The Next Great Depression

Everybody has experienced it, we have all lost something because of it, (Jobs, houses, belongings, raises) If you have not been affected in the least bit by the economic downfall of America you are either very lucky or you are a Corporate big wig. IF the later is true, and you are reading this, please, stop blog searching while you are waiting for the next tee off to free up.
My personal categorization of the Next Great Depression is 2 simple bullet points.
* Those with a job
* Those without a job
My hypothesis is based on personal experience and a working knowledge on what’s currently happening in the job market based on my searches and friends who are both out of work and working.
Those with a job are facing the most challenging times of our careers. Some days you have too much to do and other days not enough. ( which can lead to the impression that you are no longer needed)
Although it may be nice to daydream about leaving the current shithole you are working in, I must give you some solid advice. The few jobs YOU qualify for that are available are being scooped up by overqualified applicants who are willing to work for peso's. It is more attractive to the current employers to hire an over qualified person. These people can do the job above them and below them, for only a buck or two more than what they would pay the normally qualified person to do the job.
Till this economy REALLY picks up. ( not just some talking head on TV saying " I believe stuffs getting better! The stock market went up today. ") I am talking about jobs flooding the market, unemployment going down to 4%, The REAL thing.
Till that happens, your best bet is to deploy all the tricks you have learned over the years to keep busy or at least appear to be. I had a Test Lead that showed me a macro in excel which basically was a fancy graft. He would set the macro and the graph would move around and change parameters randomly, giving the illusion of excel work being done. Now, I am not saying to fake like you are working, BUT, if your boss walked by and glanced at your desk, JUST as you were taking a quick break to eat a snack, what would he see? (keep in mind HE is being pressured by upper management to cut costs )
Well, in his eyes, he would see you lounging at your desk doing nothing, maybe even think about cutting you loose.
Next scenario:
You have a macro running in excel that makes your desk top look like some major work is happening. You take a break to eat a snack at your desk. Your boss walks by and glances your way. He see’s an employee who is taking their break at their desk while they still work, and maybe thinks....mmmmmm...efficient! (and like a boy holding a magnifying glass with the sun focused to a fine point over an ant, the giant job disintegrating laser moves slowly past you like the Death star))
Don’t laugh, decisions can be made about your entire career at a glance.
Corporate America cares nothing for you or your family or your lively hood.
Its up to your knowledge of your surroundings and your basic instinct for survival to keep your job during these horrible times we currently live in.

On to the next category,
Those without a job.
If you are not collecting unemployment, contact your state unemployment agency, special programs are in place under the Obama administration to get you help.
Also, special programs are available for reduced insurance through COBRA.
Now is the time to seek help from your inner circle of friends who might connect you to a lead on a position.
Everything else is common knowledge, search engines for jobs, keeping your resume up to date, ect ect.
Keep a positive attitude and May the force be with you.

Please leave any helpfull advice on how to look busy in the comments section, maybe togeather we can help the American workers keep our jobs by learning how to "Look Busy"

Tom Wilk

Tom Wilk is a visionary who was my Team Leader. He was a mentor, a father , a brother , a friend. He rattled cages, he walked tall and carried a big fucking stick! ( or paddle) He shook the very foundation of the company I work for! He was let go as a result of god knows what.
Tom,
you gave me pride, you believed in me when no one else would. I am what I am in this industry becuase of you. You are a true warrior and I look forward to eating a great feast with you at the warriors table in Vallhala. or having breakfast with you at the secret bacon spot. You will not be forgotten. Like a fire that races through the inspired, I will strive to be better tomarrow than I am today, because of what you taught me.
You will always have my respect.
David Burns STE

Squad Monkey

When I started in this industry as an STE, I was taught that I was a professional who provided the headlights for a project, I learned how to test using tools, using brain power, using devs. Quality was paramount.
And then my world fell apart, my mentor was let go, my team torn apart and I was thrown into a squad of monkeys to popcorn test. My professional garb stripped from me, I have become what I feared the most , a rabid Squad Monkey tester, bearing my teeth at all those around me because I fear what I don’t understand. Now I am only jumping from one test tree to another, filling out blocks that say "Pass" or "Fail". I fling my bug poo against the wall to no avail. or worse whore myself out to the Nerd Herd because I am shameless and have a mortgage to pay.
Buried alive.........buried alive.......Khannnn!!!!!!!!!!!!
Where are the leaders of this industry? why are they not rallying against the great horde of Borg, ie India. Who are driving our standards down, killing the fuck out of this industries standards! And shame on the companies who use a failing economy as an excuse to do stupid shit to their bread and butter. I hope you lose your fucking seat in Valhalla and are forced to stand in the cold, watching the real Heroes feast at a table of bountiful testing jobs.
I used to think of Microsoft as the land of milk and Honey, a place I was STRIVING to work at some day. Now, they are more like the land of the lost.
I hope this black cloud passes,
What we need right now as an Industry, hell, as a nation is HOPE.
and let the light from my Excel spreadsheets show the way to a land of Quality, a land free from the influence of India and her 8 armed testers, I pray to the tester GODS everyday for this, Until then I will learn to survive in this post apocalyptic world of testing. bleeding from battle every day, I will go home with my head hung low, defeated.

The Kaner Story

Hi, My name is David Burns I am a Software test Engineer for a shop in Redmond Washington. If you know me in our area you might have heard me referred to as “The Kaner story”. But it wasn’t always so, let me explain.
For 14 years I assisted surgeons in the operating room, doing shock trauma surgery. I traveled across the country and worked in the biggest and busiest operating rooms in the USA. Eventually I ended up in Seattle, looking to move up in the field of Surgical Technology (after doing over 30,000 trauma cases as well as orthopedic specialties like total hip and knee replacement, it was time to impart my knowledge.)so, I became a teacher in Bellevue and developed and ran the surgical technology program with a classroom as well as Laboratory activities. In 2007, the school I was teaching in closed down, and I got a gig with a small company as a corporate trainer. This particular company had me teaching technicians how to use a PDA with some pages added to the UI by a developer ,the company hired to write code. Of course, they needed the pages tested so I was briefly trained on how to do this. Mostly UI testing with some bug reporting, both verbal and written. Shortly thereafter, my contract ran out with them and I was once again faced with the challenge of finding work in an economy that was quickly taking a nose dive right into the shitter. On unemployment and going nowhere fast I wanted to try and keep the meager testing skills I possessed sharp as well as develop them into a meaningful career. I really enjoyed testing the small project I was on before, it was like surgery, deconstructing something and finding the cancerous areas, only no blood and guts. My wife gave me a book to read that she said was imperative for me to develop my career as a test engineer, Testing Computer Software by Kaner,Falk and Ngeyen. I dove right into the book ,even though I had no idea what half the stuff in there was talking about, I asked questions to anyone I knew in the industry about the book and took it everywhere I went .I put my resume out on the market but received very few hits as I was so green and stumbled through the few interviews , scaring the interviewee with my answers ( but at one of the interviews I was asked to test a triangle, the first input I entered broke their testing program and 2 developers appeared like CIA to stand over me and watch me repro what I had done so they could fix it! I have to say I was elated that I had successfully broken their testing program used for interviews! I was later told by friends in the industry that I should have gotten the job just for that fact. But much bigger and better things awaited me and my fate lay elsewhere in the industry) desperate to develop my newly honed skills I took a job making minimum wage at a game test lab. I have coined the term “nerd heard” for this job, as hundreds of unwashed youth would pour into the secure labs each day and sit with headphones on “testing” games in a semi-conscience state. I quickly found out that the Kaner book DID apply to this lowly position that did not even come close to supplementing my unemployment. I COULD test, I was testing, and using my kaner book as a guide or How to, I began writing bug reports on the back of pieces of scrap paper. After a month I found myself slipping into my teaching shoes and showing those around me who were interested, how to write a bug, reading straight from my trusty Kaner book. I was hardly an expert, but figured sharing what I knew could be a start for anyone. I would come in to the game test lab on days I was not scheduled to work and hope someone would not show up, so I could get another crack at breaking one of the games. I was sitting in the cafeteria when I noticed 2 gentlemen talking over the proverbial water cooler. I noticed looking over my Kaner book that one of them kept looking my way as if he knew me. After a bit , he came over and stuck a meaty hand out that looked like it had seen the better side of a river paddle more than once. “HI, I’m a test manager in another department “he said as he shook my hand, “and I have a question for you. That book your reading, why are you reading it?” I was little surprised at his question but answered back without hesitation,” because I want to be a great tester and I was told this book would help”. Well, that was the beginning to the current position I now hold as a Software Test Engineer. After the story had been passed around the “campfire” a bit, I simply began to be known as The Kaner Story. Thanks to the patience, instruction and belief in me by my Practice area leader and my team, I am one of the leading experts in our shop on Persona Development and User Stories. I manage our test cases, write them, and execute them along side my co-workers. I have been given the opportunity to Lead a test project and teach my team some of the things I have learned. I am not there yet, but am surely developing into the great Software tester I seek to become. I am …. The Kaner Story.

5 easy things every Test Engineer can do at the start of the project

It’s a common problem I face as a software Test engineer, ramping-up quickly on new projects. Here’s what usually happens.
My practice area leader gives my team a heads up about our next project when he can. We are usually at the end of a project or had just completed one. So, those who can, will jump on the web and do a search for the new project coming up. It usually does not take long until we were looking at an older version of our next assignment. At first it seems very awkward to navigate, but after about 20 minutes or so we have a general sense of what the application is supposed to do and how to navigate through it. This early exploration slices off some of the team’s ramp up time when the project begins. It also helps the team become subject matter proficient from the very beginning of the project. Even if only one team member can accomplish this, it is still a bonus to the overall team as they have a reference point to spring board questions.
This is a win win situation for the team and the customer. The customer sees results from testing sooner and the team’s ramp up time is cut down considerably, giving us the ability to quickly focus our attention on finding bugs and decomposing the application. I think there are 5 steps to accomplish this 1) Familiarization of the Application. 2) Gaining access to the application. 3) Searching the bug database. 4) Exploration. 5) Being ready for anything.

1. Familiarization with the Application. Being Familiar with an application can significantly reduce the ramp up time to almost nothing. It can mean the difference between fishing all over a lake, trying different kinds of lures and catching small blue gills (nothing wrong with that, blue gills are small but good to eat) or being familiar with the lake, knowing which lure to use and going right to the lily pads where you know the big fish are lurking. Becoming familiar with the application before the ramp up will help the test cases go more smoothly and efficiently and could lead you to some nice sev 1 bugs.

2. Gain Access to the Application. Gain access to the application in whatever form is available, you will need to get a hold of this as soon as possible! If you cannot get the latest version because it’s not quite ready, No problem, and older versions will work just fine. I have gained access to applications from a thumb drive in the past, whatever it takes!

3. Search the bug database. Search the bug database for older applications with a known history. This is a great way to see where the problem areas have been in the past. Reading the repro steps is another way to familiarize the logical steps for how bugs were found. What if no bugs are logged in on this application yet? No problem, simply look for a similar application and dig through those bugs looking for possible similarities. Try searching by severity to get a look at past show stoppers, these could be located in the prime test areas.

4. Explore the Application. At this stage in the game, test cases may still be “under construction”. Cool! Explore the application. Try everything, fear nothing. Clicking and typing information wherever you can. Ask yourself questions like, how deep can I get in this App? What’s this app supposed to be doing? You are seeing the application through unscripted eyes, so decompose it as your mind sees fit.

5. Be ready for anything! Do not be surprised if bugs start appearing right away, like they were patiently waiting your arrival. How exciting! You don’t even have test cases and seem to be wading waist deep in bugs! On the other hand, no need for disappointment if you do not find bugs initially. It’s like the kitchen lights are turned on or something, you know as soon as you turn the lights out, the bugs will appear. But you just cannot find the switch, no worries, try using a different light! The important aspect is you are familiarizing yourself with the application, the bugs are a bonus! Reproduce them and write them up, assigning them to yourself. This way they will not get lost or forgotten.

The Importance of writing good bug reports

The Importance of writing good bug reports

I was copying over some old bug reports into our new database the other day, It would have been nice to just import them all in, but if that was the case I would have missed out on the first hand realization of good bug reporting. As I was copying them over I noticed the difference in the bugs that were written before we were put on the project. Now I am not slinging mud at anyone nor tooting my own horn. But the difference was painfully obvious. The bugs that were poorly written had tons of notes added to them like, “Cannot repro” What do you mean by this abbreviation” “Please explain” and on and on. I also noticed the poorly written bugs took almost twice as long to come to a decision about and close.
If you have been writing bug reports for years and years, you’re probably thinking, I don’t need to read any further, I KNOW how to write a GREAT bug report! If that’s true I have a challenge for you!
Knowing how to do it and DOING it correctly are two separate issues. I have found in the Software industry , the longer test engineers write bug reports, the more the information in the reports tends to get muddled in speak that only makes sense to those directly on the project. Or shortened down to a brief description that leaves out the “Obvious” steps. I have even seen bug reports that are simply the Description line.
And how is this helpful to the Developer in another state or Country? She may not know what your acronym means, she may need the “obvious” steps you left out in order to correctly repro the bug, and using the description line as your bug report is, well, that’s just sad. (You need to shape up or ship out mister!)
It takes allot of time for information to get interpreted and dealt in a cost effective manner, add in language barriers, distance and the ongoing trend of outsourcing and a poorly written bug report can suddenly add up to allot of unnecessary time, money and effort!
How can I tell if my bug reports are written properly? Well, in my opinion, the correct answer is, Do your bug reports reflect the teachings of the Great Master Jedi Kaner in his manuscript testing computer software? If you’re still not sure then here’s a sure fire answer, Can your Mom or Dad repro your bug report? I guess you could say your dad invented the computer or something and totally can, but what I mean is, can someone NOT on the project with limited technical skills pick up your bug report and repro it. If the answer is no, Then it’s time to dust off that Kaner book. If the answer is yes, then congratulations! Now show someone else what you are doing, maybe your good habits will rub off on them!