Guess who’s back, back again… David’s back, tell a friend. I’d credit the rapper, but may not be totally appropriate for this Blog. ;0)
That’s right; we’re back with another Fast Five. This time, I was lucky enough to grab some of Michael Larsen’s time! Since becoming a member of the Miagi-Do School of Software Testing, I’ve gotten to know Michael a bit better, and he really is a cool dude! The amount of work this guy does for the community of testing is amazing (he also adds a lot of value to many other communities). As is the amount he writes! He is extremely passionate about tester education so I thought I’d ask him some questions related to that, and also his awesome blogging!
You can find out more about Michael at his website TESTHEAD, however here are some dot points about Michael which highlight what I have mentioned above:
- A black-belt in the Miagi-Do School of Software Testing.
- A member of the Board of Directors, as well as the incoming Chair for the Education Special Interest Group, for the Association for Software Testing (Michael teaches their Black Box Software Testing classes).
- The producer of, and a regular commentator for, the SoftwareTestPro.com podcast “This Week in Software Testing” (hosted by Matt Heusser).
- A founding member of the “Americas” Chapter of “Weekend Testing”. You can follow their progress and tweets at @WTAmericas or email WTAmericas@gmail.com.
- Michael, and a number of other software testers contributed a chapter each to a book devoted to “How to Reduce the Costs of Software Testing“, which was published by Auerbach Publications in October, 2011.
As you can see, passionate may be an understatement…
Anyway, time to get underway…
1. Its fair to say that you blog A LOT. A quick read of TESTHEAD gives the reader instant benefits. I’m wondering what the benefits are to you? Can you put your selfish hat on for a moment and tell me how it helps you?
I think it helps to look at the posts that I do make and what they are about. While my Blog is dedicated to software testing and testing education primarily, there’s also a lot of other topics that I cover as well. I do book reviews, and sometimes I do deep dives on titles that I think would be of interest to people other than myself. If you take the posts for “How We Test Software at Microsoft”, “How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing”, “Learn Ruby the Hard Way” and “Selenium 1.0 Testing Tools” and separate them, those easily make up close to 20% of my Blog’s contents.
My Blog also acts as my long term memory, a way to consider things I come across, work through and share my triumphs and frustrations. It’s also a way to process the things that I do and participate in. I often go back and look through the things that I wrote just a year ago and I can see what I’ve learned since then, or a different way of looking at a problem will come to me after I review older posts. So most of all, it’s a series of sign posts that show me where I’ve been and where I’d like to go.
2. I have a scenario for you… I meet you at a conference and we get chatting. After a while I pop this on you – “Dude, I really want to start a Blog. I wanna be like Mike! How do I do it? How do I get my voice heard around the globe?” You respond with…
Wow, now that is a question (LOL!).
I think the first thing you have to prepare for is a long time of writing for no one but yourself. That was easily the case for the first several months of my Blog. The good news, though, is that if you are consistent and you post things that interest other readers, they tend to share your message with others and those people then share the message with even more readers, and over time, you develop a readership that comes back and keeps pace with you.
I think that using tools like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ can be a big help here, in that they help you share your message with a larger community. Other groups can give your Blog syndication. AST does this, so does Software Testing Club. Some other bloggers keep a rolling feed of testing bloggers (Joe Strazzere and Joris Meerts are two I can think of off the top of my head that do this).
Outside of all the technical details, I think it’s important to find a voice and a niche that interests you. For me, that’s a combination of talking about a variety of testing topics, a little bit of programming, live blogging various testing events, and then a heaping dose of personal motivation and dealing with the challenges that get in the way of making good on that motivation. I think my Blog has been successful in the sense that I have willingly inserted myself into the mix, and tell my own story along with the things that I learn.
3. I personally learn a lot while writing my posts, so to me that is one way to educate myself. Being a HUGE advocate of tester education, I’m wondering if you have a ‘top 5′ tips on self-education for testers?
There’s a lot of avenues that you can explore, and different approaches work for different people. Some people are good with books, and that’s why I make a point of doing regular book reviews on a variety of topics. Note: don’t just look for testing books; much of the ideas you will gain and the approaches to testing you will use will likely come from sources other than books on software testing. One of my favorite “testing” books is “The Day the Universe Changed” by James Burke. You will have a very different appreciation for the world that surrounds us and the way that we see it after reading that book.
The explosion of Blogs on various topics is also a terrific tool for the budding tester. While we are a small niche in the total blogging world, there are currently over 150 Blogs dedicated to software testing (using Joe’s And Joris’ sites as reference). Each of these Blogs provide a slightly different voice, and each covers different topics. I frequently create a new “blogroll” that I follow based on people and areas that interest me. By shuffling the people that I read, it gives me a chance to see different perspectives and try different ideas. Some Blogs are consistent on my list, since they are updated frequently and they cover a wide renege of topics (James Bach, Matt Heusser, Marlena Compton and Ajay Balamurugadas are consistently in my list, but there’s a lot of great bloggers out there to explore and learn from.
Screencasts, podcasts and other informal mechanisms abound that allow testers the ability to focus on various topics and hear them multiple times. Interested in learning about Ruby? Check out NetTuts and see their screencasts. Want to learn about various technologies for developers? Pragmatic Podcasts is a great source. If you want to have a regular conversation about software testing, have a listen to TWiST (ok, that’s a shameless plug :) ).
Meet-ups are a terrific opportunity to get together with a broad range of people that share interests, many of which you might not otherwise interact with or get to know. The opportunity to do this varies depending on where you are. Where I live (San Francisco Bay Area) there are lots of Meet-ups to participate in on any number of topics. These meet ups often include exercises and learning opportunities. Several of the ones I attend are not specific to software testing. I participate in Meet-ups related to Selenium, Ruby, Rails, HTML5 & CSS3, as well as groups focusing on UX and Agile development practices.
Finally, there can be a benefit to taking individual classes with other students, either online or in person. The benefit to the interactive classroom (online or in-person) is that you get peer review and feedback from other participants, as well as coaching and targeted feedback from the instructors. AST’s BBST classes are built on this model, and I find them to be valuable, both from the participant side as well as from the instructor side. In many ways, I think being an instructor might help you learn even more than being a participant, as you get to see how well you are able to coach and instruct on the topic at hand. I’ve now helped teach or led seven Foundations courses, and it’s no exaggeration to say that I learn something new every time I help teach. So consider that a sixth tip for self education. Once you learn something, look for an opportunity to teach it to someone else, even if it’s just through a tutorial on your own Blog.
4. While leading a BBST course, how do you adjust your teaching in order to cater for the many different learning styles that individuals have? Also, do you see a particular learning style being the most common (in general)?
Everyone is a little different, and everyone comes from a slightly different perspective. This is a good thing, and it’s what makes the BBST experience so rich. Many of the participants are relatively new to the online approach to teaching and learning, so there are often “growing pains” with this approach and process. Generally speaking, there’s a challenge with Asynchronous communications. Those who have dealt with and are veterans of newsgroups and other forums do better with this than those who are new to it.
Another aspect that I’ve found interesting is that there seems to be two groups that struggle more than others. The real beginners, those with very little time in the industry, and the long term veterans. I found the latter to be surprising. Many people can be very set in their ways, and even in a classroom setting with new concepts, they struggle. I know this because I was one of those people. I think with Foundations, especially, there is an expectation that it is a “beginners” class, or that it is a “fundamentals” class, and that much of what we are working on is stuff veterans already know. There’s some truth to that, but a lot of the context details provided are new even to veterans, and taking the time to see different perspectives can be a big paradigm shift for people used to a particular industry or way of doing things. I find that taking a little time to ask the veterans to step out of their comfort zones and try to look at the concepts away from their own experiences can be tremendously helpful.
Also, there seems to be some resistance to a “young turk” telling a veteran that they can see a better way of wording or doing something. There can be a little bit of resistance to this, a matter of “look here, I’ve been in this industry for twenty years…” but honestly, many of the newer participants have really great insights. They are open to new approaches and new ideas, and are willing to say “well, why not approach it from a different angle?” Be open to learning from your fellow participants; they may have an insight you’ve never considered, and that’s totally cool!
5. Last, but not least, could you give me your thoughts on where tester’s education will be in 5 years time and what you’ll be doing as part of it?
I’m hoping that we will have more offerings and an easier way of finding them. We have been receiving inquiries from Universities around the world to license or offer the Black Box Software Testing courses so that they can be taught as part of a Computer Science curriculum. I think a lot of the development of tester education will happen through smaller course options, or possibly as individual bloggers decide to start putting together their own course ideas and offer them through their own Blogs (there are several people who do this already) with the proliferation of online presentation tools and the ubiquity of sites like youtube and others, making and delivering modules will become much easier.
I see organizations like AST and Software Testing Club helping to lead these opportunities, and if we are consistent and offer education options that are both timely and effective, we may well be seeing a new renaissance in testing education and opportunities surrounding them. The challenge may well be separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, but I’m certainly hoping I’m one who will be providing wheat in this metaphor :)
I’d like to take this opportunity to say a BIG thank you to Michael for giving up some of his precious time to talk with me. If you have any questions for Michael I’m sure he’d be happy to hear from you, but be patient… he is very a busy man.
I hope you enjoyed this latest edition of Fast Five. Remember to get in contact with me if you have topics you’d like covered or individuals that you think I should interview.
