly what he is trying to describe, and the the describee often naturally assumes that she understands exactly what the other person is describing. (p. 92)

List-making is one of the simplest, most direct methods of increasing your conceptual ability. (p. 133)

Many creativity "techniques" have to do with breaking our mental set — diverting us from accepting the answer that first occurs to us by making us develop and consider others. (p. 134)

If you cannot solve the proposed problem, try to solve first some related problem. Could you imagine a more accessible related problem? A more general problem? A more special problem? An analogous problem? Could you solve a part of the problem? (p. 142)

If you want people to think creatively [their time] should not be scheduled down to the minute. Environmental change must be tailored to the desired goal and level of creativity. (p. 146)

Some of the more important conceptual blocks that apply to groups are: ... poor leadership, ... lack of proper support. (p. 159)

Affiliation needs underlie many of the conceptual blocks discussed [in this book]. People will like you if you think the way they do. But to the extent you succeed in aligning your thoughts with those of others, you can add to your perceptual and intellectual blocks. (p. 166)

A major organizational problem is to properly balance creativity and control. (p. 176)
Images: BBC, Amazon

Comments

Can Code, Can't Code, Is Useful

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "If testers can’t code, they’re of no use to us" My first reaction is to wonder what you expect from your testers. I am immediately interested in your working context and the way

Testing (AI) is Testing

Last November I gave a talk, Random Exploration of a Chatbot API , at the BCS Testing, Diversity, AI Conference . It was a nice surprise afterwards to be offered a book from their catalogue and I chose Artificial Intelligence and Software Testing by Rex Black, James Davenport, Joanna Olszewska, Jeremias Rößler, Adam Leon Smith, and Jonathon Wright. This week, on a couple of train journeys around East Anglia, I read it and made sketchnotes. As someone not deeply into this field, but who has been experimenting with AI as a testing tool at work, I found the landscape view provided by the book interesting, particularly the lists: of challenges in testing AI, of approaches to testing AI, and of quality aspects to consider when evaluating AI. Despite the hype around the area right now there's much that any competent tester will be familiar with, and skills that translate directly. Where there's likely to be novelty is in the technology, and the technical domain, and the effect of

Testers are Gate-Crashers

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "Testers are the gatekeepers of quality" Instinctively I don't like the sound of that, but I wonder what you mean by it. Perhaps one or more of these? Testers set the quality sta

Am I Wrong?

I happened across Exploratory Testing: Why Is It Not Ideal for Agile Projects? by Vitaly Prus this week and I was triggered. But why? I took a few minutes to think that through. Partly, I guess, I feel directly challenged. I work on an agile project (by the definition in the article) and I would say that I use exclusively exploratory testing. Naturally, I like to think I'm doing a good job. Am I wrong? After calming down, and re-reading the article a couple of times, I don't think so. 😸 From the start, even the title makes me tense. The ideal solution is a perfect solution, the best solution. My context-driven instincts are reluctant to accept the premise, and I wonder what the author thinks is an ideal solution for an agile project, or any project. I notice also that I slid so easily from "an approach is not ideal" into "I am not doing a good job" and, in retrospect, that makes me smile. It doesn't do any harm to be reminded that your cognitive bias

Test Now

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "When is the best time to test?" Twenty posts in , I hope you're not expecting an answer without nuance? You are? Well, I'll do my best. For me, the best time to test is when there

README

This week at work my team attended a Myers Briggs Type Indicator workshop. Beforehand we each completed a questionnaire which assigned us a personality type based on our position on five behavioural preference axes. For what it's worth, this time I was labelled INFJ-A and roughly at the mid-point on every axis. I am sceptical about the value of such labels . In my less charitable moments, I imagine that the MBTI exercise gives us each a box and, later when work shows up, we try to force the work into the box regardless of any compatiblity in size and shape. On the other hand, I am not sceptical about the value of having conversations with those I work with about how we each like to work or, if you prefer it, what shape our boxes are, how much they flex, and how eager we are to chop problems up so that they fit into our boxes. Wondering how to stretch the workshop's conversational value into something ongoing I decided to write a README for me and

A Qualified Answer

The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book, Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide responses to common questions and statements about testing from a context-driven perspective . It's being edited by Lee Hawkins who is posing questions on Twitter , LinkedIn , Slack , and the AST mailing list and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to contribute by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me? --00-- "Whenever possible, you should hire testers with testing certifications" Interesting. Which would you value more? (a) a candidate who was sent on loads of courses approved by some organisation you don't know and ru

ChatGPT Whoppers

Over Christmas I thought I'd have a look at ChatGPT . Not to "break" it, or find more examples of its factual incorrectness , but to explore it sympathetically, for fun. And it was fun. In particular, the natural language generation and understanding capabilities of the system are really impressive. However, even without trying it's not hard to expose weaknesses in the tool. So much so that I doubt I would have bothered to blog about what I found, except that I enjoyed the accidental semantic connection between a handful of my observations. I asked for ASCII art to celebrate my 600th blog post on software testing and got this whopper! . .: :: :; ;: .;; .;;: ::;: :;;: ;;;:

Farewell AST

After four years, three of them as Vice President, I'm standing down from the board of the Association for Software Testing . Let me say up front that I am an unapologetic romantic about my craft. (And, yeah , I called it a craft. Sue me.) I believe in what AST stands for, its mission , and in context-driven testing , so it's been an absolute privilege to be involved in running the organisation. It's also been fun, and full of difficult situations and choices, and hard work on top of family life and a day job. There also was the small matter of the global Covid pandemic to deal with. The immediate impact was on CAST, our annual conference , and in some ways the beating heart of the AST. We had to variously cancel, reschedule, and move CAST online and we are still experiencing the after-effects as we organise the 2023 in-person event . So why am I leaving? Well, first, I'm not leaving the organisation, only the board. I am a life member and

Having a Test.blast()

Last week I attended a meetup on API testing with Mark Winteringham . In it, he talked through some HTTP and REST basics, introduced us to Postman by making requests against his Restful Booker bed and breakfast application, and encouraged us to enter the Test.bash() 2022 API Challenge which was about to close. The challenge is to make a 20-minute video for use at the Ministry of Testing's October Test.bash() showing the use of automation to check that it's possible to create a room using the Restful Booker API. I talk and write about exploring with automation a lot (next time is 14th October 2022, for an Association for Software Testing webinar ) and I thought it might be interesting to show that I am not a great developer and spend plenty of time Googling, copy-pasting, and introducing and removing typos. So I did and my video is now available in the Ministry of Testing Dojo . The script I hacked during the video is up in GitHub . My

Hiccupps

Search This Blog