Hiccupps

A few months ago I was asked if I'd consider standing for the board of the Association for Software Testing . After giving it a lot of thought, and talking to some people, I decided that I probably did have something to offer, even if it's only the perspective of a relative outsider. Last week, at CAST 2019  the voting results were announced ... and I'm in ! For the record, then, here's my answers to the election questionnaire . Q1: Why are you an AST Member? When I first became a tester I sought out resources to help me learn what testing was. The first book I bought was Lessons Learned in Software Testing and I found that the way it described testing was the way I naturally wanted to test. I researched the authors and their other work which led me to Rapid Software Testing, joining AST, and completing the BBST Foundations course. I remain a member of AST because of its integrity, its dedication to the testing craft, and its commitment to a strong ...

Last week, unexpectedly, I became a Licensed Scrum Master. I knew I was attending a course run by Scrum Inc  with a group of my colleagues, but I had no idea that there was a short online multiple choice exam and a certification for me at the end. It's easy to be sceptical and sniffy about the industry around Scrum, but I try to go into training events in a positive frame of mind , looking to participate, open to having my views changed. I'm not sure that there was a seismic perspective shift for me on this occasion, but I still thought it'd be interesting to run a personal retrospective. Some background first: I've never worked on a Scrum team, although I manage testers on them. I'm very interested in ways that software can be developed and tested, and one of my favourite books in that space is  Extreme Programming Adventures in C# by Ron Jeffries, a great practical example of iteration, reflection, and honesty. A disclaimer too: without much visibility of...