James Recommends...

I link only to people I respect and endorse. By endorsement, I mean if you have any trouble with people on this list, let me know and I'll help fix the problem:

Jonathan Bach

I don't recommend people lightly. There are no reciprocal links here. So it is with special pleasure that I can recommend my brother, Jonathan. In 1995, I helped him start his testing career, and since then he has become a gifted test lead and coach. Jon worked a few years at Microsoft as a tester and test manager, worked for me for a couple of years, and now he's in the Pacific Northwest as a Manager of Consulting for Quardev, a test lab in Seattle. Jonathan is a speaker, writer, practitioner, and sensei of rapid exploratory testing. He also helped create my class.

Michael Bolton

No, not that Michael Bolton, nor the one on "Office Space". The Michael I'm talking about (http://www.developsense.com) is a testing enthusiast and consultant based in Toronto. Michael has written some wonderfully insightful articles, posted on his site. In the last few years, Michael has become a close colleague. He teaches my Rapid Testing class, and spearheaded the creation of the 2.0 version, for which he now shares author credit.

Ross Collard

Ross (rcollard@attglobal.net) is well known as one of the hardest working testing teachers and consultants out there. He's taught thousands of testers and consulted with major corporations around the world. He's been famous for years for his encyclopedic ten volume corpus of class notes (it's three feet of paper when stacked up). For a long time, that was all I knew about him. However, since 1999, he's earned particular respect in the context-driven testing community. He's become an important leader in our movement. This is because he has an unusual gift for analyzing, synthesizing, and discussing test practices. If I had to pick one particular quality that explains his skill and success as a methodologist, I'd say it's his intellectual humility. Ross seems able to listen to everyone and be open to all possibilities. He doesn't have a website, but if you email him you'll find he has an extensive catalog of classes to offer.

David Gilbert

David Gilbert has been around almost a decade, but he's only recently entered the Context-Driven scene, becoming a regular contributor at the peer conferences. David is an automation specialist, and a rapid tester, as well as the author of TestExplorer, a tool that augments and facilitates exploratory testing. Wait a minute. How rare is that? A test tool vendor who actually knows how to test! There are too few, I'm afraid. David is an ambitious and challening mind-- the first person (other than my brother) to earn the Bach Certified Rapid Tester status. This is a personal certification from me, based on my personal observation of a tester's competence in the practice of tactical rapid testing. David also teaches my class.

Payson Hall

I met Payson Hall at the first Consultants Camp I attended, in 1995. I saw him more as a drill sergeant than a thinker. He's a plain speaking man. No meeting Payson runs will wander off its agenda or take a minute longer than necessary to achieve its mission. Then one day he showed me his project management class materials, and I was surprised at the subtlety in his work. He understands, as few do, that training is not merely instruction, it is skill-building. His materials are well-crafted, with many experiential exercises and mini-games that help his students get to the why of things. His work is not just bold and practical, it's smart. I'd say it's worth going to his class just to experience his statistical simulation of schedule slippage. And if I was on a hard project that wasn't getting done, I'd call philosopher-sergeant Payson to help me sort it out.

Elisabeth Hendrickson

Elisabeth is the principal consultant for Quality Tree Consulting. She and Bret Pettichord are the two best test automation people I know. She also has her own take on exploratory testing. Damn it, she teaches the same way I do-- experientally and socratically. I used to feel unique until I experienced one of her tutorials in state-based testing. It was a tour de force. I predict that any tester with a brain who takes her class will be a better tester afterward, no matter how experienced or knowledgeable they were to begin with.

Doug Hoffman, BACS, MSEE, MBA, ASQ-Certificate in SQE, ASQ Fellow

I met Doug (doug.hoffman@acm.org) around 1990. He's one of the charter members of the Los Altos Workshops in Software Testing, and is respected in the context-driven testing community for his wide experience and his ability to discuss and explain methodology. Douglas provides management consulting in strategic and tactical planning and deployment for creating good quality systems and software. That includes organizational assessment, technical analysis, automated testing architectures, training, and management.

Cem Kaner

Cem Kaner is the senior author of Testing Computer Software, the best-selling book in the field. He is also the senior author of Bad Software and Lessons Learned in Software Testing, which we co-wrote. Cem has amazing credentials: lawyer, Ph.D. in Psychology, programmer, test manager, and even retail clothing store management. Wow! Cem also teaches a kick-butt testing class, and is the founder of the prestigious Los Altos Workshop on Software Testing. I hired Cem to consult for me when I worked as a test manager. I got substantially more than my money's worth.

These days, Cem runs the Center for Software Testing Education at Florida Tech.

Jonathan Kohl

I got to know Jonathan Kohl through his insightful blogging on various aspects of the testing art. Then I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with him, talking about testing philosophy and automation. He has done some great work in test automation, and recently went independent. Apart from test automation, Jonathan is an agilist who believes in testing as a skilled activity. My favorite thing about Jonathan, though, is that he is a man of integrity. He does not say pretty things just to please a manager. Work with him and you will get the straight story, always. He also teaches his own form of exploratory testing.

Brian Lawrence

Brian specializes in soft-systems requirements analysis. He also provides meeting facilitation, software inspection training, and serves as an expert witness. I like Brian because he has a vision of excellence and relentlessly pursues it in everything he does. A true professional.

Harry Robinson

Harry (harryr@microsoft.com) specializes in model-based testing. Since essentially all testing is based on models, you have you read that as formal model-based testing--the process of generating tests automatically from models that are formally specified. Harry can help you find out about this interesting class of tools. Also, unlike some people who are into cool tools, Harry's a practical man.

Johanna Rothman

Johanna has a gift for getting software projects into shape by defining objectives, common sense metrics, and helping people figure out what they really want. I think the essence of her gift lies in the fact that she can connect with a wide variety of people, including prima donna developers, or philosophers like me, then find ways to help everyone function as one team. If I was on a software project, I would want Johanna to manage it.

Dave Smith

I met Dave Smith when I joined SmartPatents in 1998. I can tell you that Dave is an expert programmer and project manager. With his help, I got up to speed in Perl much faster than I otherwise would have. Dave and I have gone through a lot of training under Jerry Weinberg, so I've seen him operate under a variety of conditions. He's based in Silicon Valley.

Robert Sabourin

Rob wrote the strange testing classic I Am A Bug, (illustrated by his young daughter). He's an animated speaker and a hard-driving testing consultant. A man who gets things done. Hire him especially if you have a major test project and you need someone to run it, especially if it involves working with an outsourcing company. He's been a client of my brother Jonathan's testing company and by all reports he spurred them to great feats. He also teaches a class called "Just in Time Testing" which seems to be a worthy competitor to my own classes.

Mike Kelly

Mike is an independent tester out of Indianapolis. By "independent" I mean he not only is a self-employed consulting tester, but is a man who insists on re-thinking things in his own way. I love that about him. He once flew out just to work with me for a few days. I put him through a barrage of testing exercises. You can read about it in his blog. The experience convinced me that Mike is one of the most serious students of software testing in the field. One to watch. Oh, and he's also the President of the Association for Software Testing.

Jerry Weinberg

Jerry Weinberg is one of the great figures in software engineering history. He's written lots of books, and all that, but where his work has touched and transformed mine is by way of his Problem Solving Leadership, Change Shop, and Systems Effectiveness Management seminars. These are the most useful classes I've taken in my adult life. After reading, writing, and ciphering, I learned most about the basic skills of work from Jerry.

Jerry also runs an excellent moderated forum for discussing the human side of software projects: the SHAPE forum. Check out his web site for information on that.

Satisfice Inc.