Critical Thinking

Answering questions with questions

There are two reasons why we shouldn't worry when someone answers our questions with more questions: most initial questions are sub optimal and follow on questions are important.

Year in Review

2022 In Review

Over the past decade I’ve written quite a few year end notes. They start with a brief summary and then focus on individual article performance. For reference see: 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 This year I want to try something different. Those previous notes are missing non-work

Hiring

Hire someone with a Testing Education

Whenever possible, you should hire testers with testing certifications There are 2 big challenges when hiring for a role: 1. Getting enough applicants 2. Finding a match within those applicants Should a hiring manager focus on hiring testers with certifications over those without? No, they should not. First, it creates

About Me Featured

My Career Story

Reflecting upon the past sets the context for the present. It also reveals a system of behaviors which can we improve upon once we understand them. In my mind this story is the foundation of that system.

Metrics

What’s the right ratio of developers to testers?

What’s the right ratio of developers to testers? For as long as testers have been working with (other) developers, this question has existed. It’s a question focused on a false belief there is a right ratio in staffing levels across the industry. Ratios Ratios are relationships between two

Management Featured

Evidence in Performance Reviews

Reviews are grounded in evidence of your accomplishments, as measured against set goals.

Writing

Goodbye and Hello

Today I sent my last personal newsletter and then deleted my account. I called it Hello and Goodbye: Hello Friends, It's easily been 2 years since I've sent a newsletter to anyone on this mailing list. So long in fact you may not even remember having signed up! Don't worry

Wordpress

Changing Wordpress' URL structure

This site has public articles dating back to March 2009. At some point in my blogging journey I moved to using WordPress as a platform and inherited a url structure with dates in it. I recently got rid of this structure and simplified it to be the name of the

Exploratory Testing

What Is Exploratory Testing?

Exploratory testing was first coined by Cem Kaner who defined it as a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the value of her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually

Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing FAQs

I’ve come across a number of Frequently Asked Questions about Exploratory Testing and I’ve got what I hope are pretty good answers. Exploratory Testing FAQs Frequently Asked Questions about exploratory testing. Got a quick question? Get a quick answer. Yes, there are many examples where people have used

Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing Charters

An exploratory testing charter is a mission statement for your testing. It helps provide structure and guidance so that you can focus your work and record what you find in a constructive way. How to Write an Exploratory Charter My favorite way to structure exploratory testing charters is to base

Cloud Computing

Self hosted blogs are not for the faint of heart

In December I wrote about hosting a WordPress blog on Digital Ocean and said: Blogging is an excuse to write more. Writing is a great way to think clearly about a subject. Running a website on a (small) Linux droplet is a starting point to learn more about the ops

Community of Practice

Reflections and fun stats from 2021

I started my previous post by saying “2021 was an improvement over the previous year”. This was due, in large part, to the growth and new challenges at work. Here are some more reflections and a few fun stats from 2021 on those new challenges: Growth Growth at Promenade came

Recaps

2021 in Review

2021 was an improvement over the previous year in a number of ways: more mental energy, more growth at work and a safe return to in-person conferences at the AST.  Growth and the challenges at work have become inspiration for sharing in short form on LinkedIn and Twitter. They’ve

Hiring

The Future of Software Test Engineers and Codeless Tools

A few months ago I was chatting with Evgeny Kim about some of the reservations I had while exploring a new codeless test automation tool. He was also exploring some codeless tool options and so he invited me onto his podcast to talk about it. We chatted about a wide

Remote

Learning to balance a Maker's and Manager's Schedule

One of the hardest things thus far about becoming a manager (managing others and their work) has been learning to balance my maker’s schedule with my manager’s schedule. Maker Schedule, Manager Schedule The concept comes from a Paul Graham essay which says: There are two types of schedule,

About Me

THE Ultimate Curved Monitor for a MacBook Pro

Back when I wrote Building an Awesome Home Office I was six months into remote work and although optimistic about my chances of returning to the office, determined to use all the hardware I had at my disposal to make my home work conditions better. As time went on I

AI/ML

CAST 2021 Recap

When I hit publish on my article CAST 2021 is AFK a few weeks ago I said: I’m in an airplane for the first time in years on my way to Atlanta, GA for CAST 2021. CAST is both my first conference in-person and the Association for Software Testing’

CI

Running Reflect.run builds in CodeFresh CI

For the last few months I’ve been using a no-code UI test automation service called Reflect.run to build out some UI tests (scenarios and such) with the goal of evaluating how well it works in in terms of feedback (and value) as part of our build process. While

Conference

CAST 2021 is AFK

I’m in an airplane for the first time in years on my way to Atlanta, GA for CAST 2021. CAST is both my first conference in-person and the Association for Software Testing’s first since 2019. I’m pretty excited to confer safely at an in person conference AND

AST

Came for the training, stayed for the community

When I look back on my nearly decade journey in the testing community, it all started with the Association for Software Testing. I came to the AST seeking their BBST courses, but I stayed for the supportive community of people I met both online and afk. Once Upon a Time

Test Design Featured

Good Tests vs Bad Tests and why you shouldn't repeat them

A little rant on this concept of Good Tests vs Bad Tests and whether a good test (case) is a repeatable one.

Community of Practice

Testing Community of Practice (CoP) Experience Report #1

I published an audio experience report about running my first Testing Community of Practice (CoP) at work. tl;dr it was a really good exercise that I intend to run regularly. Here’s an imperfect transcript: Hello everyone, Chris Kenst here, I wanted to talk about running my first community

AST

Better Tester Training Materials

Last month the Association for Software Testing (AST) announced a new partnership with Altom, the owner of BBST®, that enables the AST to refresh our curriculum lineup with the new BBST® Community Track and help fund the future growth of the materials. This partnership and refresh are a huge milestone

Community

Not good enough

A month ago someone on LinkedIn thanked a website and the person running it for helping them learn. They recommended others use the site. When people in my network commented on how the site wasn’t any good, I took notice. It reminded me of what Seth Godin said in