Testing Prometheus (the movie)

Why was this movie not good? It was not bad!!

1. The actors were beautiful with all star cast 
2. The acting was top notch
3. The direction was also brilliant
4. The CGI and stuff was excellent
5. The cinematography was breathtaking

Most of the geographical aspects of an alien planet were pretty nicely captured. But the movie lacked something. Something was missing. It even irritated quite a number of audiences. It gave the audience a visual treat but stole the original experience they have craved for decades. The core of movie which is the story did not know what it wanted to give to the audience. Resulting in travelling a group of brilliant scientists without letting them know their mission, a pretty girl who works out like crazy but cannot stop running straight, a zombie, an alien snake, a beautiful android who knows too much or just curious, a dead old billionaire who is not really dead, a female scientist (I don’t even want to touch that). And the alien creator guy rips of Michael Fassbender's face Who does that. I don't care what he created and wanted to destroy, he is dead to me!!

Testing Software is kind of like that. Brilliant business analysts that come up with a vision for something better, Artistic UI designers who go for a visual treat, top notch geek developers that develop a product or app, and the QA that test the heck out of every component along with integration testing.

All the items on the check list are checked off. Every item passes with flying colors. And the product is released to the world to deal with. With all its beautifulness and latest and greatest technology and perfection..

1. If the product does not make sense to the user, the user feels stupid.
2. If the product does not give a good user experience, the user feels won’t come back.
3. If the product takes too long to understand, the user is robbed of their time.
4. If the product does not deliver what is said, the user is feels cheated.

Product that meets the promises made to the customer along with a good user experience will last and thrive. Prometheus made the money it deserved same like the iPhone.

How well do you know your QA?

QA efforts valued based on the bugs that make it to production.

Once upon a time in an Asian village, there lived 4 brothers. All the four brothers were doctors.

The eldest brother treated many patients for years. 

1. He charged reasonably for the years of treatment.
2. Most of them advanced to terminally ill condition. 
3. Many of them died. 
4. He talked a lot about all the reasons that lead to the patient's death and how his treatments to save the patient became ineffective due to reasons not in his control. 
5. He was famous all over the village and a little in the surrounding villages too. He was very important to them. 
6. He did not get a bad rep either. People thought he did his best.

The second brother treated patients with care too for months.

1. He charged an arm and a leg as his fees.
2. A few of his patients became chronically ill even after months of treatment. 
3. Most of his patients survived and recovered. 
4. Few of his patients became terminally ill.
5. He explained about all the reasons for why he had to charge so much for the treatment. He also had reasons for why the patient could not be saved for reasons not in his control
6. He was famous in his village. He was important to them.

The third brother treated patients for weeks.

1. All of his patients survived and recovered. 
2. He charged reasonably.
3. He was known by a few people in the village. He was considered to be okay. 
4. People did not prefer to pay enough for his services.

The fourth brother never treated any patients actively.

1. He studied all the patients that came to his brothers.
2. He invested all his time on preventing diseases than curing them. 
3. He was more interested in prevention than cure.
4. He was not known by anyone in the village. He was never paid enough even to cover for his research. 
5. He was not valued as much. And sometimes he was considered pesky and hindering to the specific lifestyle the villagers were accustomed to.

QA people are valued the same way too.

A company values its QA team and invests in it when a lot of bugs make it to production. And seriouslyunder values the QA team that makes sure issues are nipped in the bud. This is when the upper management decides that their code is so clean and bug free, they may not need the QA team who are always asking for more time or resources and sometimes becoming the gate keepers for releases.

Oh! The irony.

Moron Vs. Oxymoron

I had the luxury of working with insanely smart people.
I had the misery of working with mind numbingly inane people too.
I had the luxury of working for morons and reporting to oxymoron.
The moron are okay, they don't know any better. They can be educated.
The oxymoron's they do know better. They purposefully want you to swim against the currents just to prove a point to nobody, not even themselves. They cannot be reasoned with.
I would totally run from these!! And I have.

I am a Bitch

The Circle of Office - 
I am a Bitch (not in general)
I am my boss' bitch.
My boss is their manager's bitch.
The manager is the vice president's bitch.
The VP is the CEO's bitch.
The CEO is the bitch to all the stake holders.
Instead of bitching about this situation, I try to be the best bitch I possibly can be (excuse the expression).

When it comes to working in an office, we are confined to cubicles physically and to the manager’s invisible boundaries. Learn to live and learn to grow.
If you signed up to swim in a pond, do not complain that it is not as challenging as swimming in an ocean. If you signed up to swim in the ocean, do not complain that it is not as predictable as a pond.
Do the best you can. Learn to use the currents. Do not work against them.
If you do, you will fail and a new swimmer can replace you.
One should be replaced for sucking at ones job, not for trying to make a work place better.

Update - Well, this is what I thought, till I worked at Amazon and Porch. When I worked with a great boss, I was myself and it felt great. I was happy. 
No, I don't want to be a bitch in any sense. Not anymore.

The Hot Air Balloon

Ever work in a company where the upper non-technical management made all the decisions, and the IT team had no team say in making the decisions. Why does that happen?

A man saw a hot air balloon and starts to float. He enjoys the ride. After a while he looks down and realizes
that he does not know how to get down to the ground and also that he is not in a safe place either. He hurriedly looks for civilization and finds a woman strolling.

He yells to get her attention and he gets it. He asks her if she can get him down to the ground? The woman thinks for a little bit scanning the premise, she then replies - "Your balloon is 40 feet from the ground. 20 miles from the city. The air balloon cannot last for more than 1 more hour. ...." and she went on.

The man in the air balloon interrupts her and asks her "You are in IT. Aren't you?"
The woman replies "Yes, Yes I am. How did you know?"
The man says "Well! what you explained to me is probably accurate, but it is not helping me get down!!!"
The woman thinks for a little bit, and asks "You are in upper management. Aren't you?"
The man replies "Yes, Yes I am. How did you know?"
The woman answers "You get your self in a hot air balloon without much prior knowledge about it and just expect others to fix your issues magically!!!"

Now, is this an ideal situation?
Shouldn't the people making the software make the decisions about its dates and features and all?
Well, that would seem like the ideal way to do things, but there is a catch.

Parkinson's first law - Work expands to fill the time allocated for completion. (Developers write enormous code that doesn't add value to the quality of the application.)

Parkinson's second law - Expenditure rises to meet the income. (Employees trying to create work to keep each other occupied rather than really work for the organization.)

Parkinson's third law - Expansion means complexity. (Once the budget is increased, more changes and resources are added to a project irrespective of necessity.)

Parkinson's fourth law - The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. (Family junk expands to fill the attic.)

So, is the hot air balloon good for the projects and good for our work prioritization?

To Process or not to Process

A long time ago, there was a land lord who started the tradition of throwing a huge party for all of his town folk in his huge backyard once a year. Right before the party began, the land lord would get his men to catch his pet Cat and put her under a wicker basket and then put a brick on top of the basket. Right after this event, the party would begin.

The landlord passed away and his eldest son took over the family house and the traditions. The eldest son did not have a pet cat. But every year at the time of the party he would instruct his men to get a cat. He would then put the cat under the wicker basket and then put a brick on top of the basket.

This tradition was as important to this landlord’s family as having a real turkey or a fake tofurkey on Thanksgiving to most of us Americans. Nobody had any issues with this process, so they went on carrying out their practices.

Now, let’s try and understand about why the landlord originally used to lock his cat right before the party began?

1. The landlord really loved his pet and did not like to restrict her freedom. 
2.  The landlord liked to devote his time to entertaining his guests at the party.
3.  The landlord was afraid of his cat hurting other kids or even worse someone stomping his cat by mistake.

So, in order to take care of all the three issues, the land lord used to lock his cat up for her own safety and convenience of the guests. He used a wicker basket because he had them in abundance at his house. He used to use the red brick to weigh down the wicker basket restricting the cat to tip over it and run loose.

His son had observed his actions and followed the actions, but did not try to understand the purpose behind the actions.

What is a process?

Process is the practice of executing related tasks in a certain way to accomplish a goal.

1.       This practice could be executing tasks sequentially synchronized.

2.       This practice could be cataloging tasks in a certain way for easy identification.

3.       This practice could be to identify certain annoyances and take care of them.

4.       This practice could be to have gate keepers at certain locations.

5.       Etc.

Example of a process –

Waterfall  

Agile 

Scrum

  Etc.

Q. When to follow and not follow a process?

Many companies and projects like to implement the text book version of process without first understanding if the process will work or break with their core. And this is not necessarily the best way to implement anything.

1. Process for the sake of process does not add any value to the team and the company.
2.  Ever revised process will help the team to be efficient.
3.  Understanding of why to do certain tasks in certain way makes for a better process.

Process is good. Following a suitable process is as effective as epilating regularly (it is less painful with fewer surprises and leaves few chances for public embarrassment). Keep revising your processes and make sure it works for you. 

Digital Fast

 

A very good friend of mine recently used this word in the sentence “I was on a digital fast, so I could not reply back to your email immediately”. My friend was on a digital fast by staying away from all social media like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and even emails (in certain cases).

We are over stuffing ourselves with all this social media, texting and constant information update. It would be nice to take a break from all of that and go on a Digital Fast to clear our schedules and minds. It would be like tasting food and appreciating it after a food fast.

It would be kind of impossible to shut down everything we use on a daily basis. But we can cut down on one digital media one day a week.

(I would love to blabber about the pros and cons but you know yourself with your media better)