People often ask me about good ways to devise a test strategy for a new epic or feature. Like many practitioners, I find a risk-based approach works well. I’m a big fan of Beren Van Daele’s risk storming with TestSphere cards. I had the good fortune during 2020 to participate in risk storming sessions facilitated […]
Read MoreDistributed Teams
Starting a new job in the pandemic
Lena Pejgan invited me to join her in her pair blogging series (see her first post for some background). We quickly decided to write about starting a new job in the pandemic – which we both did! Lena is a manager, so she has perspective for hiring new people during these strange new times. I’m […]
Read MoreThe Need for Feedback
It’s been a big year of change for me. My husband and I moved our three donkeys, three cats and two dogs 1900 miles, from Colorado to Vermont. I started a new job as testing advocate for mabl at the beginning of August, and executed our long-planned move three weeks later. We love our new […]
Read MoreRetrospectives for large teams with many sub-teams
My team has 40+ members, distributed into seven or so “pods” and across several locations. It’s a challenge to communicate information among the multiple pods. In addition, we often face obstacles that cross over multiple pods. We usually have a “cross-pod retrospective” once a month. It’s typically in the “Happy/Puzzler/Sad” format. We collect items in […]
Read MoreWhat I Learned Pairing on a Workshop
I pair on all my conference sessions. It’s more fun, participants get a better learning opportunity, and if my pairs are less experienced at presenting, they get to practice their skills. Big bonus: I learn a lot too! I’ve paired with quite a few awesome people. Janet Gregory and I have, of course, been pairing […]
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