Stuart Reid is planning to do a talk on how we should use “evidence” in our debates about what works and doesn’t work in testing.
A funny thing about that is Stuart once spent 30 minutes trying to convince me that the number “35,000″ was evidence of how great the ISEB certification is, as in “35,000 [...]

Context-driven testing is apparently very difficult to understand. I wouldn’t have thought that it’s a difficult concept, except for the last decade I’ve watched hundreds of people in terrible confusion. Testers outside of the United States have an especially hard time with it, for some reason that escapes me.
I do have some working theory of [...]

Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar is now available in electronic form. You can get it from Simon & Schuster, or less expensively on the Kindle from Amazon.com.
The book is about learning. It’s about alternatives to schooling and certification. But it also describes how I became a tester, and why I progressed as a tester.
The hardcover version, [...]

This comes from an ISTQB advertisement they spammed me with, today:

“To ensure the quality of any software system, testers and QA professionals must thoroughly test the product. But how do you know that these tests are effective? If your team is conducting ad hoc, informal tests with little guidance or planning, the quality of the [...]

A salesman from G2 Test Labs just called me. He said he was from India. He wanted to know if my testing company needed to partner with an offshore lab like his. I’m writing this now, while the memory of the conversation is fresh.
After he made his brief brief opening monologue I asked him “I’m [...]

Pradeep Soundararajan got threatened with lawyers when he criticized Testing Experience magazine for being under the thumb of the ISTQB (for those who don’t yet know, the ISTQB are the guys who want to prevent you from getting work as a tester unless you first pass their silly test. They also plagiarized my definition of [...]

I’m well known for promoting philosophy. By philosopher, I mean someone skilled in the exploration, analysis and clarification of meaningful ideas and the processes by which we arrive at those ideas. Since software is made of ideas, that sounds like testing to me. So, if you want to be an excellent all-around tester, I think [...]

I’m delighted to read Michelle Smith’s play-by-play description of how she is coaching new testers. Take a look.
Let me catalog the coolnesses:
1. “The team I work with was previously exposed to Rapid Software Testing. This exposure caused me to wonder what would happen if these new folks were exposed to some of these ideas [...]

My book “Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar” will be published in September by Simon and Schuster. It’s a book about how I approach self-education, personal branding, and original thinking. It’s the story of how I got started and how I got along all these years without any formal education or certification. It’s not a book about [...]

At the Star conference, this week, the lady at the ASTQB booth was executive director Lois Kostroski. The ASTQB is the American chapter of the ISTQB. Here’s the gist of the conversation we had about certification…
James: “Do you need any experience to get certified?”
Lois: “No, you just have to pass the exam.”
James: “What are the [...]

I’m thinking of having badges made which say “Conscientiously Uncertified.” It’s for those of us who want to resist the dumbing down of our craft by cynical consultants promoting bogus tester certification programs.
For me, when I see that someone is certified as CSTE, ISEB, ISTQB, or CSTQE, I immediately think “there goes someone who was [...]

Alan Richardson writes this commentary from inside one of the stupidest of the certification programs: the ISTQB (well, he says “ISEB”, but by all accounts, it’s being taken over by ISTQB stormtroopers).
Long ago I also tried to change a certification program from the inside. I also failed. Now I do my best to cultivate the [...]

Thanks to Michael Bolton, for plunging in at Eurostar after I had to cancel. He has blogged on it here and here.
For what it’s worth, this is the presentation I was going to give at Eurostar, before I had to drop out.
And interestingly, Matthew Heusser just blogged on one of my central ideas: that different [...]

Last week, I had to cancel a class and rush home to take care of my wife, who had become unable to eat or drink anything. Turns out she needed emergency surgery to repair a blocked intestine. She’s recovering fine and I’m writing this from the chair next to her hospital bed, where I sleep [...]

This posting by Corey Goldberg illustrates an interesting and all too common kind of confusion people get into when discussing methods and practices. It’s worth pondering.
On SQAForums, someone stated:
“ISEB defines automated tested as useful only in mature testing environments and where functionality is not changing i.e. at regression testing.”
to which Corey replied:
“…and ISEB would be [...]