Overcoming "obsessive checking if being mentioned disorder"

Happy New Year to all my dear readers, followers, fans, bulbs & CFL Lamps. I wish you become a better tester and respect other (good) testers much better than what you did in 2010. I also wish to be what I wished you to be :-)

The support for the company I launched Moolya Software Testing Private Limited - Brainual Software Testing Services Company, from you all has been fantastic. We hope to keep the momentum and continue adding great value to our customers. I have had a real busy time answering lots of questions about the company from testers all over. Without being able to mention the names, we have had two outsourcing request for quote, two special testing requirement requests, one recovery-before-it-goes-down testing requests from top organizations ever since we launched this company. Added to that is the support from the testers all over. Great start for us and we wish to make Moolya a dream company for good testers and hence be the most preferred testing vendor of the world.


Now, what's the Obsessive Checking If Being Mentioned Disorder?

On this new year, I want to tell you some true stories that you have never heard before. I could have simply kept it with me but I want to be honest to you because you spend your time here. Its you who have made this a successful blog and not just me. I don't know if someone else is facing the same problem but I just hope they are not.

• 5 years ago when I entered into blogging, I also picked up the habit of reading blogs. The first time I was mentioned on someone's blog, I felt as though the world was under my feet. I guess its natural for a human being to feel so, for that moment. After a day, I returned to realizing the place I stand is the actual world under my feet. I am no special. Recognized I was a "normal" human being.

• When my name was mentioned again on another blog, I felt great. Some kind of juice flowed all over my body and I loved the way it tickled when it flowed. I was hoping that a lot more people would mention my name and my blog on their blogs so that I could keep experiencing the flow of that magical juice.

• When I was mentioned on James Bach's blog and followed by Michael Bolton's blog, I felt an extra dose of high concentration juice was flowing in me. It didn't just tickle me but had soothing effects on some painful areas of my life. I still feel, it is normal.

• I used to write blog posts and anxiously wait for a couple of days to see if someone mentioned or appreciated my recent post somewhere along with my name. At this point I was on the boundary of "normal". Fortunate for you, my dear readers, I haven't written a single post because it may likely be mentioned by someone but wrote my heart out and hoped it gets popular by other bloggers mentioning it.

• After sometime, I realized that some people had mentioned about me and my blog posts but I didn't come to know when they did it. I added a sitemeter to my blog to track where the hits are coming from. I became way too obsessive with sitemeter. I used to hit the Sitemeter refresh about 200 times a day. At least twice more than the hits I used to get. I was desperate. I worked way too hard to do good work and anxiously wait for an opportunity to blog about it. At this point, I was definitely thrown out from the "normal" category of human beings. I was addicted to the flow of the magical juice. Lucky for my readers, I enjoyed the "being ethical" juice which prevented me from using stupid tactics to attract readership and hence driving the opportunity of being mentioned. 

• Then people started just mentioning my name without the link, so I got a little nervous about it. Not that they didn't link to my blog but because I discovered them too late. So, I set up a Google Alert with my name. Later I found, many people don't get my second name right. Its "Pradeep Soundararajan" and not "Pradeep Soundarajan" as most people appear to write. So, I ended up setting up a Google Alert for all possible permutations of my name. I was obsessed to check reports of Google Alerts. I went crazy about it. Sitemeter and Google Alert made me go crazy. At this point, I assume, I threw myself very far from belonging to the "normal" category. The worst is yet to come.

• After a few months from being thrown far away from "normalcy", I was very excited when other bloggers post new entries. It gave me a hope that they would have mentioned my name. I used to pretend being surprised of being mentioned although I would have hoped for it. I guess its fair to call this phase as "starting to get worse".

• Here comes the beauty. Months later, I started replacing every word by my name till I saw my name on others post. So, I may have read a few posts without actually learning anything from it because all I saw is "Pradeep" & "Tester Tested" on those posts. I think you'd agree one hundred percent, if I call this phase as "Obsessive Checking If Being Mentioned Disorder", which of course is too fucking bad thing to happen. It is important for me to say that all these were subconscious driven stuff. I didn't plan for it, couldn't control it.

• The magical juice that tickled me and made me feel great was also making me uncontrollable to my own mind.

• Added to that is the Twitter era. When I got addicted to twitter, all I had to say was, "Oh no! Not again". I saw a few people showing traces of the symptoms of the disorder or maybe I started feeling so.

Then a small light showed up

At some point, the obsessive checking if being mentioned disorder showed itself up in front of my face when it interfered my learning. That's when I decided to knock it off completely. 

I could start ignoring the urge to do things that may bring back the magical flow of the invisible juice only because I feared if my learning will slip. You may think that I deleted the Sitemeter Account, Unsubscribed from Google Alerts and blah blah but I didn't do any of them. Having it there and not yielding to it is a way I tried coming out of it.

I tried reducing the frequency of me visiting sitemeter stats. Some days I get busy learning, testing or working that I forget to login or forget that I logged in and the tab is lying somewhere. I still do visit Sitemeter and Google Alerts because I don't want to go to the other extreme. Call it post traumatic stuff :)

I reduced the number of blogs and posts I read. I don't go to Google Reader anymore. I just go to the URL of the blog I want to read and avoid clicking blog post links on twitter. 

I have reduced the frequency of writing in forums, groups, LinkedIn,  Test Republic, STC...

Most important of all I said to myself, "Now that you know you are not good, why care if people mention you?" and ignored to going to places where I was mentioned in the past.

Then comes practice over time. I wanted to give myself at least an year of practice. Today, I have reached a stage where I don't care who mentions me or my blog posts, for my own good. That doesn't mean I don't respect them. Moreover, others mentioning me or my post is not in my control. 

Bothering about things that are not in my control is foolishness. Not bothering about things that are in my control is much more foolish.

Sometimes the community elevates me to the "guru" & "expert" status (OK, American, UK & European folks, not you, I am talking about Indians here) and I have learnt to treat myself as a student despite what others call me as. I have declined being interviewed for a testing magazine with the interview title, "Know your testing guru".

Its not been easy but its getting easier. I am in the "normal" ring now, making me eligible to post this. I don't care if people tweet this, don't tweet it or not. It is for my reference. When I look back after a couple of years, I will have some things to smile upon saying, "Look at how I was". Just in case, you can see some symptoms of the same disorder in you, trust me, we will have lots to talk about when we meet.

I am just out of a danger en route to success as a good student of this craft. I hope I can wade away other dangers that might be on the way, much faster.

Once again, a new year is not happy because you call it that way, you make it that way. I am having a happy new year and hope you have it too. I met Chandru today. The smile and confidence he had in his face is inspiring enough for me to push hard for good things.

Tour of being an independent test consultant

Hiya! Hope you are doing very well. I am Pradeep Soundararajan, your tour guide for the next few minutes. I am glad you chose to take this tour of being an independent test consultant.





Here are some questions you might have: How does it feel to be an independent test consultant? What is it like to be one such in India? Will I be able to survive? Will I make enough money to run my family? Will I make as much money as the organization I am employed is paying me? Will I get enough paid work? What if I don't get paid work for a long time? Will people want my kind of skills? How do I know someone needs a consultant? How do I get clients? How will my family take this? What do I explain to my spouse? What kind of a pressure does society add when I am not in any paid work for a while? How does it feel to work from home not just for a day but for an entire month, or maybe a year or more? Will I have enough money to pay my home loan EMI?



These are some common questions that have popped up from those who have wanted to take the tour. So, if you have these questions or maybe even more, you won't be disappointed with this tour.




Some people ask me, "Hey, can you give me a few clients of yours and help a fellow Indian to also be an independent consultant?" I want to help people be independent consultants in India. By that, of course, I mean, I'd like to see them do stuff that helps them get credibility, reputation, paid work and clients for themselves.



I'd like to take you through the journey of having been an independent consultant. A journey that is not so often written or spoken about



Tour Point 1: Knowing enough about enough



If you want to be an independent test consultant, there are some prerequisites that you need to fulfill. You need to be bold enough, skilled enough, curious enough, pleasing enough and willing to talk to people or do some work good enough to get good enough people to talk to you.



That's a magical formula right? No one knows what "enough" means and hence it is a problem and an opportunity in disguise. If you knew what "enough" meant, you are kinda through to anything you want to achieve. I think, not knowing how much is "enough" makes you to work hard and get close enough. Oops, close enough?



I have been able to survive so far. I have no clue if my current skills are enough for me to survive for the next year and I am on a constant upgrade of skills and knowledge. I invest money on learning and my investment for July 2010 is on a few books, Ethical Hacking Guide to Corporate Security by Ankit Fadia & Job Interviews - Walter Vierera. Time is a much more important investment than money for me. So, just by spending money on those books wouldn't mean much unless I make a further investment of time on it.



Tour point 2: Love for failures



Many projects today suffer because people working on it aren't willing to try new ideas. They are special people on earth who know things would fail even before trying them out. However, as a consultant, if you try to be like them, you'd be expensive for your clients. You would do what their employees are doing for a price much higher than the employee cost.



Its important to not fail at a client's location but should that stop me and you from loving failures? I have a lab where I can experiment ideas whose results I don't know yet and that lab is the world of my colleagues, community and my gurus.



It's OK to fail, once in a while, at a client's location because even if you do great stuff, there could be things beyond your control that might make it look very bad. However, if you can get that client to call you back for more paid work in future, it boosts your confidence a great deal.



It happened to me. I was black listed in an organization and now they not just white listed me but want to work with me closer. Their CEO is in direct touch with me. If I feared failing, I would have done more mediocre stuff than what they thought I actually did.



Tour point 3: Excellence instead of money



India is a great place for some inspiring movies. I strongly recommend that you watch the movie "3 idiots". No, don't Google and read the story, just watch it. There are several good messages in it and one of them is, "Excellence instead of money". This movie is a super duper hit in India. I just wish people not just like such movies but also bring in necessary changes to their lives.



I want to be rich but I want to be rich while I am excellent. I wouldn't mind money coming on my way but money wouldn't necessarily make me feel rich. I want to be rich in testing skills and knowledge. I want to be rich in knowing many testers and how they work. In the process, if money follows, I am super happy.



Tour point 4: Don't expect people around you to understand what you are trying to do



When an article about me appeared on a few national news papers, my article was published on a few magazines, I was interviewed by CNBC TV18, I was on news for a local TV channel, my parents were so proud of me that I can bet they were flying high. However, whenever they see me sitting in home for more than a week without any paid work, they start to ask me, "Why don't you join some company like Infosys?"



If you expect your parents or spouse to completely understand what independent test consulting means then you'd be inviting disappointment. I was expecting them to understand what I was trying to do but experience teaches that I shouldn't. This has nothing to do with the respect we have for them but a learning of what we can't help them understand.



While at home, I am glued to the computer, trying to learn something, practice testing or support my clients post my onsite engagement or reply to emails. Some people around me take it for granted that I am jobless. Someone calls me and say, "Hey, you are at home only na, so why don't you come pick our luggage and keep it there?" It irritates a lot. I am at home but not jobless. I am trying to generate a paid work, which is a part of my work. People don't understand that. So, be ready for all that.



Tour point 5: No promotions and no designation change



If you were used to being an employee for long and then chose to be a consultant, you must know that there is no one who is going to give you a promotion. It is what you call yourself that matters. I am calling myself a Consulting Tester or just an Independent Test Consultant. If I am bored of it in 2012, I may call myself a Senior Consulting Tester. I give myself fancy title sometimes. I was calling myself a Test Magician and then I am now calling myself a Brainual Tester.




Tour point 6: Being an independent consultant doesn't mean you are the expert



Without saying much, I am not an expert and I am an independent consultant. James Bach, Michael Bolton, Elizabeth Hendrickson, Jerry Weinberg, Scott Barber, Matt Heusser, Jonathan Kohl, Karen Johnson are experts who are independent consultants. People like Ben Simo, Jon Bach, Cem Kaner, Vipul Kocher, Ashok are experts who are employees. There are some good thinkers and future experts like Meeta Prakash, Parimala, Lanette Creamer, Ajay, Santhosh Tuppad, Sajjadul Hakim, Ramit Manohar, Sharath Byregowda, Shmuel Gershon, Issi Hassan, Markus Gartner, who are employees, too.



So, independent consultants don't necessarily mean an expert. Employee don't necessarily mean a non expert. If I had to be an independent consultant only after becoming an expert, I wouldn't have been one till now. If I don't be an independent consultant, I don't know if I would ever get close enough to an expert while being an employee.



So, if you are waiting to be an expert and then be an independent consultant because you thought there was a strong relationship between them, you could be wrong.



Tour point 7: Tackling loneliness



Even in 2nd most populous country in the world, there are a lot of people I have seen who feel lonely. So, loneliness is not about people not being around you but about people whom you want to be around you not being around you. For me, my first wife is my laptop, just like many others I guess. So, despite having two wives (laptop and the one to whom I am married), I get lots of situations where I feel lonely. Loneliness is not always a problem; its a blessing in disguise. Ask our fellow bloggers, they'd tell you that they churned out a cool post during such situations.



However, being an independent consultant and working from home means, I have no colleagues that I meet on a daily basis. I meet a lot of new people every year but meet the same people very few times. Having no colleagues to meet on a daily basis means frustration at times.



When I go through Facebook or Orkut and see some people posting photos of their team member's birthday party celebrations, team outing to a hill station, team lunch, going to movie as a team... it hurts me a lot. I just take it as though I am in a penance of becoming a good tester and I have to bear with all of it. Recently, I was pissed off when I found no one to join me for a movie that I wanted to go. Even if I did find, their timing and my timing was off. Hey, employees are pissed off too. So, I am still fine.



Tour point 8: Getting clients is like sowing seeds and waiting for them to sprout



We think clients come from a specific place or set of places and we are wrong. When I was a rookie consultant looking for opportunities, Michael Bolton, told me that finding business is like sowing seeds. He also told; you never know when the seeds sprout.



I sowed a seed by answering a question in a forum without knowing I was sowing it. The one who asked the question was impressed and help the seed sprout by giving me a business worth thousand dollars.



When I didn't have a public reputation for speaking, I offered 2 hour talk called "Mirchi Test Masala" for free. This attracted at least seven organizations to have my talk at their office. I was gaining experience of speaking to testers and engaging them for at least 2 hours. I was also testing my own testing exercise on them. This was in 2007. One among the 250 people I might have spoken to during my Mirchi Test Masala tour was impressed with my talk. In 2010, he asked his current employer to have my workshop for his team. It happened. As you see the seed sowed in 2007 sprouted in 2010.



So, if you want to be an independent consultant next year, you should have started sowing at least 2 years back unless clients are just waiting for you to becoming a consultant. Also note that there are other consultants sowing seeds in the same place. If you are skilled enough you don't need to be too bothered.



Tour point 9: Freedom at its best



If you are my blog reader then, "Some birds aren't meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright" isn't a new thing to you. If it is, please note that the quote is from the movie Shawshank Redemption. I struggled for freedom to test. I saw that I could test a lot better when there is freedom. I also see that many testers can perform a lot better with a lot of freedom and responsibility bestowed on them. The only way I could win freedom to test in India was by being an independent consultant. These days, I am coming across a few managers who want to provide freedom to test but they don't have the curious people in place.



Tour point 10: Managing the tough situation of low bank balance



During August 2009 to Dec 2009 there was no paid work. There were enquiries but nothing turning to work. My bank account went low enough that the bank thought it was expensive to send me an SMS about my bank balance. At that moment, everyone around me urged me to look for a job. It isn't a bad thing to go back being an employee. At least I won freedom for a while and I can always win it back. I updated my profile and started to apply for jobs. I didn't even get a single interview opportunity in Bangalore. What? Yeah, so, no matter how much reputed you are, nature teaches you humility at such times. I dropped my plan to look for a job and look for some consulting opportunities. Again, a seed sowed in 2008 sprouted and I found 2 back to back consulting opportunities. Today, as I write, I have certain things lined up, clients asking and competing for my dates. I have no visibility beyond a certain month in this year. I have no problem with that. I am just hoping that some seeds will sprout.



Tour point 11: Live your dream



3 weeks back, my school classmate died in an accident. It just reminded me that death is not certain of a time or situation. Any day it might strike. I was shocked by his death and asked myself; what if I die today? Also, if you have listened to the famous speech of Steve Jobs, he talks about death and suggests that we work as though today is our last day.



Living your dream is very important. So important that you may not have another life to live your dream. My dream is to be a good tester and if possible help others with similar dreams to get there. I know I am living my dream today, at least to some good extent, so I am not afraid of death.



Tour point 12: Earning money is tough but not impossible



Some of my own students hesitate to coach other testers because they think teaching isn't something they want to do. Indirectly they are saying, "This demands me to learn new skills which I am not prepared to". There is money in teaching. If they continue to think that way, they would never be able to earn contacts, different learning, upgrade their skills, learn about different contexts, challenges and hence more money.



Tour point 13: Consulting is not only problem solving but jiggling the right things



I was thinking of myself as a super hero by having solved some problems for my clients. When I interacted with Michael Bolton of what I did to claim success, he helped me understand that I jiggled with things rather than solving problems. I started to learn what exactly I was doing. Although I believed I was solving problems for my clients, it was they who were solving it and I was just helping them do it. At times I did solve problems, too.



If you are serious about being a consultant or being a valuable employee and want to jiggle the right things, I strongly recommend you to read Jerry Weinberg's books on Consulting. I mean, Secrets of Consulting and More secrets of Consulting. They are my best reads.



Tour point 14: Get yourself a guru and a role model



Sachin Tendulkar who is considered to be a God for cricket in India has a guru. Suriya, a rocking Tamil actor has Kamal Hassan has his guru and inspiration. Kamal Hassan has more than just one guru. Rajinikanth has a lot of gurus and role models. Virendar Shewag has a role model (Sachin) that he wants to be like. The great Arjuna of Mahabharatha had a guru teach him archery. Ekalavya had a guru. All these successful people have a guru and a role model. In testing, as we think we are experts or good enough, we don't feel a need to have a guru and role model. We sink our own career that way. I must have avoided thousands of traps by having more than a few gurus.



James Bach helped me be an independent consultant and I often consulted Michael Bolton to shape myself. There are other people who have helped me too and have been my inspiration and role models. I have posters of these people on my wall. It keeps pushing me. Without gurus and role models, I would have been lost by now.



Your tour ends here unless you have a few questions to ask me. Thank you for your patience.

Progress Report 2009 : Pradeep Soundararajan

On clicking that image, the progress report should download. Hate that idea? You can download the same file by clicking on this link, too. 

Other updates: 

• There is a public workshop on Skilled Exploratory Testing planned in Chennai on Saturday, March 27th, interested testers send an e-mail to me at pradeep.srajan@gmail.com OR if you know of any testers in Chennai who want to attend this please pass them on the information. The fees are very nominal but please don't ask for Ranganthan Street rates!

• I am releasing a book this year. No, not the interviews book. Not that you have to pay for it. I am going to make it available online for free. I am tired of the process of getting it published. Maybe if it does well, some publisher would volunteer to slow down the process. Sharath Byregowda knows what book I am talking about. Hard bound printed versions shall also be available on demand. I need someone with real good English to help me copy edit the draft I have. 

Oh, don't forget to checkout 2009 Progress Report. It is a PDF file for sure. Thank you all.

Bangalore Weekend Testers: Fun, Learn & Contribute

Let me brag a little bit and then get to the core. I don't believe in feedback forms that are asked to be filled by participants at the end of a training program. That's not a time to fill the feedback form because the value of the training can be determined only when participants get back to their work and apply the ideas they gained.

However, I ask all participants to fill it because the client who hired me wants it, so I don't necessarily change myself per se after looking at the feedback forms unless someone takes time to talk to me about it. As Mohan Panguluri says, "Pradeep, you are like Himesh Reshamaya. Either people fall in love with your music or they hate you at core" and its so true. My feedback forms hardly have an average rating. I am hoping that you saw this feedback report that I bet with all trainers of the world as hard to achieve. I either get a -30,000 rating or a 6 on a scale of 1 to 5. So, you see, how much they hate me?

Now, the actual feedback for me is when people go back and perform better at work. Of course you know about Sharath's great story that fetched him several awards at Mindtree. That's history now.

So, let's look at present. Quoting Jon Bach, "I prefer testers who are more curious than technical. Being technical does not make you more curious, but curiosity can make you more technical."

I mentor a few testers who are as curious or maybe even more curious than me. A co-incidence that these people also attended my workshops on Exploratory Testing and Rapid Software Testing. Among several good things they have done so far, I am starting to like their initiative of - Bangalore Weekend Testing


So, here is the deal of Bangalore Weekend Testing

They ( Ajay Balamurugadas , Manoj Nair, Parimala, Sharath Byregowda ) get together online, pick a product ( preferably open source ) and test together. At the end they publish a report that is helpful to the organization, team or open source project owners. Most important of all they have great fun and learn together.

I dont think you should be deprived of such fun and learning especially when it comes for free.

• It can happen from wherever you are and is a great way to have fun during weekend if you claim that testing is your passion.
• You will always have something to take back to your office on Monday and try out new things to help your organization.
• You would get to meet a lot of other testers online and network.
• You would learn from each other and better your ideas in testing.
• You could end up meeting them and doing more testing together.
• These people will also help you set up a blog and help you publish your experiences and could even mentor you.
• You help the community of software testers by demonstrating your skills and or through your reports.
• You help open source projects better their next release or plan for a next release.
  

Structure:

• Once you are subscribed to weekendtesting@gmail.com you will receive updates on time and projects that is planned for the weekend or it may happen as you find the registrants online
• A chat group is created on Gtalk by a facilitator ( say Ajay ) and invite all registered testers to it. ( Registration means sending an e-mail to weekendtesting@gmail.com saying "hey, I am curious" )
  
• With the help of a Session Tester, testing for a product would go on for about 2 - 3 hours or even more as the excitement goes on.
• Participants then spend time preparing their reports and share it across e-mail, get it reviewed and then publish it on their blogs ( if they want to ) or in a website that is coming up.
• Will be so much fun as you are in direct control of your tests. No manager or Lead watching you and no time pressure and no customer waiting for your report. Just do it!
• You wait for the next weekend.

Examples from the past:

Date:

01st August 2009.

Software:

www.vischeck.com

Testers:

Ajay, Parimala.

Blogs posts:

http://enjoytesting.blogspot.com/2009/08/paired-testing-at-distance-part-1.html

http://curioustester.blogspot.com/2009/08/paired-testing-at-distance-part-1.html

Reports:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18007763/Testing-of-VischeckReport

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18008266/Experience-Report-for-Vischeck-1st-Aug-2009

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:

09th August 2009.

Software:

www.tinyurl.com

Testers:

Ajay, Manoj, Sharath.

Blogs posts:

http://enjoytesting.blogspot.com/2009/08/trio-testing-at-distance-part-1.html

http://testingredefined.blogspot.com/2009/08/here-comes-bwt-learn-test-and-have-fun.html

http://testtotester.blogspot.com/2009/08/weekend-testing.html

Reports:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/18321870/List-of-IssuesTesting-of-TinyURL

Note : These people are doing thing to bring the community together. It does not matter who you are, what certifications you have, what school you belong to, whether you like our ideas or hate them. All it matters here is - do you have the curiosity and passion to have fun through testing and yet be valuable to the open source community. Only fun and learning can unite us all - that's their motto.

Curious? Wanna have fun and learn to test better? Shoot an e-mail to weekendtesting@gmail.com

Join Facebook group of Bangalore Weekend Testers

or Test Republic group to get updates about it or to keep a tab on their reports and activities.

To all those who were concerned that community was constantly being divided, here is what could make us all one - fun while testing together. Here are the guys who are doing it. Be a part of it and have fun.

Update: Aug 18th, 2009

Check out how Bangalore Weekend Testers - 3 went and see if you are fine missing the 4th?

Parimala's Report : http://curioustester.blogspot.com/2009/08/bangalore-weekend-testing-3-bwt-3.html
Ajay's Report: http://enjoytesting.blogspot.com/2009/08/weekend-testing-session-report.html

Why good software testers should come out of the well?

One problem that I constantly spot whenever I meet a good tester in India - they don't blog and publicly write or speak. That''s why some people continue to think about me as a good tester.

The recognition that an organization gives could be fine as long as you stay in the organization or as long as the organization is doing fine. That's why many people stick on to an organization for quite sometime because they start hating fresh water. They accept to be in a well. With growing infrastructure needs and changing economy, some wells have to be wiped out and all frogs in it have to hop to a different destination.

I was once surrounded by bad frogs who made me feel that I was a great tester. I would never want to be there again because that hampers my learning although it pleases my ego as long as I am with them. A couple of months back I interviewed a tester who had been awarded as the best among 1100 testers of his organization. He was pathetic and I think the right one in the organization didn't get the award.

A tester from Mumbai who claimed to be superior to me in knowledge and skills wrote to me and said, "You are misguiding the community by giving wrong ideas" and my reply to him is this, "Well, if you are so concerned about the community then you should write a blog and say to the world that Pradeep Soundararajan is giving wrong ideas and the reasons of why his ideas are wrong" for which he never got back to me with his blog link.

There are several testers whom I helped to start a blog and only some of them are doing fine with it. Some people started a blog and sent me a link with a note that - you inspired me. If I revisit their blogs, most of them ended up not continuing it because they realized its hard to keep blogging. The other dimension is - it is easy to blog if you are just doing a cut copy paste plagiarize, not owe credits to original authors and expose yourselves as a fool.

2 months back, I interviewed Harish, who had lost his job from a reputed organization which decided to shut down its operations in Bangalore as they faced the worst part of recession at their US office.

Harish is the kind of tester whom I'd want to work with for the way he challenged my arguments, sharp eyes that observes little things going around the screen and has good reporting skills, good communication skills, but then, my client had to postpone their recruitment plans. I couldn't get an opportunity to work with him. If you are looking for one, I'd suggest you talk to Harish.

I wish I could have linked to his blog to get you curious about him and that's what is missing. I asked him:

PS: You don't blog?
Harish: Why should I?
PS: For the world to know about a good tester.
Harish: Why should the world know about me?
PS: Consider asking yourselves as to why shouldn't the world know about you?
Harish: Let me think about it.

After a month, Harish calls up, "Hey Pradeep, I haven't found a job yet. I realize this wouldn't have happened if the world knew about my testing skills. The interviews test something different than my skills"

So here is a post on my blog for all those Harish of the world to wake up and start blogging. A blog of your own serves a core purpose that surrounds all of us - to learn - things, ways, people, testing, ideas, challenges, and more...

Myths that surround wannabe-tester-bloggers

If I should blog, I should have good writing skills: Ha! You should read Pradeep's first post and then you would realize that he was more pathetic in writing than what he is today (or what you might have been a couple of years back). However, as you peruse through the blog you would realize that I have improved a thousand leaps. It comes from practice and a blog helps you to practice writing. Two things never happen to people with this myth - better writing skills and blog.


If I should blog, I should be an expert: I must admit that I thought of myself as the world's best tester till I met James and then more people like you. My blog has helped me meet thousands of people who helped me understand that I am not the world's best tester. That's important to learn because it gives me learning opportunity to try to get as close to what I think I was. You don't need to be an expert to blog but people commenting on your posts can help you to be an expert of the field. They might surprise you with a question that you think over for the next 2 years to find answers for it and in search of an answer to that question you discover a whole new world of testing.

If I should blog, I should have thousands of readers and comments: I am my first blog reader. I primarily write to practice writing and thinking. I have been writing this post over 2 days and I test my writing. It helps me writing some good documents at work that influences decisions. If my writing can be of help to others then I am glad. I do not write to get thousands of readers or commentors. No matter the world stops reading my blog, I would continue to write for one regular and serious reader - that's me.

If I should blog, I should write in a way that fetches appreciation: Saurav Ganguly, a cricket player from India was axed out of the team for poor performance a couple of years ago. The internet in India was full of jokes about his poor performance but then he made a great comeback to the worldcup squad. He was interviewed in NDTV for his comeback and a journalist asked him, "How did you make this great comeback when most parts of India, including Kolkata, your hometown was against your performance?" to which he replied, "I didn't spend time bothering things that are not under my control ( people making fun and jokes about his performance) and focussed on spending more time for things that are under my control ( practice, improving performance, consistent results in league matches) and I think that's what helped me". I took this as a great lesson to myself and focussed on doing things under my control and not bothering things that are not under my control.


If I should blog, I should have more time than what I have: Actually, we spend time on lot of useless things everyday. If you cut that out of one day in a week that provides you time to blog. I usually laugh at people who say they have no time to blog. I woke up a little early today to complete this post. I think I wouldn't die if I get up early. As James Bach said on Twitter: "I don't teach my son the value of discipline and hard work, because that *can't* be taught-- only learned."

If I should blog, I should be a good tester: A real good tester would want to get tested to see if he is really good and would be glad to know he is not good since that helps in improving him. A blog is probably one of the ways in which you get to know about the holes in your education as a tester. Once you know that, start plugging them. You could aim to be a good tester and start blogging than wait for you to become a good tester and then start blogging.

There are number of other ways you can demonstrate to the world about your testing skills and I think you should do that. Ah! No, not by saying you are proud to be ISTQB certified, that would drive away people.

PhilK recently interviewed many tester bloggers and I was one of them. Read my interview here and do not forget to read other interviews as well.

If you are good, the world should know about you. If you are hesitant to let the world know about you - you aren't good enough, maybe. Good tester doesn't mean you offer advice to the world, it means you present your work and be open to learning from others if they happen to argue. You may be a good tester and choose not to write a blog, I still respect that but I think you can get better by writing one.

So, time for you to get back to your work, ignoring all things in this post and continue to say, "If I should blog,". If you are already doing it get more people to be like you or do more with that.

Update: There is a test challenge at Test Republic that might be of your interest

Attractive professions and software testing

When I was a child I never dreamed to be a software tester and always wanted to be a fighter pilot, a naval commander, a cricket player, an astronaut, a doctor, aeronautical engineer, an actor, an army commando, a scientist.

Why didn't I think of being a software tester? Ah! Maybe because there wasn't anything I heard about software in 1980's but what about children today? They still say, "I want to be a pilot, a naval commander, a ramp model, a cricket player, a tennis player, an actor, a Formula1 driver, a Software Programmer, a Scientist"

I was investigating the history of how certain professions and sport are more popular and aspiring to many young people and discovered a few things about it.


Visibility: The idea of what a human does in a specific profession must be visible or made visible to a larger group of people who might not be in that field. For instance, my brother decided he'd want to be in army after he watched a movie "Border" and wanted to fight for the nation. In 1990, I watched "E.T." ( no, not Exploratory Testing but Extra Terrestrial ) and wanted to be an astronaut to be able to talk to aliens. A friend of mine watched Jurrasic Park and wanted to be a software programmer and a hacker. In parallel, I watched Kapil Dev's cricketing skills and wanted to be like him. Today my favorite sport is Table Tennis. Table Tennis has undergone a huge change in last few years to make the game more visible to the general public. Can you believe the ball size has been increased?

If you look at the Bolywood, you would see that one person inspired another to get into acting, music or direction. It was finally a movie ( Edison - The Man ) that changed my whole life downside up where I witnessed Thomas Edison's invention, hardship, work, experiments, challenges. I wanted to be an inventor and so am I, today, an inventor of tests.

Money & Richness: As a child, I didn't know the money behind each of these profession that I wanted to be in. When I discovered that cricketers are some of the richest people in India, I did dream a little bit about it and then the dream changed to movies, and then to something else that interested me at that time - complex electronic circuits. So, I did my Bachelors in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering to help myself earn money being an Electronics Engineer. I am so close to electronics always, you see. When I am typing this, I realize a thin slice of key board separates me from a complex circuit. Being an independent consultant in software testing in India, I must admit I make more money than 98% of testers of my age or years of experience. Forget money, I feel, I am rich with testing knowledge and skills. I admit I am greedy to be more rich this way.

Parents: are a huge influencing factor. My father always talked about science to me. I used to ask him questions about science and engineering and he kept encouraging me in many ways by getting books on science or taking me to a science fiction movie. My mother was interested in Biology but I wasn't. I think my parents helped in fostering my curiosity. For a birthday gift at my age of 11, I got an Electronics - Make it Yourself kit from my parents that I assume as another key factor. So, testing suits me since it demands curiosity. In many countries, I do see the influence of parents on their children. The Bach Brothers ( James & Jon ) despite being software testers are also writers, like their father Richard Bach.

Community Respect & Relatives: plays an influential role for some people. I have heard during my relatives marriage and other social meeting about people boasting that their son or daugther got a job in IBM as a software programmer or a job with Microsoft at Redmond. So, hearing such words inspire other people to think of it so that they could boast about a similar thing later. They go back home and ask their children to aim for being a software programmer in IBM or Microsoft. Today my parents communicate proudly to their friends, "My son is a tester who is quite reputed for his work around the world." ( Ah! They do know about some of you who hate me and would not agree to that statement. )

Friends: often influence each other by introducing them to new professions that one might not have heard about. I still remember, a friend of mine who influenced me to be more serious about Electronics by showing a pocket radio that he had assembled. I wanted to do something like that and maybe even more. I quenched the thirst during my 3rd year at college by making the first telephone controlled gas stove knob with a circuit a size of Nokia Pocket communicator.

Mentors: During my first year at work, I worked with a tester who was trying to get on to the development team of the same project as he didnt like running test cases. I was influenced by him to learn programming and try my hands on programming. Although the organization who had hired me as a tester didn't want to take me as a programmer because they felt I was being useful to them as a tester, it helped me learn some bit of useful programming. I tried learning programming with the help of a System Architect and a Senior Programmer of the team, they helped me learn how equally challenging was testing activity by testing every program I wrote.

Professional Gurus: Oh! You know this. James Bach and Michael Bolton are my gurus. I have witnessed their testing online and have been constantly tested by them. They helped me clear the darkness I used to see in software testing and become a constant learner and practitioner.

Challenges & Fun: are something that everyone look forward to in any profession they want to be in. What most of the testers and people kept hearing about testing so far is - There is a process, we simply follow it. There is a test case, we simply follow it. There are those two things, we simply follow it. There is a tool we record and play everyday. There ain't any fun there ain't any challenge in following and merely recording and playing.

Exploratory Testing and Rapid Testing is gaining huge ground in places like India, ( ask me how many people are booked for my upcoming Exploratory Testing workshop and from where all they are coming and who are they ) software testing is becoming more fun, more challenging, and testers are constantly exploring lots of new things and discovering and inventing and more...


My analysis of Why Software Testing hasn't been that much of an attractive field so far?

• It lacked (past tense) visibility
• It lacked information about testers making money
  
• It lacked community respect
• It lacked parents awareness of the profession
  
• It lacked friends awareness of the profession
• It lacked good mentors
• It lacked enough professional gurus
• It lacked enough freedom being given to testers and hence wasnt challenging
  

My strong conviction of why the situation would drastically change:

Videos like this one which aids more visibility into our profession



and like this one which aids the curiosity of existing testers



and like this one that demonstrates the financial gain



and like this one that demonstrates the fun in being a /thinking/ tester as opposed to being a certified tester



And like this one that demonstrates the challenges

And like this one that demonstrates the exploration of new ideas to find bugs



While you are reading this, a child somewhere in the world might have opened Youtube and searched for E.T and hit this video and might be dreaming of becoming a software tester. I bet this is happening. I realize we haven't seen a father son tester combination but we have heard of Bach brothers.

Today is the foundation for tomorrow. What are we doing today?

Testing Experience Magazine : The voice of ISTQB

I agree you need money to run a business but then...

If you are subscribed to Testing Experience - The magazine for professional testers, you would have got an e-mail recently ( a day or two before this post ) announcing first year anniversary of the magazine. I am subscribed to them from their third issue and in an year they have grown to about 350,000 subscribers ( as per their own website claim )

I congratulated Jose Diaz for running the magazine and for completing one year with it, and offered my respect to him for doing it. I also wrote in the same e-mail to him that I see the magazine becoming too much of ISTQB stuff to which he seemed to disagree with me. I am surprised with that.

I decided to investigate if I could be wrong and presented my findings to Jose over an e-mail:
( modified the construct for your reading and not the content)


Here is my experience of going through Testing Experience magazine

• When I open the website www.testingexperience.com I am forced to look at a pop up ad for ISTQB. Only after closing that I am allowed to browse through the pages. [ As on May 29, 2009 2300 IST ] Do you see anything different?

• Let's look into the latest issue : Security testing: Page: 2 : The opening ad of Testing Experience is ISTQB. It kind of puts in my mind the thing that Testing Experience means ISTQB.

• Page 3: Jose Diaz has personally covered ISTQB in letter from Editor section and he says, "Last but not least, I want you to pay attention to our new e-learning portal www.testingexperience.learntesting.com . You can register for ISTQB Foundation Level and very soon for Advanced Level. Enjoy Learning". When the chief says pay attention to something it indicates to me that Testing Experience is supporting ISTQB because they are feeding Testing Experience with enough money to do that.

• Page 6: Yet another ad of ISTQB in German language or something similar to that. Hey look, before I even get to read the first article in a magazine, I am asked to cross 4-5 instances of ISTQB.
  

• Page 13: Another instance of ISTQB half page attractive ad
  

• Page 21: ISTQB again

• Page 24: Erik Van Veenendaal writes about ISTQB and wooing people to go for it. Here is an excerpt from that article: "The ISTQB Advanced Level scheme offers a complete 5-day module on technical testing which may seem irrelevant to testers today, but I'm convinced will become more and more important to the near future or even already today".
  

• Page 27: Interview with Mike Smith: Yet another ISTQB masala flavor in the form of LearnTesting. 3 pages full of that. As though - Learn Testing means only about learning ISTQB way of testing.

• Page 30: Yet another ad for Learn Testing who in turn promotes ISTQB and run by Testing Experience.
  

• Page36: An article from Rex Black, a popular founder and face of ISTQB. To his credit, he doesn't talk about ISTQB.
  

• In what way is his article on page 66 to 70 that talks about Advanced Software Test Design Techniques is related to Security theme of the magazine? Do we have so less people on Security Testing that we'd have to compensate it by a non security article.

• At least aren't there any other brilliant ISTQB certified testers who can write good articles on Security Testing or maybe even the Advanced Test Case Design Techniques?

• Page 52 & 53 has the ISTQB and information such as "We are the community with 1,10,000 people. Are you on the right side?". Its a Shame. Rex Black speaks against the idea of Schools of Testing but has ads asking testers, Are you on the right side? with a link to ISTQB below it. What is the message?
  

• Page 58: ISTQB in France

• Page 70: Another article from Rex Black
  

• Page 78: RBCS & ISTQB
  

• Page 99: There is ISTQB, yet again and a full fledged article on it for 2 pages.

• Page 103: Is yet another mention about ISTQB being there and being here for those who didn't know it will soon be everywhere .

• Oh and Page 104 also ends with ISTQB training and other details. ( There are only 104 pages of this magazine )
  

• Compare their first edition of magazine and there on, you would see ISTQB increasing with every edition. I wouldn't be surprised that the future editions is only about ISTQB and I see the future in their latest edition.

Testing is Questioning

Where is all the money that many testers across the globe paying to ISTQB certification and training going? Asks Michael Bolton on James Bach's Blog

Is the magazine becoming an official mouth piece of ISTQB or there is so much of bias that it makes me think so?

Whose money is all this? Your money. You didnt know you can make someone as rich as you wanted to be?

I think anyone who is running a business can cling to a brand to build their own brand but not to an extent that the other brand swallows it. If that is the mission, I think Testing Experience is headed on the right track.

I don't know who is in the review board and I suspect that it might not be diversified and have only ISTQB promoters.


What do you think?

• So, you reader of this post - What is your opinion? After seeing all this would you think the magazine is neutral or is serving the purpose of promoting ISTQB?
• Should magazines like these that claim to be for Professional Testers be promoting one kind of stuff or be helpful to the community in allowing different kinds of people to mix with?

Test Republic is a social community for software testers and a not for profit service by Mohan Panguluri, COO, Edista Testing Institute. You can witness that by visiting it. It has events of ISTQB posted in the past, it has CAST conference details and QAI conferences. It has a blend of all kinds of thought process in software testing and arguments. They allow all kinds of information to be posted from all kind of communities and schools. They keep aside their business and do this for benefiting the community. Another example is STC by Rosie Sherry. I think there is lots to learn from people like Mohan Panguluri and Rosie Sherry, for the rest of the world who also claims to be doing it for Professional testers.


The philosophy

Jose seemed to be OK with my above response of facts about ISTQB in Testing Experience's latest issue but wasn't comfortable after I mentioned to him that I plan to blog about it. He cited that his lawyers might have a look into my blog if I do so.

So they might be reading this post along with you. If I question ISTQB, the dynasty of ISTQB will hire lawyers to see if I can be attacked for questioning them?

How cheap? Software Testing is such a nascent field, we haven't even crossed 50 years and already someone is saying "The best practice and right ways of testing" and "we control the field and there is no room for disagreement".

Kudos ISTQB certified testers. You are sinking the field you are working on without knowing you are doing it. Fantastic, go ahead get certified!

Using "testing" || Abusing "testing"

As you have started to read this post, before you continue further, I'd like you to listen to a podcast - The Word Test . If you are skipping the podcast, it's OK but it might be a good idea to not skip.

Also, don't read this post while you are mid way listening to the podcast, it's more bad than not listening to it.

One of my student who works for a leading IT services provider from India, asked a question to testers in the organization he works for - "Is it good to stop testing after a couple of years of experience or after promoted to a lead or a manager?" [ My intention of this post is not to answer this question that my student asked but ... ]

There were responses like:

One need not do hands-on testing all through his/her career. When you test all by yourself, you are adding a value of say 'X' to your project. When you manage say 5 Testers, you are letting your skills, knowledge and experience on Testing percolate to 5 other members and you would be adding a value of 5 times X to your project.

and

Whatever you have said is ok for a resource working in a team which uses tools for testing. For someone who is into manual testing where is the career growth? For those wouldn't management be a blessing to be grabbed with both hands?

and

You cant be a tester for all your life. Same is the case with development. You need to manage things at one point in time. But when and where, you need to decide yourself......

and

more such.

All of these people ( including my student ) and maybe testers who are sitting nearby your cubicles while you read this mean "testing" as test execution. [ You wouldn't be surprised at this, had you listened to the podcast ]

Here is my question to those people: If testing means test execution, under what category does - test planning, test data collection, finding bugs, reporting bugs, triaging bugs, test set up, test bed creation, test documentation, thinking of test techniques, exploring, investigating bugs, reviewing test results, test reporting, modeling, diversifying test approaches, etc... fit in?

Well, when the word testing could mean so many things, why are most of us thinking only about test execution when someone uses the word "testing". This makes me question, how many people who claim to be testers really know little about testing that is enough to communicate with people without such ambiguity?

A lot of testers' only thinking is -- every thing in this field is defined pretty well and no need to think beyond it. A definition, in my opinion, should be viewed as a help for a human to think further on it and not in stopping to think beyond what it states.

In another context, if you ask them what "testing" means, they'd love to share their own impractical definitions like:

"Testing is a process of making a product bug free" OR "Testing is a systematic approach towards delivering a quality product" OR "Testing is about following quality processes to ensure bugs don't leak to customer"
and more such stupid stuff !

That's an evidence that the word "testing" itself is context sensitively used by the whole world out of which most of them might disagree with the context driven testing community about their approach. Funny world!

Ben Simo, in a recent conversation, helped me become conscious of the fact that the word "test" is both a noun and a verb; and that one feeds the other.


If one doesn't know what "testing" means, how will they ever know when they are stopping to do it?

If you think you have benefited by this post, here is a "test" you might want to take:

• What would you say, when you want to communicate that you are doing test execution?
• What would you say, when you want to communicate that you are stopping to execute tests?
• What word would you use instead of "testing" to communicate any specific activity that you do as a part of testing?
• When someone uses the word "testing", what would you want to ask them?
• When someone says "test", would you be curious to know if it is a verb or a noun?
• What would you want to know if someone said, "I want to do testing"?
  
• Would you be interested to pass this learning to someone with whom you have been communicating on "testing"?

If you think you haven't been benefited by this post, here are things you could do:

• Read it once again ;-)
• Listen to the podcast, if you have missed it ;-)
• And then exit. It's just not worth one more glance, for today.
  

As testers we use the word "testing" so many times in our life without ever (knowing) wanting to know if we abused it, too. I have done it, too. There is nothing wrong in abusing the word "testing" as long as you don't know that it means a lot by itself and in different contexts.

--
Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

"The test doesn't find the bug. A human finds the bug, and the test plays a role in helping the human find it." --

Walking along Testers Street!

Hi Reader,

I don't want to kill your excitement of reading THIS ARTICLE by giving an introduction to it. Feel free to share it with anyone you like, if it is that interesting. I felt it interesting and hence I shared it with you all in my blog.

This article is important in a way that makes you think of how you ......

-- Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com - +91-98451-76817