I read. A lot. And I share the five best things I read every week. This week’s topics include thoughts on individual mood on a team, visualizing test cases, coding becoming an essential skill, learning to fire employees and the most epic trolling I have seen.
1. Influence of individual moods on teams
2. Visualizing test cases
3. Obama becomes first US president to write a software program
4. How to fire under-performing employees
5. Ken M – the G.O.A.T of trolling
My notes:
1. Influence of individual moods on teams
Another good interview with Jerry Weinberg. Twenty years from now, the rest of the testing community will begin to understand what he is talking about today. And twenty years is a highly optimistic estimate. In this article Jerry Weinberg talks about how individual moods affect team performance. Individual mood is yet another parameter to consider when thinking about what conditions produce good software.
2. Visualizing testing
Rob Lambert (a.k.a the Social Tester) wrote an interesting piece about how he uses Evernote and MohioMap to visualize a summary of test cases. At Qxf2, I used MindMap and TestRail’s API to do something similar. The script is still not good enough but I hope to share it online sometime soon.
3. Obama becomes first US president to write a software program
Barack Obama became the first US president to write a simple computer program. He did it to emphasize the importance of being code literate. I agree – the coming generation is going to be interacting with smart machines a lot more than my generation. Being code literate is important. This reminds me of growing up in India in the 80s and learning English was starting to become a must.
4. How to fire under-performing employees
Firing folk is every employer’s nightmare. Thankfully, we have not had a bade hire at Qxf2. I credit that to a combination of Qxf2’s hiring policies and luck. This week I came across an article that will help with handling the eventual crucial conversation.
5. Ken M – the G.O.A.T of trolling
Ken M is a trolling legend. If you have 10 minutes, I highly recommend reading through some of his hilarious comments.
I want to find out what conditions produce remarkable software. A few years ago, I chose to work as the first professional tester at a startup. I successfully won credibility for testers and established a world-class team. I have lead the testing for early versions of multiple products. Today, I run Qxf2 Services. Qxf2 provides software testing services for startups. If you are interested in what Qxf2 offers or simply want to talk about testing, you can contact me at: [email protected]. I like testing, math, chess and dogs.
