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Rahul Verma on Fuzzing for software testers : Nov 23, 2009

Tester Tested! - Fri, 11/13/2009 - 20:14

I think I was stupid to have missed mentioning this tutorial from Rahul Verma on Fuzzing for software testers in my previous post. My apologies to all testers from India for overlooking at our own indigenous talent. Rahul, please forgive me.

Fuzzing is a very interesting topic and I dont want to loose out on attending his session in Bangalore.Have you ever corrupted a file? Have you been curious to see what happens to your system when the database is corrupted? What happens to a live / production server if a file is corrupted? Have you ever experienced a file/data corruption at the customer end and the ripples it caused your organization. I know its very important and thankfully Rahul has focused on it much beyond most of us. If I could better my fuzzing skills, I can extend my competitive advantage.

Once I was a part of a test team whose responsibility was to test multimedia streaming on a Pocket PC. Pesticide Paradox kicked in and our test data was no longer helping us to find problems.

• With the help of a few multimedia content generators, we generated test data that astounded the whole team with the volume of the problems it helped us find. We had lots of media clips whose configuration was perfect and as per requirement - the player and pocket PC should play. They were doing fine but the moment we introduced a real media file derived from an mp3 file which in turn was derived from a real media file, we found some amazing bugs.
• Imagine, taking a file, converting it to format A to format B and then reconverting it to format A. Is the end result file supposed to be the same as how it started?
• Imagine opening an input file as a binary and take out the End of File indicator, how would the system handle it?
• Wow! I dont know how it makes you feel but to me I am so much excited of how the system will respond?
• I know about a few ways of corrupting data and packets. I am sure my armory of test ideas is going to expand after attending Rahul's session.
  

Fortunately, there is a week's time for us to register. To know if it is worth the money, here is my recommendation about Rahul Verma:

I have personally interacted with him and think he is unique. He is well read, focused, 10000% more disciplined than me, honest, a rare breed of performance-security-automation combo guy. A great presenter, you will be spell bound with his presentation skills. I cant take a minute of my eyesight out if this guy is presenting.


What worth is my money in bank if I cant spend it to learn things that makes me a better tester. Oh, you think I am rich? Yes, I am and it indicates that my investment plans have been good so far. Here is my next systematic investment:

To Conference Organizers : Here is my registration for this tutorial. I am participating, block a seat for me.

Creating your portfolio and increasing your chances of being hired

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Mon, 11/09/2009 - 10:08

I am tired of looking at plain text resume full of claims and lies. Can someone come up with an evidence of their claims that can make me happy?

When I was interacting with a friend of mine who works in Dreamworks ( yeah, the company that gave us a lot of great animation movies ) he was talking about people in his industry maintaining a portfolio of their work when applying for a job.

The portfolio contains excerpt from their work or samples to the work they did that the hiring manager and interviewers can look at to determine the quality of work, skills and the technologies the person has put in use.

I think other professions and especially software industry needs to catch up with it. I vaguely remember Adam Goucher, a leading tester from Canada having written a post about a software tester creating a portfolio.

You may also want to look at this animation guy and his flash animation profile. You will be amazed just like millions of others who were after viewing it.

Here is a presentation from Shmuel Gershon from Israel who along with Issi Hazan made a presentation of how a software tester can create a portfolio

Create Your Tester Portfolio

So, I am sure there are more examples that you can search for in whatever field you are in. Want to get your portfolio reviewed? Write to us : cv@interviewsandjobs.com

Title 1: Investment plans for software testers. Title 2: Michael Bolton RST training in India

Tester Tested! - Mon, 10/26/2009 - 15:28

Is it a best practice that a post should have only one title? ;-)


Sharath Byregowda has won the Best Performer award at Mindtree. You know what it means to win the best performer award in an organization that has about 8000+ technical force. According to Mindtree there was a special guest who was invited to give away that award and that special person for them that day was me.

Sharath's manager, Murugan, wanted to make the award ceremony a very special one and surprised Sharath by bringing me in for the award ceremony. A manager so excited about giving away an award of Best Performer of the organization to his subordinate - made me feel wow. While traveling together to Mindtree office, I discovered that Murugan had a good diversity throughout his career and even tried doing business in the United States long ago with his friends. With all that experience, he thought, freedom plays a vital role in testing and hence provided it to Sharath who seeked it. India needs more Murugans. I think they have lot of Sharaths out there.

Freedom with responsibility made Sharath get him the award. This is the second time my student is getting an award at the organization level. Most of you might not know much about Shaham Yusuf but then he won awards for slogging important bugs and an unmatchable record of the highest number of important problems found in Deloitte India.

Of course my other students are doing very well. I wish they fail as much as they seem to do well and I think failing early gives them a better edge over the future.

Parimala also got noticed and was blogged about by James Bach and mentions by Michael Bolton and Chris McMahon . Ajay Balamurugadas, Manoj Nair, Sharath and Pari are being noticed for their contribution of Weekend Testing and Fiona Charles personally appreciated their effort and it also got mentioned by Anne Marrie and Michael Bolton. Ajay won several scholarships at STC and also is a student of Heusser's Miagi Do School of Testing. Sathish Kumar Chinappa is another interesting exploratory tester who is one of the most sought out tester of Cognizant Technologies. Look at his brilliance: He came forward to teach exploratory testing - no one came forward to listen - he then created his own self certified exploratory program and that has attracted testers in CTS. He is running the second batch now. Santhosh Tuppad, a rookie tester is also going to be great guns in future. There are more names...Mohit, Jassi, Rajkumar Pandian, Tarik Seth, Satabdi Roy, Bhargavi... and more names...

In Sharath's award ceremony he spoke about how a coffee with Pradeep changed his whole life but I think what changed his life was himself and his ability to be responsible when freedom is provided. That is exactly what I see in others.

Half of them have already surpassed me by finishing the BBST Foundations and graduating to Bug Advocacy. Others are on their way.

Thanks a lot folks! You make me proud and you were kind enough to allow me to call you as my students. I know you will keep making me proud and push me beyond my current boundaries.

So, here is a self interview:

Pradeep: Now what's all these to do with the title?

Pradeep: All these Indian testers names you see here including mine have one thing in common: Our investment strategy has been working well. We invest our money and time on learning and practice.

Pradeep:What's great, everybody does that, right?


Pradeep: I remember a quote from Jerry Weinberg which is like.. "When you buy a degree, education is an option. Most often people drop the option." and I feel this is what is happening.


Pradeep: So whats your observation about testers in India?

Pradeep: Of course, most of them think they need their organization to sponsor even to attend attend a workshop that they know is of a lot of significance in their career. They are unwilling to spend from their pocket because they think its too expensive to spend from their pocket. I dont understand what is their idea of expensive. Of course expensive compared to what?

I personally wouldn't allow an organization to limit my growth and learning as a tester.


Pradeep: Did all your students pay from their pocket?

Pradeep: No, some of them did. Others, I met them at a corporate workshop. Sharath was wanting to pay from his pocket but I said if you want to be my student, the first trap you have to clear is to get your organization to sponsor you. It was a trap because his organization had a lot of internal trainers and inside-their-organization-context experts whom he had to face and explain what is different about the workshop.

Pradeep: So, whats your recent investment? How is this going to help you be a better tester.


Pradeep: I went to a book store, invested my one hour reading a book for free :) and then picked up a few books: Black Swan and the first copy of Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar plus a few other books on questioning God. I gifted Sharath a DVD of Sherlock Holmes for his award and Pari a Moleskine and a DVD of Shawshank Remption. Gifted Santhosh a book - Lessons Learned in Software Testing on the occasion of his joining his first full time testing job. All costing more than about 2000 rupees. I make such investments twice a month. When I cant afford a book, I sit in Landmark book store, complete reading the book, make notes and come back. I talked to the Landmark manager at Swagath, Bangalore who permitted me to spend any amount of time reading any number of books for free. Those who complain that they cant afford books are merely saying "grapes are sour".

The book Black Swan starts with the story of how people were fooled by the notion that swans are always white untill the discovery of Black Swan. Just reading the prologue made me think if in testing I have been thinking of a swans-being-white-only. So, I am in that thought process and questioning myself. I am going to use this book to help me question my own ideas.

Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar book by James is a kind of an autobiography of the man I believe is my first Guru in testing. I am going to always look into it for gaining confidence if it happens to drop. James promised me to gift me a signed copy of his book on my birthday but he became busy ( a gentle reminder James ).

Gift to my students, well, I am sure they will get back to me with their learning from it. So, I am going to learn new things from it.

Pradeep: Wow! That sounds cool. So, what investments are your students doing?


Pradeep: They are currently registering for Michael Bolton's workshop on Rapid Software Testing for Testers, Leads and Managers in Bangalore and they are taking out about 20K from their pocket or even more to attend it.


Pradeep: Hey, 20,000 rupees is a lot of money in India. How are they able to afford it?

Pradeep: Well, I know how they are able to afford for it. They are looking at cost versus value. They have been reading Michael's blog and articles. They know the value is going to surpass the cost. Of course this is Michael Bolton's 7th visit to India and he has an amazing skill of connecting with the way testing is done here at India. They also are aware that the ideas and thought process that they might gain might help them progress in their career much faster than they would have without it. Michael's vision and way of presenting information is something unique and you may have a look at an example of it: www.developsense.com/presentations/e2008twofutures.pdf



They think its cheap because they see it this way: If they were to attend his workshop or of James which doesnt happen in India as often as in North America, they have to travel + afford the US dollar costs. Well, isn't it cheap?

Pradeep: So, is he here just for the workshop?


Pradeep: Oh, I forgot. There is more fun you could have at a conference he is keynoting. Please check out these links:

http://www.qaiglobal.com/minisites/stc-2009/vision_stats.htm

http://www.qaiglobal.com/minisites/stc-2009/michael_bolton.htm

http://www.qaiglobal.com/minisites/stc-2009/speakers.htm

Plus, you can meet a lot of other interesting people from India at the conference, including, Gangadariah, Head of Testing - Wipro, Minal Deshpande, Head of Testing, Deloitte, Meeta Prakash, Infosys, and I am hoping my Indian heroes, Vipul and Ashok joins, too.


Pradeep: Well, so you propose investment of money and time on learning and practice as a good plan for testers with high returns?

Pradeep: Exactly. Investment of time and money on learning and practice can make you rich - in skills and in your career. Once you have the skills that others don't or you have it to an extent that others want to learn from you then money would come to you. For instance, in IPL Kevin Peitersen was the most expensive player to bid. Why was that? Because his name was unique?:)

When I started to offer workshops, I never thought people will pay from their pocket to attend my workshops but they did. Some even came down from Mumbai, Chennai, Pondicherry, Mysore, Trivandrum to attend it. They all proved me wrong.

There is a strong evidence that I have that Indian testers are changing ( no that doesnt mean the scene of testing in India is changing because we are in need of more Murugans ). See you at Michael Bolton's workshop and at the conference.

Make up your mind and get an early bird discount. Stop cribbing about money, lead a rich life. Rich in knowledge and skills, if not money. Register by sending an email to Akshay or call him at  +91 98451 76034.

Testers & Blocks Consulting - Puzzle 2

Tester Tested! - Mon, 10/12/2009 - 09:14

You haven't yet read Testers & Blocks Consulting - Puzzle 1? You know Testerlock, right?


"Are you Testerlock of Testers & Blocks Consulting?" screamed a voice on the road just when Testerlock was buying some vegetables. Before Testerlock could respond, the young man filled with excitement said, "I have watched you test at a webinar and I loved the way you brought in so many heuristics to your testing approach. I even wrote an e-mail to you a couple of months back".

"And you are..."

"Oh, I am Philip. A senior tester at PepLabs and I really wish I could learn more from you. In fact my whole team would love to learn from you"

"I am glad you are interested at my testing as much as I will be interested to watch your team test"

"We have a problem though. Our manager somehow wouldn't get convinced that we need your training?"

"Really? Do you have some time, let me pay for these vegetables and we can sit around for a coffee"

"Oh, sure"


A few minutes later, Testerlock and Philip were at a Cup-O, a coffee bar in Portland, Oregon, discussing about the problem that Philip raised.



After the first sip of a coffee, "So, you think your manager is a barrier to bring me in, to coach your team?"

"Yeah, sure, he is", said Philip in a confident voice.

"Well, how do you know that?"

"I know because we have made that proposal and he rejected claiming the value of your workshop wasnt good enough"...

"So, he isn't convinced about the value of my workshop although he is convinced that I can be good?"

"I think he needs a reason to stop you from coming in and has been poking the value of the workshop"

"But we aren't enemies, yet. Are we?"

"Well, he might be. He had been to STCQA 08 conference and he heard you speak against CMMi and Six Sigma" and with just half the coffee over, Testerlock asked, "Philip, what strikes to your mind if I say Brian"

with eyebrows raised, "My manager!", exclaimed Philip


"Ok, so now I know why he doesn't want me to there. A part of speaking the truth about CMMi and Six Sigma is that - I lose a lot of business opportunities. Not that I loose, I am deprived of. Brian, your manager had a huge argument with me. I should say debate than argument because he wasn't willing to change his stance. He thought I was an idiot. Maybe he was right but he didnt present to me evidences that could convince me about it"... "Now, we have an interesting problem"


"One of the ways is to get your team spend from their pocket but if there is a budget for training that is lying in the bank with no one claiming for it, I'd like to bet on it"


Philip, "Some of us wouldn't mind spending from our pocket but we hope we could take this workshop along with Brian so that he is synchronous to the kind of testing he wants to"


"Well, no problem in hoping that he would change. The chances of the change are as much as me agreeing to his ideas"
"You mean Nil?"
"No, not at all. Note: I still called it a chance"


Testerlock interrputed Philip and ordered for another coffee - Solar Eclipse, typically the one that indicates Testerlock is taking up this problem as a problem to solve.



Now, if you were Testerlock, what would you talk to Brian in order to convince him about getting you do a workshop in PepLabs? 

Don't limit yourselves to the first few ideas that sprout in your mind the moment you read the question.

Approaches for interviewing in software testing - Book Kickoff & Launch of Interviews & Jobs portal

Tester Tested! - Sat, 09/26/2009 - 15:46

On September 1st, 2009, I decided to move away from my paying job to write this book - Approaches for interviewing in software testing. Before my bank sends an SMS "Lost your job?", I am hoping that I will finish this book and find a publisher. ( Also means: If you have any short assignments you can hire me or sponsor me for the book ). So, there you go. Now you know what I have been doing over the last 25 days.

A funny thing you should know - I had been writing another book over the last two years and then realized - writing a book is different from writing a blog or making a technical presentation at a conference. The kind of a book I was writing actually demanded a better writing skill from me that I dont possess right now. So, I have applied to be a participant at a workshop of how to write that kind of a book so that I better at least a little bit. ( let that remain a secret for a while )

Coming over to this book - you must first understand that this isn't just a book but something beyond the book. www.interviewsandjobs.com will serve as a platform to address all queries of testers related to jobs and interviews henceforth and also act as a flag bearer for the book I am writing. Santhosh Tuppad, my student at Practical Hands on Software Testing Training and a cool tester has been helping me a lot in the project.

I hope some of you will be willing to help in writing this book by contributing stories of your interview experience or other ways you will discover if you browse through www.interviewsandjobs.com

When you go to www.interviewsandjobs.com , don't miss out the teaser for the book. The teaser has the first 14 pages of the book and I hope it builds enough curiosity in you and your friends to ask for more and end up buying the book or sending the teaser to your friends through twitter, facebook, orkut or anywhere as you may like.

That's all, here. Go there and enjoy!

Will a career in testing suit you? – Part III

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Thu, 09/24/2009 - 15:09

Welcome to Software Testing and Mental Martial Arts!
You are at the beginning era of mental martial arts way of testing software and this could act as a new lease of your life. In the traditional way of testing software, software testers follow a process and test cases set by someone else and spends their career following process without questioning it. However, in the mental martial arts way of testing software, a tester thinks, design tests, sets trap, learns about how to corner different kinds of bugs, invents new approaches, discovers tools and a lot more.
The skills that such testers work on are:
·    Questioning
·    Lateral Thinking
·    Logical Thinking
·    General Systems Thinking
·    Math
·    Programming
·    Communication
·    Model based thinking
·    Analysis
·    Cognition
·    Experimental Psychology
·    Design of Experiments
·    Reverse Engineering
·    Observation
·    Learning
·    Mind mapping
·    Brain Science
·    And 100 more.
You dont need permission or a designation to test that way but it is a mindset and a skill set that helps others understand what kind of testing you do. The mental martial arts way of testing is more popular in the western world than in India but India is catching up.
Needless to say, I belong to the community of mental martial arts testers in India and if you need a demonstration of it, get in touch with me because as a mental martial art practitioner, I speak with evidence.
If you are contemplating between what career to choose, here is an exercise that can help you: Close your eyes and imagine your brain playing a mental martial art with millions of bugs and you fighting all of them.
If you enjoyed that imagination, you probably want to do more of it.

Will a career in testing suit you? – Part II

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Thu, 09/24/2009 - 13:21

A software bug could have the capability to wipe out a whole country.
A software bug could have the capability to wipe out a whole country.
Here is some evidence:
On February 25, 1991, an Iraqi Scud hit the barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 soldiers from the US Army’s 14th Quartermaster Detachment.
A government investigation revealed that the failed intercept at Dhahran had been caused by a software error in the system’s clock. The Patriot missile battery at Dhahran had been in operation for 100 hours, by which time the system’s internal clock had drifted by one third of a second. Due to the closure speed of the interceptor and the target, this resulted in a miss distance of 600 meters.
The radar system had successfully detected the Scud and predicted where to look for it next, but because of the time error, looked in the wrong part of the sky and found no missile. With no missile, the initial detection was assumed to be a spurious track and the missile was removed from the system. No interception was attempted, and the missile impacted on a barracks killing 28 soldiers.
Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Failure_at_Dhahran
So, if you were to find millions of them, shouldn’t it need any less than mental martial arts professionals who would learn and practice the way of setting traps to those bugs and reporting them to people who would kill ( fix ) the bugs.
Ah! Your skepticism on my initial claims seem to have faded a little. So, you may go through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_notable_software_bugs and let me know how you would have cornered those bugs.
Today, most of the world depends on software and the demand for better software is increasing. How can anyone produce better software?
We believe that people working on software are already smart and I make a conjecture that people have already been thinking to their best of abilities and yet some important bugs are left unfound in many software that is released.
So, if we were to produce better software, we need better thinking.

Will a career in testing suit you? – Part I

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Thu, 09/24/2009 - 13:17

I understand that a career in mental martial arts sounds fantastic to those who’d like to keep their brains sharp. I am sure you are curious to know what it means and what would one do in a career like that.
Please be skeptical that I am trying to hype software testing as a mental martial art. When you be skeptical, it allows me to play a mental martial art with you. For instance, you’d think I am hyping software testing and might block yourself to learn what I am trying to say. If I clear the block and then help you learn, doesn’t that sound like a martial arts of brains?
That’s just one. Here is an important idea of mental martial arts in software – Software bugs do not come out on the screen and say, “Hey catch me”. When a product is being developed there could be a million bugs in it. As a tester, I am supposed to catch them and report it to a person who then can kill ( fix ) the bug.
Some bugs are invincible ones, very similar to our Holywood and Bolywood ghost stories that gets multiplied as and when they are killed. How do we kill all of them?

Impact of interviews on decision to join an employer

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Thu, 09/10/2009 - 16:45

Geeks preferred challenges. Be it at work or at interview. Geeks would want to work and hang out with other geeks. So, if you are planning to hire a geek and you were to conduct an interview that doesn’t excite the geek then she is likely to not join your organization although you may place an offer.

Some of the geeks to whom I have spoken to feel the same. I had one such experience getting interviewed from Dhanshekaran, Program Director at Mindtree in 2004. Although I could not pass his acid tests, I liked them a lot and wanted to work with him. I was hopeful that the team he has hired would be people who passed through such acid tests and hence would be a nice team to work with.

Fortunately, we met over a weekend geek meet at Bangalore and ever since we are connected and discuss on a variety of topics.

So, poke the geeks with some puzzles and challenges if you were to consider hiring them and to do that you got to have geeks interviewing them.

Hand shake & shivering hands in interviews #1

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Thu, 09/10/2009 - 15:52

The first thing that happens in any interview is a hand shake between the candidate and the interviewer. However, is that significant enough topic to think and discuss?

Well, yes, it is. There is a lot to say about hand shake because some people that I have met form their first set of impressions based on the kind of hand shake we offer.

When I was in my teen and when I was introduced to my friend’s dad, I offered a hand shake. Immediately after the hand shake, my friend’s dad asked me, “Are you a confident person?” to which my reply was, “Oh, yes”. He gave a little explanation about how hand shakes matter in business and how self confidence is judged based on a hand shake.

Since then I ensure I offer a firm handshake anyone I meet.  I have seen successful people and have had the opportunity to hand shake with some of them. None of them shook hands the way I did in my teen. So, it matters.

And in the interviews…

Bad Interviewers #2

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Wed, 09/09/2009 - 14:36

There are many things that irritates candidates based on interviewer behavior. You might not be surprised that some interviewers keep their mobile phones in ring mode and they ring pretty well, especially during interviews.

It frustrates the candidate and defocuses them from the mission they have to themselves. Some funny interviewers have asked me to answer the question they asked while they were talking to someone on phone. No, I am not an alien – it happened here on Earth.

When I objected to one of the interviewer when he was constantly picking calls – he said he was testing my ability to stay focused despite interruption. I wish I could have said, “How about throwing grenades at me and checking if I stay focus to what you are asking?” but I thought he was an idiot.

“Bad interviewers lose their credibility when they answer a mobile phone call during interview”

Who are you?

Bad interviewers #1

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Wed, 09/09/2009 - 12:43

My cousin fought a tough battle to get me an interview opportunity at the CMMi Level 5 company that she was working for for an opening of Senior Tester.

The person sent to interview me was someone who had never tested multimedia products and yet asked a blooper!

BI: “How do you do load testing for a media player application on a mobile phone?”

Me: I don’t know. I haven’t done load testing nor have heard anyone in the organization I work for talk about it. So, I doubt if load testing makes sense.

BI: What, you don’t know Load Runner?

Me: Oh my God! Load Runner on a mobile phone?

Well, this is what happens when you as an interviewer try to be smart when you are not. No one can acquire all knowledge of the world but one can acknowledge what they don’t know.

I would have appreciated if he had said, “I too don’t know but asked you this question to learn something from it”. Load Runner as you know does not run on a mobile phone nor is it targeted to.

Bad interviewers fail to acknowledge the fact that they don’t know something that they are asking.

Who are you?

Are Software Testers Testing their own CV / Profile / Resume – Part 3

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Wed, 09/09/2009 - 11:52

Extras and tactical advantage

You could impress the interviewers by testing a web application or an open source project and attaching your test report with it. This gives you a tactical advantage over all other people attending interviews as the interviewers get to see how you can actually test, how you report problems, how you investigate problems, how you can prepare a test report, how good is your writing skills and all that.

Peer Review of your Resume

You might be knowing the value of peer reviews in software engineering. How about bringing that to resume writing? Ask any of your friend’s or peers to review your profile and spot problems. As you are the developer, it is likely that you will make mistakes and you might be blind at spotting them.

Progress Report Reference:

I have been compiling my Progress Reports over the last few years and I want you to have a look at it. Search for Progress Report of Pradeep Soundararajan and you will find the PDF files.

Are Software Testers Testing their own CV / Profile / Resume – Part 2

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Wed, 09/09/2009 - 11:49

Projects

This is a very interesting part. Recently, I was interviewing a tester who had a 7 page resume for a 2 year experience. He had detailed out his project on his resume and that’s a bad idea. I helped him understand that it was a bad idea and he went ahead arguing with me that he had to mention all details. A question that I asked him was, “How many pages should Hon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have?”

I hope you understand why I asked him that question and also hope you won’t make the mistake. You must note that people who might be looking into your profile might already know about the product or project and don’t need super fine details of your project. You can make it to one or two sentences. This gives you a tactical advantage in interviews if you were to explain your project.

Your contribution

It is another common bias to show whatever little stuff you did in the organization as a great one. Again, people are tired of listening to such stuff. You might want to consider elaborating an experience or the challenges you faced and how you fared in it.

For example: When I was a rookie Test Manager, people reporting to me found it hard to digest the fact that I was much younger than them. I had to fight through their ego battle and yet get work done from them. I learnt a lot about managing people, especially when they dont want to listen to you.

Lessons learnt

You could consider jotting down some very quick points of the lessons you learnt from each of the project you worked and that could be an attractive thing for the interviewer. You may consider listing your failures as well although you think listing your failure could cause you lose an opportunity to get an offer. Come on, the whole world understands that every human is fallible and everyone has failed in their life more than a dozen times.

Documentation Guidelines & Crispness

You wont be given a job because your profile looks amazing and it is a booklet of 30 pages of your achievements. So, it means you have to work in an interview to crack the puzzle of getting a job offer from them.

I received one of the worst resume from a software tester who mentioned that he has excellent documentation skills and the word documentation spelling was incorrect. Are you dumb to call him for an interview?

You do not need to search for resume template and fill in because that is a clerical work and I hope you don’t want to be a clerk. Clerical type software testers get clerical pay and they are happy with it as well.

What can wrong in an interview? #1

Interviews and Jobs Blog - Tue, 09/08/2009 - 17:53

“Can you tell us any recent critical bug you found in your current project?”

That is a most common question for a software tester and the typical response from a tester is to reveal a bug that he found in a product she has been testing.

Some of us were waiting for that moment to show off ourselves as best testers and reveal the bugs we found a day before coming to the interview.

Is that wrong?

What if you are attending an interview in a competitor product organization and they are interviewing you to know what bugs are there in their competitor product?

You may be letting down your current employer. Some people ask the question to see how faithful you are to your employer and reject you if you reveal confidential information such as bugs.

Have you heard of a story where Microsoft fired a tester because he published the bugs he found on XBox he was testing on his blog? ( Sssh! Google it out )

You can answer such a question by mentioning that you are bounded by an Non Disclosure Agreement that doesn’t permit you to talk about the bugs you found in your projects but can demonstrate bug finding skill by testing a product.

Testers & Blocks Consulting - Puzzle 1

Tester Tested! - Tue, 08/25/2009 - 17:04

At 9 AM on Aug 13th, 2008, Testerlock, Principal Consultant of Testers & Blocks Consulting, walks into the lobby of Seven Inc in Whitefield, Bangalore and asks for Peter, the Head of Testing. Testerlock, was supposed to attend a meeting with Peter and his team of Test Managers. There had been some testing problems in Seven Inc that had been causing concerns to top management. So, it was Peter's boss Nick Fry, who hired Testerlock to figure out what's going wrong.
After all security clearances, Testerlock was welcomed to a conference room by Peter where his team of managers, Sasha, Rubin, Maria, Vibeesh, Ratan and Ankit were waiting for the meeting. The conference room was quite big and could even fit 20 people with an oval table in the center and Featherlite chromium hand rest chairs . Testerlock's name was already written in one of the paper clips marking his seating position near the door. Everyone in the room had heard about Testerlock through his articles and published podcasts and interviews. As Testerlock sat in his seat introducing himself and shaking hand with the team, he smelled the coffee aroma and while putting his laptop bag down on the table, he asked, "Ah! Can I have a Nescafe too?" and that put Peter's team in surprise about Testerlock's ability to identify Nescafe aroma from other available ones.
The meeting started with Peter displaying the agenda planned and discussing each point with a little bit more detail than an e-mail communication that happened a week back. When Peter stopped, Sasha took over.
While these things were happening Peter was getting confused if Testerlock was listening to all that because Testerlock was constantly writing something on his Moleskine. Testerlock had to several times nod to acknowledge what Peter had said. Nodding has been a practiced way in India to acknowledge having heard something from the other.
Sasha, a Test Manager with Seven for about seven years. That's right, 7 years. Sasha had been a star performer at Seven's Texas office and she looked like one and spoke like one, too. Sasha then started explaining her team's challenges of unable to achieve 100% testing and test case being complex, bugs not being fixed and so on....
Testerlock had just one word to say, "Interesting".
From Sasha to Ankit, and from Ankit to Ratan the problems the team faced were...."productivity of testers, tester developer relationship, lack of good process, best practices not working, budget is too low for good testing to be done, test automation not yielding ROI..." and yet again Testerlock had to say one word, "Interesting" and kept writing a lot of notes on Moleskine.
When it moved from Ratan to Vibeesh and Vibeesh was explaining the challenges his team faced, Testerlock interrupted the meeting asking for directions to a rest room. Before he left for the rest room, Testerlock asked the team to continue sharing the problems faced by them.
When he walked into the room again, he had a kind of style in his walk that meant that he knew what the problem was. 

By then it had shifted from Vibeesh to Maria, and then new set of problems being listed.  By then Testerlock had stopped making notes and was sitting and listening to what Maria was saying.
It was about 11:45 AM when Maria completed flushing her list of problems. Peter was excited to ask Testerlock a question and without hesitating much, he asked, "So, Mr Testerlock, what do you think the actual problem is?"
This time, Testerlock stood up and gave a one word answer. It wasn't the word, "Interesting" but the answer to the question Peter asked.
If you were Testerlock, what would your answer be? ( Your answer need not be one word but it could be. If your answer was already listed by other people who commented think about a different answer or expand on the latter. Maybe you might hit a better one )

Bangalore Weekend Testers: Fun, Learn & Contribute

Tester Tested! - Thu, 08/13/2009 - 01:23

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.comTesters: 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.htmlReports: 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.comTesters: 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.htmlhttp://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