Joep Schuurkes (Posts about quality engineering)https://smallsheds.garden/categories/quality-engineering.atom2024-02-26T20:32:13ZJoep SchuurkesNikolaSo you want to become a test engineer?https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2024/so-you-want-to-become-a-test-engineer/2024-02-26T00:00:00+01:002024-02-26T00:00:00+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>Becoming a test engineer these days is probably harder than it was for me back in 2006. Back then, there was no test automation, we worked in the slow rhythm of waterfall, and for years I was in a team with other testers or at least had a test manager to bounce ideas off. These days, there's a good chance none of these are true as you start as a test engineer.</p>
<p>While most of these changes are good ones (please don't take test automation or agile away), it does make me empathize with anyone who starts their career as a test engineer today. The pace is higher and the skill set is broader. More importantly, you need to navigate your career while no one is really sure where to position testers in their organization. That's not a straightforward environment to start a career in.</p>
<p>So here are four pieces of advice I'd give myself if I'd start my career in testing today:</p>
<ul>
<li>testing can be many different things</li>
<li>you're a software engineer that specializes in testing</li>
<li>the end-game is leadership skills</li>
<li>shape your career in a way that suits you</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2024/so-you-want-to-become-a-test-engineer/">Read more…</a> (4 min remaining to read)</p></div>A good tester is all over the placehttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/a-good-tester-is-all-over-the-place/2023-11-26T00:00:00+01:002023-11-26T00:00:00+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>Over the past year, I've been thinking about how testing-related roles are still an unsolved problem in software development. We keep trying different permutations: shifting left and shifting right, being closer to the programmers while not too far from other testers, doing less testing ourselves so we can support others more, etc.</p>
<p>And still, to be effective in any of these permutations, you can't let yourself be limited by them. You need to work both inside and outside the existing structures. You have to "be all over the place", in a good way.</p>
<h2>Testers do testing</h2>
<p>Let's start with a straightforward statement: a tester tests. Then what is testing? I <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2018/reflections-on-my-testing-manifesto/">still like</a> the definition <em>"Testing is investigating in order to evaluate a product."</em> The most obvious thing to investigate, to test, is the code that is being written. The best way to do this, in my opinion, is through the combination of exploratory testing and test automation, i.e. what <a href="https://maaretp.com/">Maaret Pyhäjärvi</a> has named "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_67oQrPZhQ">contemporary exploratory testing</a>". And to be clear, while the execution part tends to be the most visible, effective testing also needs good test strategy, design, and reporting.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/a-good-tester-is-all-over-the-place/">Read more…</a> (11 min remaining to read)</p></div>I'm a quality engineer and I'm not sure how I feel about thathttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/im-a-quality-engineer-and-im-not-sure-how-i-feel-about-that/2023-07-05T11:42:34+02:002023-07-05T11:42:34+02:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>This post is a slightly edited version of the experience report I <a class="reference external" href="https://smallsheds.garden/slides/xp2023-quality-engineer.html">presented</a> at the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.agilealliance.org/xp2023/">xp2023</a> conference. It covers my first six months at a scale-up, working as a quality engineer for the first time - after having worked in other testing-related roles for 15+ years.</p>
<p>My main finding is that for a quality engineering role to work well, certain structures need to be in place. The most important one is that the impact the quality engineer is expected to have, is clear to both the quality engineer and the team(s) they are supporting. However, regardless of which structures you put in place, a quality engineer will also need to work around those structures to be fully effective.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/im-a-quality-engineer-and-im-not-sure-how-i-feel-about-that/">Read more…</a> (22 min remaining to read)</p></div>Our work management tools are limiting our imaginationhttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/our-work-management-tools-are-limiting-our-imagination/2023-01-29T22:34:25+01:002023-01-29T22:34:25+01:00Joep Schuurkes<figure><img src="https://smallsheds.garden/images/2023/work-mgt-tools/fig4-stories-on-a-wall.jpg"></figure> <div><p>Several weeks ago I had a thought that felt both serious and not serious, so <a href="https://chaos.social/@joeposaurus/109635747014542350">I asked on Mastodon</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Should I write a blog post about companies leaving money on the table by not leveraging their choice of work management tool (Jira, Shortcut, etc) as a competitive advantage?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>31% said "yes" and 54% said "a post about what now?", which I suppose reflects my own feelings about the topic. And it motivated me to write this post - especially that 54%. So let's talk about work management tools, the original (user) stories, affordances and constraints, and how these tools are limiting our imagination. </p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/our-work-management-tools-are-limiting-our-imagination/">Read more…</a> (11 min remaining to read)</p></div>Three lessons after three months of quality engineeringhttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/three-lessons-after-three-months-of-quality-engineering/2022-11-27T16:41:25+01:002022-11-27T16:41:25+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>Three months ago I started a new job as a quality engineer, supporting two teams. So far it's been an interesting challenge. The two teams were formed only a few months before I joined, although some team members had been working for the company before that. Each team has their own product manager. We also have an engineering manager, but he joined only two weeks before I did. And then I was added to the mix, with a job description that didn't give a lot more guidance than: support the team in things related to testing and quality.</p>
<p>So my first task in my new job was figuring out what my job was. Or rather, figure out what concrete things I could do that fit that job description. This was not made easier by the fact that we're a fully remote company. Not being in the same space throughout the day does make things harder when you're trying to find your place. Reflecting on the past three months made me realize there are three things that are really important: visibility, connections, and patience.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/three-lessons-after-three-months-of-quality-engineering/">Read more…</a> (5 min remaining to read)</p></div>Agile tester or quality engineer, who's to say?https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/agile-tester-or-quality-engineer-whos-to-say/2022-11-06T16:29:25+01:002022-11-06T16:29:25+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>In her article <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20041001003124/http://www.qualitytree.com/feature/btwq.pdf">"Better Testing, Worse Quality?"</a> <a href="https://ruby.social/@testobsessed">Elisabeth Hendrickson</a> makes an interesting case about independent testing, i.e. testing done by an independent test team. She discovered that beyond a certain point, investigating more in independent testing will make both quality and speed go down, not up. In <a href="https://itrevolution.com/podcast/the-idealcast-episode-3/">episode 3</a> of the <a href="https://itrevolution.com/podcast/">Idealcast</a>, she summarizes her article as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"[...] when you ramp up the amount of investment in an independent test group, then given the amount of pressure that's already on the developers to deliver, it is so easy<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/agile-tester-or-quality-engineer-whos-to-say/#fn:1">1</a></sup> for the developers to say, this isn't my problem anymore. Thank goodness we've got the professionals over here. It's their job to test." <em>(00:11:21)</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later in the article, Elisabeth Hendrickson gives advice on how to avoid or escape this spiral of decreasing quality and speed. There are four dials you can turn either up or down:</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/agile-tester-or-quality-engineer-whos-to-say/">Read more…</a> (2 min remaining to read)</p></div>Quality: different purposes, different definitionshttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/quality-different-purposes-different-definitions/2022-08-24T19:41:25+02:002022-08-24T19:41:25+02:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>For years when asked to define quality, I've said "value to a person who matters"<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/quality-different-purposes-different-definitions/#fn:1">1</a></sup>. Not too long ago I used that definition in the <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/choosing-your-value-system/">first post</a> of my four-part series "Thinking about quality". However, in the <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/thinking-about-quality-so-what-to-do/">fourth post</a> of that series I also said that quality is something emergent. And I continued with:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We can have long discussions about what quality is, but that's a different question from how do you get quality?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Today I took this one step further, when I realized that depending on the context, I talk very differently about quality. And while I may not define 'quality' explicitly in every conversation, implicitly I'm still using different definitions. That alone, I think is interesting: instead of a single, general definition of quality that always applies, I have different definitions depending on their purpose<sup id="fnref:2"><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/quality-different-purposes-different-definitions/#fn:2">2</a></sup>.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/quality-different-purposes-different-definitions/">Read more…</a> (1 min remaining to read)</p></div>Thinking about quality: so what to do?https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/thinking-about-quality-so-what-to-do/2021-04-07T13:25:02+02:002021-04-07T13:25:02+02:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>On 30 January 2021 I participated in the Quality Acceleration Peer Conference organized by Huib Schoots and Joost Voskuil. Participants were <a href="https://twitter.com/alanpage">Alan Page</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/unremarkableQA">Areti Panou</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/northern_tester">Ash Winter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/btknaack">Bart Knaack</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/conorfi">Conor Fitzgerald</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/roukedejong">Rouke de Jong</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gwendiagram">Gwen Diagram</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gdinwiddie">George Dinwiddie</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/janetgregoryca">Janet Gregory</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/joost_voskuil">Joost Voskuil</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jpjwolli">Joost van Wollingen</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/mmeijeri">Martijn Meijering</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/robmeaney">Rob Meaney</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/vinwijnl">Vincent Wijnen</a> - with <a href="https://twitter.com/huibschoots">Huib Schoots</a> facilitating the peer conference. The main topics mentioned in the invite were: "How can you sell quality?", "How can you convince people that quality can accelerate software delivery?", and "What limitations or barriers do you hit?"</p>
<p>Reflecting during and after our discussions on these topics, I realized there are some interesting things going on about how we talk about quality and how to sell it. Enough interesting things to fill more than one blog post, so this will be a four-part series. And I might expand on some ideas in the series after that.</p>
<p>The first three parts covered rather philosophical topics: <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/choosing-your-value-system/">choosing your value system</a>, <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/who-doesnt-want-quality/">exploring what it means to sell quality</a>, and <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/management-paradigms-and-quality/">how management paradigms affect quality</a>. At the end of the third post I brought up the main question for this fourth and last post: so now what? If you expect me to get very concrete and specific in this post, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. What I will do, is share a way to think about actions that has been helpful to me.</p>
<h3>Quality is something emergent</h3>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/charrett">Anne-Marie Charrett</a> says in a blog post titled "<a href="https://mavericktester.com/2018/12/04/emergent-quality/">Emergent Quality</a>":</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"My hypothesis is that quality is an emergent behaviour. It relies on a whole set of independent systems coming together to create this emergent property. We can never truly know what quality is. It’s constantly changing and morphing into different things. For sure, we can provide examples, but know quality itself? I’m not convinced."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/thinking-about-quality-so-what-to-do/">Read more…</a> (8 min remaining to read)</p></div>Thinking about quality: management paradigms and qualityhttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/management-paradigms-and-quality/2021-03-15T09:32:08+01:002021-03-15T09:32:08+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>On 30 January 2021 I participated in the Quality Acceleration Peer Conference organized by Huib Schoots and Joost Voskuil. Participants were <a href="https://twitter.com/alanpage">Alan Page</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/unremarkableQA">Areti Panou</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/northern_tester">Ash Winter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/btknaack">Bart Knaack</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/conorfi">Conor Fitzgerald</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/roukedejong">Rouke de Jong</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gwendiagram">Gwen Diagram</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gdinwiddie">George Dinwiddie</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/janetgregoryca">Janet Gregory</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/joost_voskuil">Joost Voskuil</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jpjwolli">Joost van Wollingen</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/mmeijeri">Martijn Meijering</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/robmeaney">Rob Meaney</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/vinwijnl">Vincent Wijnen</a> - with <a href="https://twitter.com/huibschoots">Huib Schoots</a> facilitating the peer conference. The main topics mentioned in the invite were: "How can you sell quality?", "How can you convince people that quality can accelerate software delivery?", and "What limitations or barriers do you hit?"</p>
<p>Reflecting during and after our discussions on these topics, I realized there are some interesting things going on about how we talk about quality and how to sell it. Enough interesting things to fill more than one blog post, so this will be a four-part series. And I might expand on some ideas in the series after that.</p>
<p>This is the third part, exploring five different management paradigms as identified by <a href="https://twitter.com/carolsanford">Carol Sanford</a> in her book "<a href="https://carolsanford.com/the-regenerative-business/">The Regenerative Business</a>" and how they affect quality. The first part was about choosing your value system can be found <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/choosing-your-value-system/">here</a>. The second part about selling quality can be found <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/who-doesnt-want-quality/">here</a>.</p>
<h3>Psychological cover and psychological safety</h3>
<p>If the challenge of quality is getting several things right (perception, desire, and means) and getting to an agreement among people, how we organize ourselves becomes a crucial topic. As W. Edwards Deming said: "A bad system will beat a good person every time." Or as Kurt Lewin said in a more neutral way: "Behavior is a function of the Person and the Environment." An important part of any environment is psychological safety. In <a href="https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/blog/we're-the-aliens-three-ways-to-seek-safety/">episode 155</a> of their <a href="https://www.conversationaltransformation.com/troubleshooting-agile-podcast/">Troubleshooting Agile</a> podcast <a href="https://twitter.com/Jtf">Jeffrey Fredrick</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/douglassquirrel">Douglas Squirrel</a> make an interesting distinction between psychological cover and psychological safety.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/management-paradigms-and-quality/">Read more…</a> (8 min remaining to read)</p></div>Thinking about quality: who doesn't want quality?https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/who-doesnt-want-quality/2021-02-25T12:34:08+01:002021-02-25T12:34:08+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>On 30 January 2021 I participated in the Quality Acceleration Peer Conference organized by Huib Schoots and Joost Voskuil. Participants were <a href="https://twitter.com/alanpage">Alan Page</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/unremarkableQA">Areti Panou</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/northern_tester">Ash Winter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/btknaack">Bart Knaack</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/conorfi">Conor Fitzgerald</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/roukedejong">Rouke de Jong</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gwendiagram">Gwen Diagram</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gdinwiddie">George Dinwiddie</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/janetgregoryca">Janet Gregory</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/joost_voskuil">Joost Voskuil</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jpjwolli">Joost van Wollingen</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/mmeijeri">Martijn Meijering</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/robmeaney">Rob Meaney</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/vinwijnl">Vincent Wijnen</a> - with <a href="https://twitter.com/huibschoots">Huib Schoots</a> facilitating the peer conference. The main topics mentioned in the invite were: "How can you sell quality?", "How can you convince people that quality can accelerate software delivery?", and "What limitations or barriers do you hit?"</p>
<p>Reflecting during and after our discussions on these topics, I realized there are some interesting things going on about how we talk about quality and how to sell it. Enough interesting things to fill more than one blog post, so this will be a four-part series. And I might expand on some ideas in the series after that.</p>
<p>This is the second part. The first one about choosing your value system can be found <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/choosing-your-value-system/">here</a>.</p>
<h3>Everyone wants quality, right?</h3>
<p>In the previous post I distinguished two definitions of quality. If we proceed with the second and more interesting one, value to a person who matters, I would argue that everyone wants quality and is already doing their best to get it. The alternative would be that some people are not doing their best to get the things they value - which seems absurd to me.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/who-doesnt-want-quality/">Read more…</a> (3 min remaining to read)</p></div>