In this edition of SmartBites Video, Girish Elchuri, Founder & CEO of Smuuth Innovative Solutions shares what it to takes to “Build with Quality” rather than ‘test-out’ quality, He shares his perspectives on design, code, process, organisational attitude and the need to execute every line of code as part of early test.
In ‘beEnriched’ section the article What does it take to Build In Quality? outlines set of brilliant ideas curated from four articles on with the first suggesting ten ways to build high quality into software, second one from Scaled Agile framework outlining the clear definition of Done, the third highlighting how lean thinking and management helps, and the last outlining how Poka-Yoke can help in mistake proofing.
Enjoy the poster “It is not about finding bugs, it is about being sensitive
how they can creep in that matters.”
In ‘nanoLearning’, Raja Nagendra Kumar outlines four key “Habits to Clean Coding”: ‘Understand that DONE MOVES'(1), ‘There will be bugs, and for heaven’s sake, LEARN and ADJUST’ (2), ‘It is not just about functionality, constantly focus on NFRs’ (3) and ‘Continually re-factor right so that you don’t get into ‘fire’.(4)
In this edition of SmartBites Video, Shivaji Raju Expert Architect at Allstate Solutions helps us understand as to what test automation is in the new digital world and highlights the key shifts.
“Automating test execution in isolation ends up being more of a problem than a solution. Any automation solution either to enhance quality and to improve test cycles should encompass the tasks across test discipline. Automation should be considered a lever to meet the business objectives and not an objective itself.” More in the interesting article Automation in isolation is more of a problem! in ‘beEnriched’ section by Vijay Kumar Gambhiraopet, Test Automation Leader for North America at IBM.
“Approximate thinking” is a very necessary skill that allows one to rapidly work out facts quickly and rapidly understand. When I ask the simple question “How many hairs do you have on your head?” to workshop participants, the answers have varied from 5K-5M! Crazy variation, right? “The Art of Profitability” is a brilliant business book that inspired me to delve deeper into this. Read how the book inspired me in ‘expandMind’ section.
In ‘nanoLearning’, Raja Nagendra Kumar outlines four key “Habits to Clean Coding”: ‘Understand that DONE MOVES'(1), ‘There will be bugs, and for heaven’s sake, LEARN and ADJUST’ (2), ‘It is not just about functionality, constantly focus on NFRs’ (3) and ‘Continually re-factor right so that you don’t get into ‘fire’.(4)
Automating test execution in isolation ends up being more of a problem than a solution. Any automation solution either to enhance quality and to improve test cycles should encompass the tasks across test discipline. Automation should be considered a lever to meet the business objectives and not an objective itself.
In the beEnriched section is an interesting article “Design for Testability- An Overview” that outlines what testability is, background of testability from hardware, economic value of DFT, why is testability important, design principles to enable testability and guidelines to ease testability of codebase, drawing upon five interesting articles on DFT.
In this edition of SmartBites Video, Girish Elchuri illuminates us on how Design for Testability is useful in building with quality.
“The Art of Profitability” is a brilliant business book. However, I learnt “Approximate thinking” of how to rapidly approximate and get facts to analyse further. Read how the book inspired me in “expandMind”.
In nanoLearning, Dr. Arun Krishnan explains why stopping using human intellect would be a mistake in any field. While he is all for AI helping testing, he believes there is still a role for human intellect.
T Ashok @ash_thiru Summary This outlines what testability, the background of testability from hardware, the economic value of DFT, why is testability important, design principles
Welcome to an interesting edition that is a special on “Human-Machine Dynamics”.
I find the “manual vs automated testing” discussion seriously flawed. In the article “Dissecting the Human/Machine Test conundrum”, I outline an interesting way how the role of human power and leverage of machines to do testing smartly, rapidly and super efficiently.
“The Art of Profitability” is a brilliant business book. However, I learnt “Approximate thinking” of how to rapidly approximate and get facts to analyse further. Read how the book inspired me in “expandMind”.
In nanoLearning, Dr. Arun Krishnan explains why stopping using human intellect would be a mistake in any field. While he is all for AI helping testing, he believes it still is a role for the human intellect.
In this article I dissect these the way we test as human and using machine and outline an interesting way how the role of human power and leverage of machines to do testing smartly, rapidly and super efficiently.
Sketchnotes are purposeful doodling while listening to something interesting. Sketchnotes don’t require high drawing skills, but do require a skill to visually synthesize and summarize via shapes, connectors, and text. Sketchnotes are as much a method of note taking as they are a form of creative expression.
The article I wrote “The Buddha story: Good understanding”, is all about how ‘understanding’ is knowing what is required, and learning to discard what is not necessary or deferring to a later stage.
On the same context, SmartBites features TEDx video titled “The power of listening” by William Ury. He explains how listening is essential for understanding, and often overlooked, half of communication.
The “nanoLearning” smartbits gives Vivek Mathur’s views on the ‘Role of human intellect in QA‘. He thinks understanding the business context cannot be reproduced by AI and will never be.
Sketchnotes are purposeful doodling while listening to something interesting. Sketchnotes don’t require high drawing skills, but do require a skill to visually synthesize and summarize via shapes, connectors, and text. Sketchnotes are as much a method of note taking as they are a form of creative expression.
SmartBites features another great TEDx video titled “Applying the principles of biomimicry to business” by Wiebke Liu. Biomimicry is inspiring businesses, architecture and manufacturing by designing solutions, structures and products that simulate processes that occur in nature. The article I wrote titled “The Power of Geometry” is all about how structure(or organisation) of elements play a key to doing more with less.
The “nanoLearning” smartbits gives Sudhir Patnaik’s views on the ‘Role of human intellect in QA‘. He thinks intelligent systems and humans will have to share the roles.
Hope you found inspiration to use Sketchnotes. As I mentioned last week, it stimulates visual thinking. If you have not already read it, please read about this brilliant book “Sketchnote handbook” featured in “expandMind” section.
Have you had a chance to read the complimentary ebook “Raise your QANSCIOUSNESS – Test effortlessly”? Do share your thoughts.
A good running form, a great cycling geometry becomes essential to delivering higher performance with no increase in power output in running and cycling respectively.
Sketchnotes are purposeful doodling while listening to something interesting. Sketchnotes don’t require high drawing skills, but do require a skill to visually synthesize and summarize via shapes, connectors, and text. Sketchnotes are as much a method of note taking as they are a form of creative expression.
Systematic Inventive Thinking is a method to direct our creative energies to solving problems that have strict boundaries to coming up with solutions in an innovative manner.
The video of this “nano learning” smartbits video is available here.
Ashok: How can Systematic Inventive Thinking enable QA to re-craft his or her thinking skill ?
Tathaghat: The way I look at Systematic Inventive Thinking or SIT method, is that it is a very good way for us to direct our creative energies to a specific way of problem solving – It doesn’t stop us from applying it anywhere.
For example, one of the methods in SIT is all about “multiplying” something. For example, Febreze NOTICEables found that if they put the Febreze perfume, people after a point of time were getting desensitised. Once you have the fragrance in the room, you stop feeling it after a some point of time. So they said why don’t we put one more perfume scent there, but now this is a different perfume scent, it’s not exactly the same thing, because that’s not of a value. They multiply it, but then they actually have a different one. What happens is when you start it, the first one fills up the room and just before you are kind of getting desensitised, the second one takes over. So you feel fresh again there and that’s been a very successful product for Febreze. It’s known as a Febreze NOTICEables.
So these are ideas that help when we get stuck. In the SITmethod, we have this whole notion of what is a closed world. While it is very easy for us to go outside and get some resources and become innovative, in SIT world, the most creative ways of solving the problem or most innovative ways in which we provide a solution is within the boundaries of what we have. For example, if you are driving in a jungle and you get a flat tire, how do you solve the problem? While there might be a lot of creative ways of solving it, the reality is that you have what you have in the car. So that is a closed world right? The car is a closed world there.
I think it is more of a philosophical tool actually in which you can direct your thinking and say “Okay, how do I solve that problem?”, instead of saying “There is only one particular way of solving the problem”.
I will definitely give one example of how they used it in designing and testing a software to illustrate the point. It happened 15-20 years back when the e-commerce was not very common. When people kind of started doing it, they found that when you give a credit card number, that was kind of a security risk because the number is then stored and people are unaware. In fact, one of the case study in SIT method is about how they created a local copy of it, again using the multiplier pattern where you have created a pattern and now that the pattern is available, you can safely use it anywhere. It created some kind of a unique encrypted copy which is not a security threat anymore. There are a lot of examples available on SIT website on how it has been used in many ways. I cannot immediately think of how it might be applicable in a QAactivity per se, but I am looking at the entire product. How do we really create innovative solutions where some of that can be done ? I am sure once people understand with the SIT method, it will be very obvious how they might be able to find some creative ways to test or qualify a solution.
Ashok: Some of the patterns like add, multiply and divide, are these like a certain standard pattern in that method?
Tathaghat: That’s right. So, these are four methods and then there is also attribute-dependency. Attribute dependency is a very interesting. When we order the pizza, it says 30 minutes or free. What happens is if the pizza is delivered in 30 minutes? You pay. The moment the 30-minute timeline is over, it becomes free. So time has an attribute dependency on the prize. Now, it might help us to actually create some test cases for example where we know that a system has a behavior, which is not a linear behavior, but there is an attribute dependency on that and then I am able to actually design my test cases around that.
Ashok: So how is this in TRIZ for example ?
Tathaghat: I think TRIZ in some sense a similar kind of a problem solving method. SIT came out of a professor’s work in Israel, and they basically came up with these ideas 20-25 years back. They’ve applied it in many industries and places. I find it very interesting. It’s a very simple but in very profound way. We only have five tools and a few principles in that, but I think the applications are huge.
This features a great TEDx video titled “How to think, not what to think” as this week’s SmartBites. This is complemented with an interesting article that I wrote titled “Do brilliantly ‘right’ after taking a ‘left’!”. After all a logical left-brained thinking complemented with a creative right-brained thinking will result in brilliant testing, right?
The “nanoLearning” smartbits gives you a quick overview of “Systematic Inventive Thinking”, a problem solving method that enables you to find innovative solutions to problems bounded by hard constraints.
The typical way in how we take notes is linear, with text from left to right and lines following each other. Do you know that Sketchnote is a creative way of note taking that stimulates your visual thinking? Read about this brilliant book “Sketchnote handbook” featured in “expandMind” section. I was blown away by this book where each page is a Sketchnote produced by hand!
I am very keen to expand the readership of SmartQA digest and transform the way how people perceive and do QA. I seek your help in forwarding this email to passionate engineering & QA colleagues. I am sure that they will enjoy the complimentary ebook “Raise your QANSCIOUSNESS – Test effortlessly” on signup. Have you had a chance to read this?
T Ashok @ash_thiru Summary A logical ‘left brain’ thinking complemented with a creative ‘right-brained thinking’ results in brilliant testing. This is an amalgamation of forward,
Sketchnotes are purposeful doodling while listening to something interesting. Sketchnotes don’t require high drawing skills, but do require a skill to visually synthesize and summarize via shapes, connectors, and text. Sketchnotes are as much a method of note taking as they are a form of creative expression.
Recently I read the book “The Checklist Manifesto” by Atul Gawande. “An essential primer on complexity in medicine” is what New York Times states about
