Sirius Ruminations

In meetings, on Twitter, in blogs and books and conferences, there is much discussion about how we provide quality, assure quality, control quality, bring quality, give quality, be quality, live, eat, breath and sleep quality.  In Raymond James’ offices, where I now work, it is no different.  So, late last week, we got together in a team meeting to try and create a succinct, cohesive Vision Statement and Mission Statement.  Early into that process, we began to face up to the obvious, but in my experience, most often ignored and ugly truth.  How can you talk about how you are going to DO Quality, if you have not even defined what Quality is?  It makes no sense.  And so, we as a team, set out to do one of the bravest and most noble things I have ever had the pleasure of doing at any job or consulting engagement I have been involved with… we formally defined what Software Quality is for us.

I have been working for Raymond James for about a  month now.  Our facilities are located roughly a mile, as the crow flies, from Tampa Bay.  As I have come and gone over the last few weeks, I have

At my former client, I have a friend named Liz. Liz came into our group as a BA, but since the client really did not use BA’s, she quickly got a bit lost in the shuffle. Eventually, she came and asked if I would begin to train her in software testing, since the client seemed to need that more, and she wanted to be productive. I happily agreed, and over the next few weeks introduced her to some of the foundational work of James Bach and Michael Bolton.

As I sit here this morning, I am opening a new chapter on my career.  Last week, I officially began a new permanent position as the Quality Improvement Advisor for Raymond James, a financial services firm.  After a decade of being a consultant, I actually have a real job again.

I normally reserve this blog for the expression of interesting ideas related to testing, but today’s entry is an entirely practical and technical question.  I recently got a new laptop, and it came pre-installed with Win7.  I sprung for the Pro upgrade as well.  By and large, I like Win7…definitely better than Vista, although my desktop is still running XP, and it is a reliable workhorse.

Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to review a lot of paperwork for a few clients, most of it being test plans. I hate paperwork; not that paperwork, or test plans themselves, are inherently evil. It is just that in about 90% of the cases I have experienced, they are largely used as an excuse for, or at best a substitute for, doing any real work.

I Love conferences. I go to them as often as I can, and I almost always come home feeling energized and excited. But there is a difference between coming home and feeling like you had a good time, and coming home and feeling like you were just a part of something very special. Today, I feel like I have just been privileged to be a part of something special.

Ahh, we are at that time of year again…Conference Time! I love conferences…but sadly, like many small businesses, my ability to attend conferences in the last two years has been beaten down by the economy in general. This hurts not only me, and others like me, but also the conferences; their attendance falls overall, which makes it more difficult for them to get good content and good venues…without raising their prices…which just makes it more difficult for folks like me…you see the cycle emerging.

For the last four years, I have been working with a very large government organization on a variety of testing projects.  This experience has changed much of the way I look at and think about testing.

This morning, I am sitting here writing a blog about tool blindness.

I am writing this blog, because I have the time to do it.

I have the time to do it, because my test environment is down.