Joep Schuurkes (Posts about leadership)https://smallsheds.garden/categories/leadership.atom2024-02-26T20:32:13ZJoep SchuurkesNikolaSo you want to become a test engineer?https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2024/so-you-want-to-become-a-test-engineer/2024-02-26T00:00:00+01:002024-02-26T00:00:00+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>Becoming a test engineer these days is probably harder than it was for me back in 2006. Back then, there was no test automation, we worked in the slow rhythm of waterfall, and for years I was in a team with other testers or at least had a test manager to bounce ideas off. These days, there's a good chance none of these are true as you start as a test engineer.</p>
<p>While most of these changes are good ones (please don't take test automation or agile away), it does make me empathize with anyone who starts their career as a test engineer today. The pace is higher and the skill set is broader. More importantly, you need to navigate your career while no one is really sure where to position testers in their organization. That's not a straightforward environment to start a career in.</p>
<p>So here are four pieces of advice I'd give myself if I'd start my career in testing today:</p>
<ul>
<li>testing can be many different things</li>
<li>you're a software engineer that specializes in testing</li>
<li>the end-game is leadership skills</li>
<li>shape your career in a way that suits you</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2024/so-you-want-to-become-a-test-engineer/">Read more…</a> (4 min remaining to read)</p></div>I'm a quality engineer and I'm not sure how I feel about thathttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/im-a-quality-engineer-and-im-not-sure-how-i-feel-about-that/2023-07-05T11:42:34+02:002023-07-05T11:42:34+02:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>This post is a slightly edited version of the experience report I <a class="reference external" href="https://smallsheds.garden/slides/xp2023-quality-engineer.html">presented</a> at the <a class="reference external" href="https://www.agilealliance.org/xp2023/">xp2023</a> conference. It covers my first six months at a scale-up, working as a quality engineer for the first time - after having worked in other testing-related roles for 15+ years.</p>
<p>My main finding is that for a quality engineering role to work well, certain structures need to be in place. The most important one is that the impact the quality engineer is expected to have, is clear to both the quality engineer and the team(s) they are supporting. However, regardless of which structures you put in place, a quality engineer will also need to work around those structures to be fully effective.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/im-a-quality-engineer-and-im-not-sure-how-i-feel-about-that/">Read more…</a> (22 min remaining to read)</p></div>Making meetings workhttps://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/making-meetings-work/2023-05-30T09:31:25+02:002023-05-30T09:31:25+02:00Joep Schuurkes<figure><img src="https://smallsheds.garden/images/2023/making-meetings-work/venn-meeting.png"></figure> <div><p>Too often I've heard people say: <em>"Oh no, not another meeting!"</em> Usually this means they feel their time at work is split between time in meetings and time in which they do actual work. And to be fair, they have a point. I too have been in plenty of meetings that didn't achieve much of anything. It doesn't have to be this way, however. Meetings can be effective and they can leave you with a real sense of having accomplished something. And in this post I'll explain how to make that happen.</p>
<h2>We struggle with meetings</h2>
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<p style="margin-top:10px">We struggle with meetings. On the one hand we keep proposing them, scheduling them, attending them. On the other hand we keep complaining about them. We feel sorry for people with a day full of meetings. When a meeting ends early, we <em>"get 10 minutes of our lives back"</em>.</p>
<p>To that <a href="https://twitter.com/j19sch/status/1179798961131012096">I say</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>If you feel you do all your work outside of meetings, you're meeting wrong.</em></p>
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<p>It's something I realized while I was a scrum master: my work happens during meetings. Mostly team meetings and 1-to-1s. There's prep before and follow-up after meetings, but I did the core of my job through meetings.</p>
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<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2023/making-meetings-work/">Read more…</a> (9 min remaining to read)</p></div>From tension to agreement with Sociocracy 3.0https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/from-tension-to-agreement-with-sociocracy-30/2022-01-22T11:27:13+01:002022-01-22T11:27:13+01:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>Earlier this month I started my new job at a small consultancy. During my onboarding I noticed something that I thought could be improved. So I figured I should come up with a proposal to address that. It also made me wonder how me proposing this improvement would go over with my new colleagues. And then I remembered I learned about a good way of doing this in a workshop<sup id="fnref:6"><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/from-tension-to-agreement-with-sociocracy-30/#fn:6">1</a></sup> at the 2016 <a href="https://xpdaysbenelux.nl/">XP Days Benelux</a> conference. That workshop was about <a href="https://sociocracy30.org/">Sociocracy 3.0</a> (S3 for short). So I ended up proposing two things in the meeting: my improvement, but also a way to come to an agreement about my proposal.</p>
<p>The reactions to my proposal about how to come to agreements, were mostly positive. One person asked a very good question though: <em>"Is this solving a problem we are having? Or is this a solution looking for a problem? What would be the reasons for adopting this?"</em> In response I expanded on my reasons for wanting this and we decided to give it a try. My dual proposal helped here: let's try the S3 patterns I shared on the improvement I proposed.</p>
<p>Looking back, I'm happy with my reply to those questions and I also feel I can do better. Which makes this the perfect opportunity for my first blog post of 2022. I'll start with a brief introduction on Sociocracy 3.0, then I'll share the proposal I made based on S3, and finally I'll talk about why I like this form of decision-making.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2022/from-tension-to-agreement-with-sociocracy-30/">Read more…</a> (7 min remaining to read)</p></div>Thinking about quality: so what to do?https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/thinking-about-quality-so-what-to-do/2021-04-07T13:25:02+02:002021-04-07T13:25:02+02:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>On 30 January 2021 I participated in the Quality Acceleration Peer Conference organized by Huib Schoots and Joost Voskuil. Participants were <a href="https://twitter.com/alanpage">Alan Page</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/unremarkableQA">Areti Panou</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/northern_tester">Ash Winter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/btknaack">Bart Knaack</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/conorfi">Conor Fitzgerald</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/roukedejong">Rouke de Jong</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gwendiagram">Gwen Diagram</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/gdinwiddie">George Dinwiddie</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/janetgregoryca">Janet Gregory</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/joost_voskuil">Joost Voskuil</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/jpjwolli">Joost van Wollingen</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/mmeijeri">Martijn Meijering</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/robmeaney">Rob Meaney</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/vinwijnl">Vincent Wijnen</a> - with <a href="https://twitter.com/huibschoots">Huib Schoots</a> facilitating the peer conference. The main topics mentioned in the invite were: "How can you sell quality?", "How can you convince people that quality can accelerate software delivery?", and "What limitations or barriers do you hit?"</p>
<p>Reflecting during and after our discussions on these topics, I realized there are some interesting things going on about how we talk about quality and how to sell it. Enough interesting things to fill more than one blog post, so this will be a four-part series. And I might expand on some ideas in the series after that.</p>
<p>The first three parts covered rather philosophical topics: <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/choosing-your-value-system/">choosing your value system</a>, <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/who-doesnt-want-quality/">exploring what it means to sell quality</a>, and <a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/management-paradigms-and-quality/">how management paradigms affect quality</a>. At the end of the third post I brought up the main question for this fourth and last post: so now what? If you expect me to get very concrete and specific in this post, I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. What I will do, is share a way to think about actions that has been helpful to me.</p>
<h3>Quality is something emergent</h3>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/charrett">Anne-Marie Charrett</a> says in a blog post titled "<a href="https://mavericktester.com/2018/12/04/emergent-quality/">Emergent Quality</a>":</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"My hypothesis is that quality is an emergent behaviour. It relies on a whole set of independent systems coming together to create this emergent property. We can never truly know what quality is. It’s constantly changing and morphing into different things. For sure, we can provide examples, but know quality itself? I’m not convinced."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2021/thinking-about-quality-so-what-to-do/">Read more…</a> (8 min remaining to read)</p></div>Two styles of leadership in spreading context-driven testing (TITANconf)https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2015/two-styles-of-leadership-in-spreading-context-driven-testing-titanconf/2015-09-06T19:56:54+02:002015-09-06T19:56:54+02:00Joep Schuurkes<div><p>The last weekend of August I spent with some great people - Kristoffer Ankarberg (<a href="https://twitter.com/KrisAnkarberg">@KrisAnkarberg</a>), Kristoffer Nordström (<a href="https://twitter.com/kristoffer_nord">@kristoffer_nord</a>), Anna Brunell (<a href="https://twitter.com/Anna_Brunell">@Anna_Brunell</a>), Fredrik Thuresson (<a href="https://twitter.com/Thure98">@Thure98</a>), Maria Kedemo (<a href="https://twitter.com/mariakedemo">@mariakedemo</a>), Henrik Andersson (<a href="https://twitter.com/henkeandersson">@henkeandersson</a>), Maria Månsson, Amy Philips (<a href="https://twitter.com/ItJustBroke">@ItJustBroke</a>), Richard Bradshaw (<a href="https://twitter.com/FriendlyTester">@FriendlyTester</a>), Duncan Nisbet (<a href="https://twitter.com/DuncNisbet">@DuncNisbet</a>), Alexandru Rotaru (<a href="https://twitter.com/altomalex">@altomalex</a>), Oana Casapu, Simon Schrijver (<a href="https://twitter.com/SimonSaysNoMore">@SimonSaysNoMore</a>), Zeger Van Hese (<a href="https://twitter.com/TestSideStory">@TestSideStory</a>), Helena Jeret-Mäe (<a href="https://twitter.com/HelenaJ_M">@HelenaJ_M</a>), Aleksis Tulonen (<a href="https://twitter.com/al3ksis">@al3ksis</a>), Anders Dinsen (<a href="https://twitter.com/andersdinsen">@andersdinsen</a>) - at the awesome <a href="http://www.karlskronatestgathering.se/titan.html">TITAN peer conference</a> in Karlskrona, Sweden.</p>
<p>During the conference we discussed leadership and testing and on Sunday morning I got the opportunity to tell my story<sup id="fnref:1"><a class="footnote-ref" href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2015/two-styles-of-leadership-in-spreading-context-driven-testing-titanconf/#fn:1">1</a></sup>. (I do wish I had captured more of the discussion afterwards to include in this blog post.)</p>
<h3>The first style</h3>
<p>When thinking about my own leadership in testing, one of the first things that come to mind are my attempts to influence my colleagues at work (testers, developers, project managers) to become more context-driven in their attitude towards testing.</p>
<p><a href="https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2015/two-styles-of-leadership-in-spreading-context-driven-testing-titanconf/">Read more…</a> (5 min remaining to read)</p></div>