Witnessed Bangalore Testers Meet-up #4

This blog post is the aftermath of my recent learning experience. I saw a tweet from Santhosh Tuppad, author of www.tuppad.com on Bangalore Testers Meet-up #4 August 28th, 2010 at 0600 PM IST.

Quick 5 questions chewed my mind were,
1. What’s this tester’s meet-up is all about?
2. What would be the agenda?
3. What could be the outcome of this meet-up?
4. What’s new will I be learning & sharing, if I take part in this meet-up?
5. How will I be benefited, if I want to travel all the way to Bangalore from Chennai?

Quick answers from Santhosh Tuppad.
I invited myself to this party. Began to negotiate, got cool answers with broad *smiles*. I like him, for his hospitality, you want to know why - continue reading his very first reply...

Wow, I am glad to hear it from you Shiva. This is really amazing and I am seeing the change in Indian testers willing to travel for meeting testers and interacting with them. This is amazing. You are most welcome. You can come to the meet-up my dear friend. Please share your phone number so that I can call you and talk to you. *Thumbs up*.
Cheers!
Santhosh Tuppad

Quick investment of 6 hrs journey. (from Chennai-To-Bangalore)
When I shared this piece of information to my colleagues they were greatly interested to be an active participant of this summit. That sounded interesting to me, while two of my other colleague were little reluctant since they had other personal works. Since then, I got approval from Santhosh to bring two more co-testers Ajwan & Sivakumar-the test enthusiast to this summit. 'Approval Granted'- we landed safe, checked in at my friends place and after refreshment we were all set to take part in the meet-up. Breeze was so cool at 0545 pm IST, is the time when I rang Santhosh to Check for his availability. He was right there at Transit, Forum Mall, Bangalore. Right at 0600 pm, we just started with some introduction talk while we were waiting for other participants to come.

Quick testing in 15 minutes deadline & to produce test reports,
When we had the entire known participants list that had come we started discussions and after some time Pradeep Soundararajan took initiative of starting an exercise. We were asked to split up among the participants in the fashion we had seated. So teams formed with 4 members.Each team had one laptop. We were asked to test Microsoft Calculator. My team included Dhanasekar S, Myself,Nitin Purswani and Santhosh Tuppad-is the one who took control of the laptop where we performed tests which included everyone test ideas. However the ultimate control was with Sathosh since he owned a laptop :) While we were testing Pradeep offered us drink and he got a drink for each of us. Finally, we got 10 new bugs of existing-successful-Microsoft product [Wait, no matter of being proud this wasn’t a competition this was an exercise- This was the instruction from the facilitator]. We were asked to stop testing as the end of 15th minute as the time got over.

Quick Evaluation,
Pradeep Soundararajan started evaluating our reports and asked us questions about strategy – team work, individual contributions to the team and more. He was evaluating based on our answers and our reports and many other criteria. Q&A session extended to 4 hours of highlighting traps,
Common Traps from the teams were,
-We did not ask any question before testing,
-We did not have a planned strategy,
-We did not check whether Microsoft Calculator had known issues in Google,
-We just jumped onto testing,
-We just listed bugs, however we did not take notes and our observations,
-We did not question, what kind-of bug report does Pradeep expect?


Quick Learning
Normally, we think that 15 minutes won't be sufficient to raise these above valid questions to get sufficient answers. But during those 15 minutes everyone answered 'Yes' to Pradeep Soundararajan when he questioned ''Guys I wish to sponsor drinks, who would like to opt for it?''. So it is not the time factor. It is we who jump on to testing without questioning about the test activity. I remember the real-time-test-deadlines and our assertiveness to react to such critical deadline. Altogether every bit of information was valuable and had lots of learning & fun at the end of the summit

Dear Chennai testers, Is there some initiative happening at our end like this for chennai tester's? something like Chennai Testers Meet-up#. If so let me know about it.OR if I see any volunteers who would like to be a part of it, we can try implementing in Chennai- If you're one among us, who are ready to learn,share and keep on learning.

If you want to take part in Bangalore Testers Meet-up# contact @santhoshst or @xploresqa in twitter.

Thanks you for spending valuable time,
Shiva Mathivanan.

Testing mentors in limelight

I recently met so many experienced test engineers and testers, who are not with engineering background but with different streams of science & math in India. To my surprise most of them aren't aware of neither the context driven school of testing nor the heuristic aspects of testing in general.

‘Ah what does that mean?’ I can sense your interrogative look too, continue reading :)

The most “senior test engineers” or “QA professionals”, in whatsoever designation a ‘software tester (a hominid who tests software products) would like him to be identified, have just learnt how to survive in their jobs, by building test metrics, test case designing, test case execution, test automation, bug reports, traceability matrix, test reports, etc; driven fundamentally based on SDLC & STLC, for days, months & years. Though these testers pertain to be successful testers, they lack the essence of sustaining in this craft for longer period. Why is it so?
It is because, they have been practicing testing just because to uphold their jobs particularly in recession times. Although most of these experienced manual and automation testers in India, who claim they acquire 10+ and more years of experience, are into this craft of testing ONLY either by strange coincidence or by choice and NOT by Interest. So fundamentally they are reluctant to share their knowledge, ideas even to their co-tester, despite of generating teamwork cohesion. Typically, this implies a preservation of nothing.

The outcome of this attitude will conduct a tester to think & preach to his co-testers as follows:

• Testing is monotonous
• Testing has lesser scope to learn & earn.
• Testing is not challenging as programming.
• Testing is a dumb activity, if worked in the same domain for 3+ years.
• Testing is theoretical, the one who mug up the definitions can clear interviews easily to get bunch of job offers.
• Testing is a battle field with programmer. Programmer's always battles with the tester, who injects defects on his code, be prepared. *caution to tester, by senior tester.
• Testing is a dependent job, always should depend on the programmer & release engineering team.
• Testing consumes more time, not even 30% of development time is provided for testing. However, they expect 100% test coverage that too in tight deadlines.
• Testing is reiterative activity, feeling exasperated beyond endurance.
• Testing is__________________________________________

You can spend invaluable time in virtually filling you’re preserved pessimistic thoughts in your mind, If you had already been advocating the same to your co-testers, programmers & managers.

When you saw the blank straight line after the words 'Testing is" have you had a question in your mind that 'why it's left blank'? Before reading the next line of sentences?
If so, it's good continue reading... If not practice the art of questioning!

From the blog reader, mind’s- Hey, come-on Shiva Mathivanan, you have been cursing me for so long, you were just highlighting the traditional flaws, misapprehension, ambiguous definitions in testing crafts.
How can you prove that I’m wrong? I bet if you prove it will help me to understand where we mutually stand. And also tell us what is context driven school of testing, what's heuristics all about and how is it going to benefit me in this testing craft, how can I be more passionate towards testing?. (Yes, I can hear you)

Shiva Mathivanan - Good question: I can very well prove what you desire. However, I would like you to read what my mentors have already told about testing. Read through my mentor’s views; start contributing to the testing arenas where my mentors participate. I’m sure that your testing genes will regenerate better (like how normal hormonal genes hyper when a hot girl/boy passer-by *wit*) and you will be a self motivated tester soon, someday.

I’m honored to introduce my great testing mentors. I have chosen them as guru in my testing religion is because I have understood their sensible talks, views, approaches and reliable service to testing community. I always have wondered, how limelight testers & mentors like James Bach, Cem Kaner, Michael Bolton & , Jerry Weinberg have never got tired of rendering their service to this software testing community, while most of the Indian testing geeks in various parts of the globe still in obscurity?

To bring the change, I welcome you all to read my mentor’s view:
1. Dr.Cem Kaner, Software Engineering Professor– http://kaner.com
2. James Bach, Principal Staisfice.Inc – http://www.satisfice.com
3. Jerry Weinberg, consultant - http://www.geraldmweinberg.com
4. Michael Bolton, http://www.developsense.com
5. Pradeep Soundararajan, Test consultant - http://testertested.blogspot.com

My dear blog reader’s you too will be the Ekalavya of above testing genius, some day if you ensure realization of their context. Get into the habit of writing blogs, Get to know why good software testers should write blogs by Pradeep Soundararajan. Pradeep is a exceptional Indian, who never set back to consult, coach and serve as prelude to Indian testing community.


The after effects of testers who reads my mentor's blog:

• Exploratory testing is what I have been doing, but never to this extent.
• Rapid software testing is WOW.
• I'm proud to be a sapient tester, rather identified as manual tester.
• To be a tester is a blessing, I enjoy everyday test activities.
• Developer versus Tester a win-win kaizen to build quality into the product.
• I started blogging my test experience, sharing thereby learning more.
• I understood how to question a product in order to evaluate it - James Bach.
• My approach towards testing has refined a lot.
• My confidence boosted, I can be a successful independent test consultant in future.

Who knows some day, someone like me will be highlighting your views to rest of the testing world, like how I showered my tribute. All the best!

Evaluate you're testing experience, how was testing? by www.vettanna.com
Thank you for spending valuable time!
Shiva Mathivanan

Hello Testing World!

I'm wending a step forward into the blogger's world. This is the blog space to showcase my test experience and to cater you the joy of software testing on your yearn.

SOWN now, and hey wow can you see its GROWING well, then of-course it will BEAR you soon.


Welcome to my Blog
Shiva Mathivanan, Senior Test Engineer

I belong to context driven school of testing. If you want to know more about me then contact me at shivakumar.mathivanan@gmail.com or Skype me at shivamathivanan. I welcome you all once again to my blog. Wishing to hit your vision & conscious soon with updated posts. Thank you.!

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