Mike Kelly’s blog

The December issue of Writer’s Digest has some great articles on creativity in it. One in particular caught my attention: Blinded by the Light by Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant. In the article Leigh Anne provides tips for overcoming Too Many Ideas Syndrome. It’s a problem many testers face. I think all nine tips can be applied to testers who have to deal with managing all the test ideas they have in their head.

Meeting of the Minds by Michael J. Vaughn and Mapping Out of a Block by Greg Korgeski are also very applicable to what we do as tester. Three great articles for that look at techniques for generating/elaborating, roughing/refining, and refocusing.

Pick up the December issue if you don’t already get Writer’s Digest. (And of course, what tester doesn’t already get Writer’s Digest?)

A while ago I posted on some thoughts on boundary testing from WHET #4. In that post, I said the following:

James Bach challenged me to come up with three specific examples and to tell him how they are boundaries. With that, I pulled out my moleskin and drew three different models: a UCML model, a system diagram, and the model I used to test the time-clock application.

I quickly came up with a list of 16 factors based on those three models. It became apparent to me that only 5 of those sixteen factors was a boundary. So much for that definition.

Thanks to Shrini Kulkarni I’m finally getting around to uploading the diagrams from my notebook. Shrini has been very patient and has reminded me more then once. It’s nice to have a gentle reminder every now and then….

Here are four pages from my notes at WHET:

If you can’t tell, drawing helps me think. About half my notebooks are pictures. In the pages above I drew a small clip of UCML, a simple diagram of a web service from a past client (I had to scrub some application names, I apologize), and a bit of what I remembered from when James had me test the time-clock application. I included some of my ramblings as I tried to work through some of the questions I had for myself.

Shrini, I hope that helps…

Side note: The book reference in the notes should really read “How Should We Then Live?” by Francis A. Schaeffer. I can’t remember who recommended it, but it seemed worth writing down. That’s my kind of reading.

I’m pleased to announce the release of AST’s second newsletter, now titled Sapient Testing Magazine. You can download the December issue of Sapient Testing here. Along with this issue we have launched a website. Watch the site in the coming weeks. We will be publishing a 2008 editorial calendar, some writing guidelines, and possibly some interactive features for feedback and content distribution.

I want to take a second to thank our new editor, David Christiansen. David did an incredible job collecting and editing content, laying out the magazine, and getting this issue to production. As you read the magazine, please send David your feedback (good and bad) so he knows how to make the next issue even better. You can contact David at dave@techdarkside.

Let the downloads begin! Bandwidth problems finally solved (I hope). I’ve launched a new website for the Indianapolis Workshops on Software Testing. You can find it here: www.IWST2008.com

If you would like to be involved in 2008, drop either myself or one of the other organizers an email.

Karen Johnson and I recently did a webcast on software test design and planning. As always, I was thrilled to work with Karen on this. I listened to the webcast for the first time tonight and it’s interesting to hear how the two of us approach the planning process differently. Worth a listen if you have an hour to kill. You can find it on SearchSoftwareQuality and I’ve linked to it on my media page. There is a short article that goes with it that you can find here.