[All Things Quality] We Juggle


Lately it seems as if my QA Team is doing quite a lot of juggling.


We juggle...

When we have more work than time

When we have staffed for three simultaneous projects, but we are currently testing eight

When new requirements pop up at the last minute

When planned releases to QA slip, but the ship date doesn't

When a developer casually mentions that he decided to refactor one of the core components

When it is decided that we should "fast track" an unscheduled change


We can't staff for the worst case, and have people on the bench.  So if we are temporarily understaffed, we have to continually decide "Who gets to be unhappy this time?".

It gets complicated, since testers are not fungible.

  • Just because Suzy has an hour of free time on Tuesday, doesn't mean that she can jump in and contribute an hour's worth of testing on Project X (which she has never before even seen).  
  • Just because new hire Brian comes free for 1 day sometime next month doesn't mean he can contribute a day's worth of testing on Advanced Project Z.  
  • Just because Ted is expected to be out for a few days with back problems, doesn't mean that Jake can drop what he's doing and fill in - Jake has other commitments.

The worst part about it - when you juggle, sometimes things get dropped!

When things get crazy and we can't get additional help, we:

  • Try to re-order tasks so that we are not a bottleneck
  • Try to remove obstacles and distractions early
  • Allow people to work from home if they can be more productive
  • Run interference for the busy testers
  • Deflect requests until later, when possible

And we juggle!


My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

[All Things Quality] Another Reason I Like Bugzilla

After an errant search turned up more bug reports than expected, I encountered this message:


I mentioned before the Zarro Boogs Found message you'll get if a search returns no bugs.  This is another interesting message, and another reason to like Bugzilla.


My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

[All Things Quality] I'm Voting For SQAForums

The Automated Testing Institute is running their 2nd Annual "ATI Automation Honors" competition.

From the ATI website:
The industry's original set of awards dedicated to software test automation is again looking to crown industry leading tools, resources and practitioners with automation's top honor. That means it's time for all of you to get busy! The ATI Automation Honors awards rely on industry practitioners to identify which tools, resources and people are the best, which have the most significant upgrades and/or which are setting the trends that will help to take software test automation to the next level in the coming year. 
Last year SQAForums.com won the best software testing website award.  This year they are nominated in the "Best Automated Testing Forum" category.

I don't think there's much doubt that SQAForums is the best for supporting virtually every test automation tool that exists.  With their individual tool-specific forums, as well as their general automation forums, everyone can find a handy home for helpful hints, tips, in-depth product reviews, and the kind of product support you can't even get from the vendors' sites.

That's why I'm voting for SQAForums.  Won't you join me?



My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

[All Things Quality] Memorable Summer Jobs

I was listening to NPR's All Things Considered on the way home from work last evening.  They've been running a series called "Summer Jobs", and they have had some really unusual ones.  So I thought I'd share one of my summer jobs, too.

When I was 15, I started working for one of the larger grocery store chains in New England.  I remember that I got $1.19 per hour.  At the time, that was pretty good pay for a part-time job, more than the minimum wage.

During the school year, I only worked a few hours each week.  But during the summers, I worked all the hours they would give me.  Most summers, that ended up being more than 40 hours a week - woohoo, overtime!

In the beginning, I was in the General Department.  That meant that we did whatever needed to be done that nobody else wanted to do.  And for much of the summer, the General Department was only me.

In the morning, before the store opened, I vacuumed the parking lot.  Then I had a to-do list that kept me busy the rest of the day.

One time, I spent weeks up on the roof of the store, scraping and repainting all the air-conditioning units.  While there was a bit of a breeze up there on the roof, it was quite hot and of course no shade.  I learned that this was one way to get a really nice tan.  And I learned that I should use sun screen.

Another time, I was asked to go in on a Sunday, and clean out the grease traps in the meat room.  I didn't know why they wanted it done on Sunday, but I was told to "wear old clothes".  I found out that they wanted this task performed on a day when the store was closed because of the incredible stench that rose up as soon as I opened the cover of the traps.  While I was trying hard to keep my breakfast in my stomach, I had to scoop out the grease, carry it out behind the store, and bury it.  Not the most fun I've had on a weekend.  I learned to work fast and keep my mouth shut.

I cleaned and painted the employee restrooms.  I learned that while I knew from personal experience how foul the Men's Room was, I had never quite imagined how much worse the Women's Room could be.

One of my occasional to-do's was "rounding up the stray grocery carts".   Apparently, lots of local people liked to take a grocery cart home with them.  In contrast, none of them liked to return the cart.  So, I was sent out - in my black 1964 VW Beetle - to drive around, find them and bring them back to the store one by one.  Now, Beetles didn't really have lots of cargo room inside, so I had to remove the passenger seat first.  Then I grabbed a meat hook and some rope and drove off (did I mention that often these carts were dumped in local ponds?)  Once I rounded up enough carts, I spent the rest of the day pounding them back into shape with a sledgehammer, and touching up the rust spots with silver paint.  I learned to return things when done with them.

At one time, stores like this had their own incinerators inside the back room, in which they burned much of their paper, cardboard and wood trash, rather than having it trucked away.  It's not permitted any more, but at the time it was a way to save money.  And all that burning produced a lot of soot, ash, and other less-identifiable residue inside the incinerator.  So periodically, the General Department (me, once) had the pleasure of shutting it down, going inside, and scraping the walls.   I learned what hell must look like, on a day when it's "closed for maintenance".

I liked staying busy, so I appreciated the hours.  In later years, I was "promoted" from the General Department to the Cash Department, and eventually to the Grocery Department, but I still chipped in to help elsewhere on occasion.  And because the pay was good, I stayed on through college - for a while I worked both in a store and in their Corporate Office's IT Department part-time (as a COBOL programmer), while going to school full time.

I learned a lot those summers.  Mostly I learned that I wanted an office job!


My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance.
I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing.
Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.