Adam White

I was using a mind mapping tool called BrainMine. I found a bug that exhibited itself if you printed the mind map and then edited and/or moved a node afterwards. What do you think is going on underneath the covers here?  Would your automation have caught this? How would you automate this test?

The video is here

I wasn’t up on my BB Test assitant skills when this video was taken so you’ll have to infer my troubleshooting process from what you see in the video.

I mentioned that I would post more about the acquisition of PlateSpin by Novell. I’ve been delayed in doing tihs because there isn’t that much to report. We are being told that it’s business as usual and that’s what it’s turning out to be. Novell hasn’t had a strong presence in the development area - although this isn’t true for other areas like sales and professional services (from what I can see). There hasn’t been any fall-out or mass exodus of employees. 

I’ve heard people talk about acquisitions like the exodus is the “norm” either because it’s a technology acquisition and the acquirer doesn’t keep the employees or because they are scared that will happen. There have been little rumors going around about this person or that person leaving but nothing can directly link to the acquisition.

Read the rest…

What do I do with this information as a user? I don’t know how to troubleshoot this - nor do I have time to. Why can’t it tell me what RSS feeds it’s having a problem with.Of course I searched for the error message using google. I searched for “outlook RSS feeds error” and “RSS feeds error 8004010F” neither of which yeilded a link to a solution.

I like to do testing exercises with my team. Below is a list of links to various activities I have done with the team at some point in time. I usually turn these things into an interactive session. I thought I would share my list with you in case you want to do some of them with your team (or by yourself)

Observation skills
Which way is she spinning?

A similar picture

Cartoon
Powers of Observation

Activity - watch videos and answer questions at the end
New TV Show

Observation – General Link
http://www.smart-kit.com/scategory/brain-art/>Brain Art

Are the two blocks different colors?

How many differences can you find?
Spot the Differences

Activity for Team
How many F’s?

Activity
Optical Illusion

Cartoon
Perception

Video
The Amazing Color Changing Card trick

Where  possible with these exercises I get the team write out their observations before we go into discussions about what they see. This is to help prevent certain biases from showing up - mainly confirmation and hindsight biases

Confirmation bias, according to wikipedia, is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs.

Hindsight bias, sometimes called the I-knew-it-all-along effect, is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine. In psychological experiments of hindsight bias, subjects also tend to remember their predictions of future events as having been stronger than they actually were, in those cases where those predictions turn out correct.”

When we did these exercises it made for some really interesting discussions - especiallly the spinning dancer and the different color blocks.  Doing these exercises can help you become aware of (and possibly manage) confirmation and hindsight bias.

Places you might find more information and exercises
Inattentional Blindness
Selective Attention

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve got lots to write about and not enough time to do it.

 The one thing I do want to mention is the upcoming CAST conference which will be held in Toronto this year. Some of the best minds in software testing will be at this conference. Speakers like Michael Bolton, Robert Sabourin, Jerry Weinberg, Cem Kaner. Not to mention I’ll be doing a presentation as well

The full program is available on the website - you can find it here http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/drupal/conference

Make your reservations soon - Jerry’s tutorial is selling out quickly (if it’s not already sold out)