Your Software Has Bugs

Do It In Production - TestBash Video Now Available

2013-05-01T15:42:00Z

TestBash 2.0 was a terrific event organized by the Software Testing Club: Ministry of Testing back on March 22, 2013

They have posted videos of all the talks.

My talk, Do It In Production - Testing Where It Counts can be viewed below

….And the PowerPoint deck can be downloaded here.

Once again thanks to the great TestBash organizers, attendees, and my fellow speakers. It was a very informative event.

More on Microsoft codename “Blue”

2013-04-14T01:11:40Z

Found this article which substantiates the previous one on Windows Blue

The first glimpse of how this plan might come together was unveiled two weeks ago, and was termed the codename "Blue," - a plan promising to roll out more frequent and more incremental updates of Windows, Windows Phone, Office and Xbox software. More than that, those updates will be coordinated across Microsoft's multiple platforms, to get all customers' "devices, apps and services working together."

It also adds a new aspect to the definition of what Blue represents. “Coordinated across Microsoft’s multiple platforms” is the key here. It is clear to many that with the decrease in PC sales and market share struggle of Windows Phone the key to Microsoft’s success is to leverage its ecosystem of PC, tablet, TV (console), and Phone. It things could just work seamlessly together, and apps work across all these devices, then that would be the competitive edge that would propel Microsoft success for the next decade.

For example Xbox is the best-selling gaming console in the United States for 25 consecutive months with 70 million sold to date. It is a huge success for Microsoft. There is a Windows Phone and Windows 8 app that works together with Xbox called SmartGlass. It’s cute. But as James Whittaker puts it, the goal is to make it so that if you own an Xbox you would have to be an idiot to own anything other than a Windows Phone and WIndows 8 tablet because they work together so well and do things no other devices can do… they work together like magic.

Will Blue deliver on this? I cannot say as I do not have that particular inside knowledge (and if I did, I would not be blogging about it right now). But from what the public sourced materials say, it looks like that might be the goal. I don’t expect the “magic” immediately, but with the more frequent and iterative approach of Blue, it can happen.

Destroy All Robot Language

2013-04-13T03:05:26Z

Microsoft (being an Evil Empire™ and all) doesn't get credit for a lot of changes that you do not explicitly notice, but make a real difference. For example there has been a program to "destroy all robot language" in several Microsoft products such as Office 2013, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8. To illustrate this, the following list contains the old term, and the term that replaced it in our products:

Sample terms(before)	New approaches to style (after)
modify	change
perform	do
purchase	buy
terminate	end
navigate	go
toggle	switch
obtain	get
execute	run
resolve	fix
enable	allow
choose	pick

I think this is good stuff that really improves the customer experience.

This table appeared in:

Multilingual, #134 Volume 24 Issue 2, March 2013

What is Microsoft “Blue”?

2013-04-11T15:56:44Z

You may have heard of Microsoft “Blue” or “Windows Blue”. I will not give you any inside information (as I simply do not have it), but here I found a good definition of what Blue is

“Blue, according to these guys, is not the code name for a new version of Windows. Rather, it is a process of incremental updates which users will get automatically.”

I would recommend you read the entire blog post by Tim Anderson. It is short, but to the point about the future of PCs, Windows 8, and tablets.

The TestBash 2.0 Story – Crowd Sourced

2013-03-28T19:11:00Z

As you may know, I recently gave a presentation on Testing in Production at TestBash 2.0. The videos from this event will be available in 1-2 weeks, and I will post the link here when available.

In my talk I discussed how high volume unstructured data streams can be used by software professionals to gain insights about product business metrics and product quality. Here was a slide used to show how Twitter data can be distilled into actionable metrics, in this case about Xbox Kinect.

In an earlier talk I gave internally at Microsoft I also shared the story on how one company says Twitter data can be used to replace professional television ratings services.

So it is no surprise that the story of TestBash 2.0 itself can be told via the Twitter stream. See it yourself at:

http://storify.com/testingclub/testbash-two-point-oh

TiP by any other name

2013-03-23T14:18:27Z

Somewhat often I get someone who hears what I have to say about Testing in Production (TiP), but thinks it will be a hard-sell to their management or peers with that name. So I will propose using a name like

Monitoring for Quality

Post-Deployment Validation

Please use the comments section to propose your own alternate names for TiP. Feel free to have fun with it.

I Will Be Presenting at TestBash 2.0

2013-03-01T00:24:24Z

TestBash 2.0 will be Friday March 22, 2013 in Brighton England

Sure you get to hear me speak about Testing in Production (TiP) and Data-Driven Quality Assessment, but there is an all-star line-up of speakers – a full day’s worth so you’ll get your money’s worth.

A-Galumphing We Will Go – James Bach

Do It In Production – Testing Where It Counts - Seth Eliot

Minding Your Own Business – Lisa Crispin

What Testers Can Learn From Social Sciences – Huib Schoots

Balancing Test Automation Techniques - Matt Archer

Managing A Lean Test Team – Amy Phillips

Context-Driven Security Testing- Bill Matthews

You Messed Up. Your Code Is Terrible – Tony Bruce

A Tester’s Hierarchy of Needs - Stephen Janaway

A little bit about my talk....

Bing analyzes Petabytes of data per day. Facebook instruments everything. Amazon “unplugs” entire data centers on a regular basis. Why? To improve quality! And it’s all done in production.

Running test cases in a lab has value but also diminishing returns as you try to make your lab emulate the complexities of the production environment and your test cases simulate the unpredictable nature of real-world usage. Go where the data is – go to production – and use this data as a new signal for quality assessment alongside your pre-production testing.

I will show you some techniques for testing in production (TiP) ranging from synthetics that resemble your current test cases to big data techniques leveraging the diversity of real production scale, illustrated with examples from Microsoft, Netflix, Google, and more. And if you think the dangers of TiP make it not right for you, I will also cover the risks and their mitigations, so there won’t be any reason you can’t also do it in production.

Hope to See you there!

The Four Colors of Microsoft, revisited

2012-12-01T15:30:00Z

Previously I explored if we could substantiate the rumor that the new Microsoft logo colors each represented a distinct product or business group within Microsoft

The Four Colors of the New Microsoft Company Logo

Has this been substantiated? Microsoft is being a bit of a tease showing some signs yes, and some signs no

From the Skydrive page	From microsoft.com
		Blue – correct
		Old Logo – 2013 one is same color. Red – correct
		Green – correct
		Old logo – not sure if they are getting a new one. Being their own business group not sure what color they should be
		Red, purple... what’s going on here?
		Old Logo – not sure if new one coming. Yellow seems correct
		The original “flat four”
		So this is the surface logo?

See A to Z Testing in Production Online – STP Webinar

2012-11-28T20:26:18Z

If you are interested in hearing my popular STPCon talk (last delivered in October)

A to Z Testing in Production: Industry Leading Techniques to Leverage Big Data for Quality

…then you have one more chance to see it online.

Just sign up for the STP Online Summit: Hottest Testing Topics in 2012

My Talk is Wednesday, December 12 from 11:15 AM – 12:15 PM PT

Also check out Twitter hashtag #STPSUMMIT

Interview with me from STPCon, October 2012

2012-11-06T22:31:07Z

If you would like to hear the sound of my voice, Mark Tomlinson was kind enough to interview me at STPCon, you can hear that here.