Pizza as a Service

Snitched off the intarwebs* an illustration of Pizza as a Service. Testing services can engage with the recipient in the same way, we usually refer to this as the engagement model. I have personally experienced all the variations:

• As a company I want deliveries, – don’t bother me with the rest
• As a company I want deliveries, a test plan and a test report
• As a company I want deliveries, test documents and I want to determine the tests
• As a company I want deliveries, documents and I want to test some myself
• As a company I want to do everything myself

*: Credit to the maker, where ever they are.

Mapping testing Competencies

[ Recognise and Acknowledge Your Skills  | Ministry Of Testing – The Testing Planet | June 2013]

The below model is directly inspired by the Vancouver Agile Quadrant introduced in “Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams” by Crispin and Gregory 2009 based on the original matrix from Brian Marick in 2003. It consists of four primary branches – as seen on the illustration. It is not a matrix or a table, but four directions with each their cloud of buzzwords. For specific contexts a mind-map will be a better choice of illustration – try drawing your own competencies.

Tester Skills Matrix

I killed an IT department

It wasn’t just a glitch or a bug, or a wicked hack. It is gone – there is no IT department anymore … Staffing and services will be transferred to the communications & knowledge department, but the hardcore business of developing IT solutions is closing. From now on we primarily use customization and configuration of standard tools: Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Podio and email (sigh – still).

Yet IT is everything and everything is IT

Wither the test manager?

[ Paul Gerrard | Will The Test Leaders Stand Up | The Testing Planet issue 10, Page 4, March 2013 , Paywall] paraphrased:

There are five broad choices for you to take if you are a test lead or test manager:

1. Provide advice to the business leaders, as an independent agent cajole project leadership and review performance
2. Take control of the knowledge required to define and build systems. Demand clarity and precision in requirements
3. Help agile projects to recognise and react to risks, coach and mentor and manage testing
4. Manage the information flow between the key groups and continuous integration system, control change and delivery
5. Manage outsourced and offshore teams, manage relationships

It’s probably 6) All of the above

More standards are not the solution

More standards and certifications for software testing is not the solution.

http://xkcd.com/927/

Are you an outsourcing pro, or a global business pro?

[ Why today’s outsourcing industry is a sham | MARCH 24TH, 2012 | Horses4Sources]

If you base your entire career living in a perpetual outsourcing transaction-cycle involving hordes of staff transfers and staff re-badging, then, fair enough – YOU REALLY ARE AN OUTSOURCING PROFESSIONAL.  

However, if you want to focus your career on improving processes, finding new and creative ways to improve companies’ productivity and growth, and leverage today’s availability of global talent into the bargain, aren’t you probably what we are calling a GLOBAL BUSINESS SERVICES PRO?

[The great outsourcing sham redux

 | MARCH 29TH, 2012 | Horses4Sources]

“Outsourcing” common interests should be segmented into two “industries”:
1) The Labor Arbitrage Industry. … if achieving little more than operational efficiency and low-cost delivery is all they care really about,

2) The Business Services Industry… about achieving new value and new productivity … let’s focus on Business Services and the process acumen, domain expertise, technology and global delivery required to make this all happen.

(Bold is my Emphasis) See also todays innovation becomes tomorrows commodity

todays innovation becomes tomorrows commodity

[CSC Leading edge Forum | by Simon Wardly | Feb 2, 2012 ]

yesterday’s new ideas become today’s best practices and tomorrow’s commodity systems

also for Enterprise IT and social media services. It’s the social media bell curve at play. Read/comment on Simon Wardley’s Organizing IT for the Future blog posts here.