Software Quality Assurance | GESQA Ltd | Wales

Category: Coaching

  • Mentoring & Coaching – Finding your outer Miyagi

    Introduction In Part1 here I talked about mentoring. I talked about the fact that it is a function primarily based on building lasting relationships. In this post I’ll talk about quality coaching. What I think good looks like, the structure of a coaching session and round it off with a look at the differences and…

  • Mentoring & Coaching – Finding your inner Miyagi

    Introduction The line between mentor and coach has always seemed a bit blurry to me.You will mentor because you have life experience that you can pay forward.I would class this as life-coaching without the extraneous ‘right-on’ baggage.It may not actually matter to you that there’s a difference. Truth-be-told, it’s never bothered me but it’s been…

  • Building a QA team – Part 3

    This is part 3 of the ‘Building a QA team’ series. In this series, I’ve explained what I’ve learnt in the creation of a great team, I’ve also explained the methods I’ve used to create the initial team using a set of shared values. In this final part, I expand on the methods I use…

  • Building a QA team – Part 2

    Introduction In the first part here, I defined the problem to be solved, clarified what I mean by a team and identified the characteristics of individuals I look for in forming a QA team. I also identified the characteristics of what I consider to be a good team lead. In this part I’ll outline how…

  • Building a QA team – Part 1

    “Building a team that communicates freely and openly towards a common goal in the pursuit of a quality deliverable will always outperform a collection of disparate individuals with their own agendas.” Introduction A team is the beating heart of any software development process. People develop software. Those people have differing roles. Those people have differing…

  • 21st Century Soft Skills – QA Edition – Part 1 – Redux

    What’s the problem? Technology moves at a fair old pace these days. Organisations are overflowing with technical experts promoting the latest bit of shiny. Organisations are overflowing with teams implementing the latest bit of shiny. One thing that gets forgotten about in the race to shinytopia is that the implementation is undertaken by real people.…

  • Automated testing – not all scripts and unicorns

    Introduction There’s a lot written about the benefits of *automated testing. There’s a lot of money to be made by tool vendors. There’s not a lot written about the downside of *automated testing. A well articulated and well implemented test automation approach is a valuable piece of any development effort. I’m not anti-automation as a…

  • The 5th Myth of Software Testing – Zero-defect software is achievable

    Saving the best until last. No, no, with a side of no. 100% defect-free software is impossible (obviously within the context of the complexity/desired outcome/quality goal scale) Any defect policy is ultimately defined by the level of tolerance an end-user is prepared to accept Why set yourself up for failure by positing an unattainable goal?…

  • The art of critical thinking

    Introduction Any team that follows an agile approach is probably cross-functional. If you’re lucky, you will work alongside developers, business analysts and UX specialists. They are specialists in their own right. The expectations of Developers are the implementation and optimisation of the code they create, if you’re very lucky, they will create unit tests alongside…

  • The 1st Myth of Software Testing – Anyone can test

    How hard can it be? If you spend long enough in, or around, an ‘average’ organisation that develops software then these may resonate with you. I would be very surprised if you haven’t heard of at least one of these (or a derivative) at some point in time. 1. Anyone can test software “…” This one is a…