I find myself in a philosophical mood today and it’s based on some experiences with testers that simply don’t ask questions. As testers we have to ask questions. Lots of questions. We also have to recognize when we are getting … Continue reading →

Some testers — and most managers — like to talk about metrics. One thing that often doesn’t get discussed is what I call metric dissociation. Here’s my thought: metrics should be easily or directly interpretable in terms of product or … Continue reading →

When a professional discipline has a vocabulary for expressing the fundamental concepts on which it’s based, then you have a means for how practitioners in the discipline can make sure they’re talking about the same things. The problem with establishing … Continue reading →

I really enjoyed the book Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen by Mark Buchanan. This book doesn’t talk about quality assurance or testing at all, but it does talk about how things can change very quickly and how a certain context can … Continue reading →

F. Scott Fitzgerald, in his essay called The Crack-up from 1936, defined a “first rate intelligence” as the ability to hold “two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” David Lapin, … Continue reading →

As I write this, NASA’s UARS (Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite) is about to plop back to Earth. The orbit of the satellite puts it somewhere between 57 degrees north latitude and 57 degrees south. That spans the width of the … Continue reading →

One thing I’ve found that’s helpful to me in my career as a tester is the ability to abstract information from one venue to another. Testers and especially those who do Quality Assurance activities must be reasonably adept at abstracting … Continue reading →