Adam White

I was impressed by what Cong had done. I thought his summary was thoughtful and showed understanding of the concepts. I went through bugs and reviewed the answers to each of the 4 questions. I learned a few things about the details of our product that I didn’t know before.

I picked up the phone and called him to talk to him about his findings. I gave him credit for doing what he did. When discussing the bugs I asked him if he could do this process for every bug or if it would be too time consuming. His answer was something to this effect “Well even for bugs that I thought were trivial I still learned something from talking with the developer so I’ll have to use judgement in the future”

In discussion of one particular bug I asked him to think about whether it was something we should write down as a test idea for future release and also to help future testers learn about the product. I didn’t give explicit directions/instructions on whether this is an expctation/requirement for him. He will have to figure that out for himself and decide where the info would go.

One point we discussed was that there was no response to my initial request until it was done. Throughout the week I wasn’t sure if he was putting any effort into it. I’m also at fault for not setting expectations for an initial response. We both learned a lesson from this and can now communicate more effectively in the future.

I feel like now when I respond to his daily updates we can speak a common language and have a common understanding.

Here is my summary of this interaction

What went well

• Attempting to make Cong feel safe and that I wasn’t threatening or unhappy with his work. I am his boss’ boss afterall and I had never given him a direct request before
• Clearly set completion date
• Set out expectations on how the end result should be delivered
• Gave some local options for getting help
• Follow up via phone to discuss findings and do a little bit more coaching

What could be improved

• I could have picked up the phone in the beginning and explained the exercise, following up with the email writeup
• In my initial request I could have asked Cong to respond and either accept, reject or negotiate my request and give him a date to do this by
• I could have followed up with him mid-week to see how things were going with the task
• I could have set up a skype call with him

Things to remember when coaching remotely

1. Look for things that will teach you about something of interest to you – not only the person who you are coaching
2. It’s important to set two deadlines – one for the initial response/commitment and one for the actual deadline
3. If you’ve not met the person or had very little interaction with them make sure they don’t feel threatened
4. Give the person options for getting local help
5. Follow up via phone/skype, give feedback watching for anything from #1

I’d love to hear any comments on this situation or thoughts/experiences you have with remote coaching/training

I thought I would share something I did recently regarding remote coaching/training. My inspiration for sharing comes from here and here

I have always enjoyed training new software testers. Lately it’s been more difficult for me to do since I’m in a different office from the bulk of the testers on my team. See my linked in profile for an explanation as to why I’m away.

Given that I’m away I started looking for ways to continue engaging with my team. One opportunity came from reading Cong Zhao’s daily updates.

About Cong: Cong joined us from Waterloo for his second summer work term. His first work term was with ACRP. They provide testing fixtures to Rim to test blackberry. You can find out more about him on linked in

About daily updates: I have everyone on my team send a little summary of the interesting things they learned that day. It’s meant to resemble newspaper headlines that catch your eye, make you want to read further and hopefully learn something of value to you.

Note: I’ve asked Cong for permission to share the process we went through.

Here is the initial correspondence I sent to Cong based on something I read in his daily update.

Cong,

Mike and Herb are out so I’m going to do some remote mentoring with you. I reviewed your list of bugs. You did a good job at re-running the original steps and documenting that in the bug. I want to challenge you to figure out what other areas of the product might have been affected by the changes you are testing.

I want you to ask yourself (and others) “What else could have been broken as a result of this fix?” “What areas of the code where changed and what other areas depend on/use this area” This will cause you to become familiar with the code and will probably require talking with the developer who fixed it.

Questions you should be able to answer for every bug

• What area of the code was changed?
• Why was it changed (explain why the change fixes the bug).
• What needs to be done to verify that the fix resolves the original problem.
• What needs to be tested to prove that the fix does not cause the product to break in some related but different area.

For some guidance on different approaches to thinking about the software check out these articles

• More Than One Answer More Than One Question
• Is There A Problem Here
• Test Design With Risk In Mind
• The Proof Of The Pudding

Action items I expect you to complete by next Friday.

For Articles listed above

• Read these articles over the next week
• Write a summary of your learning from them
• Send summary to Mike, Herb and myself

Look for and document your exploration of bugs beyond the original description.

• Pick 5 issues that had code changes that you are assigned to close.
• Speak with the developer and get the questions from above answered. Document the answers in the bug when closing.
• Show evidence of the above to Mike, Herb and myself.

Given that Herb and Mike are out and I’m remote – you could also rely on Joseph for som
e guidance as well. Let me know if you have any questions or if you cannot complete this assignment by next Friday.

Thanks,

Adam

What I think I did well with this communication

• Explained to Cong what I was intending. I attempted to make Cong feel safe and that I wasn’t threatening or unhappy with his work. I am his boss’ boss afterall and I emailed him fairly out of the blue.
• Clearly set completion date
• Set out my expectations on how the end result of the work should be delivered
• Gave him some local options for getting help

What could have made this communication stronger

• I could have asked Cong to respond and either accept, reject or negotiate my request and give him a date to do this by

I’d love to hear any comments on this situation or thoughts/experiences you have with remote coaching/training

Michael Hunter, of Braidy Tester fame, posted a challenge on his blog. He showed a parking sign photo and asked how many different ways it could be interpreted. I decided to take 45 minutes during one of our weekly test team meetings and try it out. What the hell does this have to do with testing you might ask? Well - thanks for asking. Here is how it relates for me

• Idea generation – we always need to generate new ideas for testing
• Clarification – requirements are mostly ambiguous and this was practice at clarifying them.
• Sharing and discussion of ideas – “It could be interpreted this way” which lead to someone else saying “Yes and this way too” - Team work, supportive attitude with a focus on sharing.
• Time boxing so we don’t get carried away - Important in testing and just about anything else
• Coming up with alternate solutions/problem solving – It’s good to be seen as a problem solver instead of “Bearer of Bad News”

Needless to say we had a great time doing this activity. I time boxed the idea generation to 15 minutes and then had about 15 minutes of discussion.  We used index cards to write down our ideas. We went around the room and each person read an idea from their card. We ran into some duplicate ideas but that was ok – we weren’t focused on having every idea be unique. The puprose was to put on our “thinking caps”

Now it’s easy to take an idea and tear it to shreds.  To quote Edward De Bono in The Thinking Course “..critical destuction of one hypothesis has never produced a better one. It is creativity that produce the better hypothesis.” As a follow up challenge I asked the team to come with a sign that wasn’t ambigous. We explored some great ideas and had a great discussion. A few of the ideas and designs came out to be really clear and (mostly) unambiguous (I’ll have to get them and post it with this article.) The discussion was going so well that it actually went over time and into lunch.

Here are the results which were summarized by Aqiqul Hoda and Michael Hetmanczuk. The participants were Adam White, Alan Walker, Ali Khan, Aqiqul Hoda, Christy Gnanapragasam, Herb Bal, Joseph Kubik, Michael Hetmanczuk, Mortaza Abhari, Thomas Yook and Zhe Chen

1. Can park for 2 hrs from Mon to Sat between 7AM to 6PM.
2. If you have Zone 4 Permit you could park as long as you want.
3. No Limits of parking on Sundays and Holidays.
4. No Parking for Zone 4 permit vehicles.
5. No parking on Sun and holidays.
6. No parking in the Night.
7. Zone 4 permit vehicles parking only between 6 PM to 7 AM and Sun and
holidays.
8. 2 hr parking this side of street.
9. 2 hr parking both side of street.
10. 2 hr parking from this sign onward.
11. Parking at 6PM allowed can go past 6 PM for 2 hrs.
12. Parking once a day only.
13. Zone permits vehicles parking only after hrs but not on sun and
holidays.
14. Zone permit sign maynot be related to parking.
15. 2 hours limit parking between 7am and 6pm on days except Sunday and
Holiday.  Above has exception by Zone 4 permit means Zone 4 permit could
park at anytime
16. Board number 2: hour parking
17. Is the #2 the sign ID or does it indicate 2 hours?
18. Can we park during other ours or only 7 AM – 6 PM
19. Where is the sign?
20. Does it mean I can park from 6 AM – 7 PM?
21. Hol?  What qualifies as a holiday?
22. Does this apply to bikes?
23. Except sun/holiday means on Sunday and holidays – no parking at all
24. On sunday/holiday you can park all day
25. On sunday/holiday the 2 hour limit is lifted, but parking is only
allowed from 7 AM to 6 PM.
26. Zone 4 permit means you can park all the time.
27. Zone 4 permit means you can park 7 AM – 6 PM.
28. Except Zone 4 permit means you can’t park at all if you have a zone
4 permit.
29. Except Sun/Holiday: means only those with a zone 4 permit can park
on sun/holiday.
30. Could be interpreted as 1 hour parking.  The #2 could be something
else, i.e. street number, parking spot.
31. Except sun-holiday: starts on sunday, ends on a holiday.
32. What is a zone 4 permit?  Do I automatically get one?
33. Does that mean I can park long on sunday-holiday?
34.  Maximum of 2 hour parking allowed between 7 AM and 6 PM except
sunday or holiday.
35. If you have zone 4 permit pass you can park the car anytime.
36. Within this zone, a maximum of 4 vehicles are permitted to park.
37. The #2 indicates it is a second sign that indicates “hour parking”
zone between 7 AM and 6 PM except on sundays, holidays.