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MBA con especialización versus maestría especializada

landingmba — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:03:12 +0000

MBA con especialización versus maestría especializada Hace algunas décadas solo existían los MBA a s

Get to the heart of what will be the vibrant, interesting, & lucrative jobs and careers in the 21st century?

Jo Jordan — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:10:31 +0000

New management

When I went to university, we were told that management is the art of getting work done through people. A passport to laziness and exploitation!

Today, we say management is developing people through work.

Work should be fun. It is fun for some of us.

And work should be fair. Not only should we receive a fair day’s pay for a fair days work. We should be growing as a person and capable of doing more with each hour of work that we put in.

Rewriting the training manuals for jobs and careers

In 20th century management manuals, Stage 1 of work was doing. For about 10 years, roughly from 16 to 26, we learned a trade and built breadth & depth through education and exposure. Our job was to cultivate a deep knowledge of our materials and tools, appreciate our customers, and adapt what we did for their needs. We wanted to learn enough about the wide range of situations that we might encounter in the future so that we could go with the flow and make a living as the years went by.

Sadly, of course, markets change and revolutions happen in technology. With very little notice, customers defect to other products and markets, competitors outrun us, or the technology changes sufficiently to require another 10 year apprenticeship.

In the ‘olden days’, HR departments were responsible for seeing ahead and retraining staff ahead of any abrupt changes. By definition, the HR Director’s job was to spot changes on the horizon and get everyone retrained in new ways without disrupting today’s operations. There was a reason for that high salary!

You are now your own HR Director

Today’s management theorists and leadership coaches counsel another approach. They recommend that each of us scan the horizon for changes and retrain ourselves in good time.

This is quite hard to do. As noobes, we barely understand the business. We don’t have data to see ahead. Indeed it might be kept from us. And training tends to focus on skill rather than the ’sweet spot’ where are skills are deeply valued by our customers.

The sweet spot where your skills are deeply valued by your customers

I know that there has been a lot of research on how to train people on the sweet spot.

I recall attempts to train doctors by introducing them to patients from day one. The conclusion, I recall, was that the pre-clinical training was necessary to speed up communication between noobes and experienced doctors and the experiment was abandoned.

Cognitive psychologists have developed computer games to test whether it is better to learn the market before we learn the underlying technology of our business. They concluded no. First, learn the technology, then try to make money.

Military psychologists have found that youngsters trained to manage their attention on computer games performed better as fighter pilots. In the game, the recruits played the part of captains of de-mining vessels. Each ‘month’, or game cycle, they would concentrate on the overall outcome of running the ship and concentrate on learning one of the functions only ~ navigation, finance, HR, etc. The limitation known with this approach is that under pressure we often go back to the “level” that we first learned, requiring, once again, that we can see into the future and pick our “level” correctly.

It seems easy to mess up our mental models of the sweet spot and what we need to do to manage it. We can overemphasize the money end and underemphasize the skill. We can also learn to manage situations that are too small to sustain a living.

More research needed on managing our own training for 21st century jobs and careers

None of these experiments have focused though on developing a sense of the sweet spot and organizing skills and commercial acumen around a sweet spot that morphs, ebbs and flows. I know no experiment where “subjects” were explicitly trained to monitor what is happening around them, to think of their own skills (and the skills of their team) and bring those together into a rewarding balance.

I wonder what would happen if we learned to think that way from the get-go?

Organize your own thinking about vibrant, interesting & lucrative jobs and careers in the 21st century

If you want to try, to organize your thinking about the sweet spot between your skills and the needs of customers, this is what I recommend.

Pick on anything you did today that you enjoyed and draw out 3 spokes

name the key technical skill that you used to provide your customer with value
name the customer and describe his or her needs
name the sweet spot and try describe it in one sentence

These three spokes correspond logically to three factors associated with successful business teams:

The teams ask questions more often than the give answers
They concentrate on the outside world a little more than on themselves
The look for what is going well and are positive 5x more than they are negative

Become your own HR Director

I think it will take quite a few lots of 10 to 15 minutes jotting down notes for this way of thinking to come easily. But when it does you will be your own HR Director

Looking ahead
Retraining on time
Finding the sweet spot where you feel vital, involved, entertained, valued AND rewarded!

Do let me know how it works out!

Research suggests mounting problems for gaming firms

Lauren Amery — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:09:30 +0000

NESTA’s recent report It’s Time to Play suggests the UK video games sector faces ‘serious and mounting problems’ as a result of a variety of factors including the emerging trend for experienced staff to leave the UK in favour of competitor countries where government support is strong.

The report, based on a survey of 30 leading British video games developers, suggests widespread support among respondents for introduction of tax credit for cultural games.

Research in this field carries a particular relevance to the West Midlands which is host to 19% of the UK’s gaming workforce (Burns Owens Partnership, 2007). A cluster of high profile game developers include Codemasters, Blitz, Freestyle Games and the Serious Games Institute.

Zimbabweans invade the airwaves

bushradio — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:32:15 +0000

Over the past two weeks five members of Radio Dialogue in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe have been interning at Bush Radio’s studios.

This training is a continuation Bush Radio and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung’s (FES) attempt to assist in the development of the community radio sector in Southern Africa.

Rosie Chauke and Thandazani Nkomo checking the local papers

The visit comes after we conducted station based training in Bulawayo. (see story here) The five interns have been placed in different departments in order to enhance the skills they already have.

Radio Dialogue is a community radio station which aims to give people of Bulawayo a voice. At the moment it does not have a broadcasting licence but has managed to engage the people of Bulawayo in its activities.

Bush Radio's Denisia Adams with Radio Dialogue's Munya Gova in studio

The radio station is in touch with the community through recorded broadcasts, road shows and focus group meetings which all aim to give people a platform to air their views on issues affecting them.

Rosie Chauke, a youth coordinator from Radio Dialogue says her duties include working on various projects. “We have activities such as debate camps, drama competitions, talk shows and public speaking competitions for those youth that are still at school,” said Chauke.

Sakhisizwe's Busisiwe Mtabane (front) with Sanele Njini from Bulawayo

Chauke, who was based in the Bush Radio Newsroom, says through this training she expecting to get a better feel for broadcasting.

“It has been my greatest wish to do this and now I have finally got a chance to do this and I’m so excited, though at first I had cold feet and was very nervous,” added Chauke.

She concluded that being in the newsroom is an experience, because at their station she only read the news, whereas at Bush Radio she got to do compiling and conduct interviews.

Emmanuel Nkomo from Radio Dialogue selecting music with the help of Victor J

Thandazani Nkomo who is also based in the Bush Radio Newsroom added; “It’s been a nice experience for me being at Bush Radio. We had an opportunity of going on air. It is a dream we hope to realise in Zimbabwe soon.”

Bush Radio will be conducting follow-up training again in Zimbabwe to see the progress of the interns and to see what they have implemented from their stay at our little station.

Emmanuel (centre) hosted a staff development session on drumming

*The Radio Dialogue interns can be heard on Bush Radio 89.5 FM or online between 09h00 – 16h00 and will conduct a special on-air programme on Friday the 27 November between 14h00 – 16h00.

Always DC!

pacil — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:03:41 +0000

Always DC!!,because the ping of other players are always 500 ping and it was so log.And they didn’t fix the game hacks,because there are many players are using of it again.And I was disappointed..

Maintenance 11/26/09

pacil — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:21:25 +0000

Fixing of some game hacks.

Many players use cheat like wall hack,no recoil,unlimited bomb to get more EXP.But many SF players get angry and they report it to the GM.So today, they fix the game hack and I don’t know if all game hacks will be fix..

Creating a Change Request by Patrick Bowe

patrickbowe — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:49:05 +0000

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory”~ W. Edwards Deming

I’ve discussed in a previous post how it’s the role of the business analyst to seek out and embrace change. However change is often chaotic, expensive and unless you happen to be the stakeholder sponsoring the change, it’s usually about as popular as a tester at a developer’s convention.

As enthusiastic proponents of change, our challenge as Business Analysts is to sell the need for change to sceptical stakeholders and budget holders alike and also to point out when a change is neither desirable nor in the best interests of a project.

Enter then, the humble Change Request, a BA’s most trusted tool in the change process. A tool that allows the Business analyst to detail what the specific business problem is that caused the need for a change, what can be done to resolve the business problem and what impact those changes will have on a business or project.

This post delves into the change request itself and describes what a Business Analyst should include in their change request to ensure that key stakeholders are in a position to decide if change is really necessary and if so, how should the change be implemented.

1. Why Change?

When creating a Change Request, the first question that we, as Business Analysts, have to answer is, ‘Why is there a need for change?’. Business Analysts are keen on change, it’s what keeps us employed, but change is difficult so a Change Request needs to establish very quickly that a change is really required. Try to answer the following questions when describing the need for a change:

- Who is the Sponsor?: The very first question to answer in a Change Request (CR) is, ‘who is sponsoring the Change Request?’. A CR needs to be raised by the right person, a key user is unlikely to get much buy in for changing business requirements, but may justifiably want to change the layout of the user interface for instance.

- What is the problem?: What problem will any change actually solve? Are there new regulations that change the nature of the project does functionality not work quite as anticipated. Whatever the problem, describing it in detail will allow stakeholders to decide if it’s a problem worth solving.

- Can you Justify the Change?: Can you explain why this problem should be fixed? What benefits will it deliver to the project or business? If you were a stakeholder, would you consider fixing this problem a change worth making?

2. Identifying Solutions

The next step in completing a Change Request is to work out how to fix the problem. A required change with no clear solution or next step can often lead to paralysis on a project, so it’s the role of the BA to offer solutions and possible ways for the project to move forward. The following points describe the things you need to pay attention to when identifying solutions:

- List Multiple Options: Always try to include more than one solution for consideration by the responsible stakeholders. Even where no other reasonable option exists, you should always include the option of doing nothing.

- Do Nothing: Doing nothing is often the least expensive approach to any change and should always be an option for discussion. This challenges stakeholders to consider if a project really needs to go through the pain and expense of implementing a change.

- Articulate the Solution Clearly: Treat the solution like you would a requirement, clearly state what each solution will entail in an articulate and unambiguous way. The change board responsible for picking a solution must have a common understanding of what a change entails, in the same way as they would need a common understanding of a business requirement.

3. Analysing the Impact

Each solution identified by the Business Analyst should include an impact analysis. This analysis should help the stakeholders to identify the solution that has the most positive impact on their business or project. Listed below are the areas that the BA should cover in their analysis:

- Tasks & Milestones: Identify the steps required to implement a solution, even if this can only be done at a high level. This has two benefits, firstly, detailing each task will allow reviewers to understand the solution and make a more informed decisions as to whether or not it is possible to implement. Secondly, by identifying the activities required, the BA has begun the process of re-planning that will have to take place once a solution has been selected for implementation.

- Costs, Time & Resources: Estimate the time that a solution will take to implement, the resources required and most importantly the costs involved. These are the key indicators that any stakeholder will look for when making a decision. Don’t forget to specify what types of resources (testers, developers, etc) will be needed, not just the total amount of people. Also, be clear about whether or not you are specifying actual time taken or the duration of time required.

- SWOT: Complete a SWOT analysis. This will allow you to highlight other points of interest to stakeholders about a solution that may not be immediately clear by simply looking at the cost involved. Regardless of the cost of a solution you should document clear pros and cons for each solution as well as any opportunities that may present themselves

- Quality: Finally, be clear how stakeholders will know that they have got what they paid for. State clearly how a solution will be tested, if it will need business acceptance testing or will technology sign off be enough to push any implementation live.

4. Selecting an Option

Even when we get a say in the option selection, it’s unusual for Business Analysts to actually select the final option to be implemented. What we can do though is present the options to the key decision makers and make our recommendations based on what we’ve learned.

- Identify Key Decision Makers: Assuming that your project doesn’t already have a change review board in place that will take decisions on all changes, then you’ll need to identify who can sign off on and agree to implement a change. All of the important stakeholders, including IT, business and users, should be represented on the Board. The main stakeholder, typically the one that owns the budget, should chair the board and have the deciding input into the eventual solution selection.

- Recommended Solution: After completing the Change Request, conducting the analysis and considering their understanding of the requirements, you are well placed to recommend a solution for the change board to consider. Make sure that your justification stands up to close scrutiny and be prepared to present your recommended solution to the Change Board.

5. Implementing Change

As with any implementation, once a change has been selected by the Change Board, it’s your role as the Business Analyst to ensure that what is required by the business is actually delivered. Tracking changes associated with a Change Request can be a challenge, so here are a few points to keep in mind.

- Store Change Requests: Keep the Change Request, along with a record of which solution was chosen, under lock and key. This document is your proof to show that a change has been requested and has been approved by the proper authority.

- Conduct Further Analysis: You may have had to put a change request through quickly or sketched out the exact steps that need to occur which require a lot more detail to be added before they can be implemented. Now is the time to do that analysis. Get back into the requirements gathering mentality and ensure that you understand exactly what the business want and why.

- Update your Documents: This is always a big step for me. You are about the change signed off documents, so make sure you update the document versions allowing you to track how requirements have changed over time. Include the CR itself as a new appendix in any documents that change. Also, go to the trouble of getting sign off for any changes that you make to your documents, your business will be reluctant to go through this process again, but in terms of ensuring clarity it’s vital.

One thing is for sure, embracing change can create a lot of work. Creating a Change Request with the right information will help make sure that the right change happens for the right reasons.

If you have any of your own tips on how to create a Change Request, then please feel free to let me know by leaving a comment below. If you’re interested in seeing more articles related to the role of a Business Analyst, then why not subscribe via the RSS feed?

What BA skills are of value in an Agile world?

magia3e — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:41:14 +0000

I recently created a post on a BA’s role on agile projects. The essential message was, simply, that there is no BA role. There’s also no PM role either. However, both disciplines have an immense number of skills that are incredibly valuable in agile projects.

Sprint Zero

Identifying users: Understanding who to talk to and who the prioritised feature sets and requirements represents if the first skill needed on an agile project. A BAs skills in stakeholder segmentation is the perfect starting point as is documenting them as personas.
Collecting user needs described on story cards: BAs have a great number of skills in eliciting requirements. In Sprint Zero all that is required is documentation as a story card:”As a [role] I need to [activity] in order to [outcome]“This gives you great traceability throughout the project because everything as to tie into enabling the user to undertake the activity and give them the outcome they seek.

Articulating the skinny solution

Prioritisation of requirements: What requirements are more important than others? BAs have skills in negotiation, liaison, workshop organisation and execution. Pair a BA with an Information Architect (IA) or user-experience designer (UXD) and you get a good idea of the prioritisation of their needs and how they need to be articulated during the iteration phases as complete feature sets. Remember it’s not about having mandatory, desirable, etc. Instead, agile requirements are listed in priority order with a minimum set — the things we can’t do without — forming the skinny solution.This is where the BAs skills are essentially lacking because it’s more in the province of cognitive and behavioural psychology. The skinny system reflects users’ hygiene factors.Pair a BA with an IA, however, and the way to elicit the hygiene factors will become clear.

Planning an iteration

Work estimation and benchmarking: What is the team going to produce? What skills are required? What activities will be done in this iteration? How long will elicitation and validation tasks take? These are all questions that BAs because of their ongoing involvement in projects are readily able to answer.I like to ensure that I’ve got a wiki handy to note the aspects of the estimation so that I can change the estimation into a benchmark once the work has been completed. Over time, this becomes a valuable knowledge tool because I can simply say “when we last did it, it took [this long]“
Risk analysis: While doing work it’s the job of all team members to understand issues and risks as they arise and communicate them to the team’s leader, Sensei or Product Owner. The ability, therefore, to analyse on the fly is vital to the team and a skill that BAs have in spades.I find that differentiating between a fear and a risk is the hardest thing for peope to grasp. People often fear that something will eventuate, but when you start to boil things down into hard facts abouta) the impact the issue will have, and
b) the actual likelihood of occurence (based on research) then fears can rapidly vanish when also paired with constant communication from standup meetings.

In this way, the BAs skills are best applied in the Roshi, Scrum Master or Project Lead roles.

Understanding the context

Elicitation and observation: Analysing how people work, why, and the outcomes achieved is an important part of a BAs skill set. Whether done through interviews, focus groups or a contextual inquiry (my own favourite), understanding the context of use and communicating it is a BAs core strength in agile environments
Communication: How do you relate to the rest of your multidisciplinary team that you know the context of use — both from a user and systems perspective? BAs have a variety of tools they use regularly coupled with a talent for customisation of communication mediums and messages so that information is passed on to others with maximum efficiency.So what are some of these tools?
- Storyboards (which I love to draw!)
- Plans on a page (epic stories)
- User pathways
- Behavioural and process flow diagrams
- Context diagram
- Logical data model
Notice that these are all light-weight, can be done in a short period of time, are easily changed, and are, essentially, placholders for a conversation.

Understanding the human, strategic and system requirements

Custodianship of requirements: Understanding context is one thing, but then drawing the relationships between context and the needs of different people, and then taking into consideration the constraints, is a BA’s bread and butter. Where other disciplines, particularly UXD, tend to have greater strength in understanding and documenting context, the BAs strength has always been in elicitation, translation and communication of requirements, and then the management of these requiremens through to solution design, validation and implementation.For people like me, who tend to like to work at the ‘big picture’, having a BA who is detail oriented is a must.

Solution design

Translation, communication and business representation: This is my favourite part of the iteration. While other team members might be responsible for the organisation of information of a system, its interaction design, and its systems architectural design, the BAs skills best served during the design phase is in representation of business and end-users. This is largely because their role as custodian of requirements makes them the most familiar with what is required and what the outcomes need to be when putting everything together.

Validation of the solution

Diplomacy, negotiation, and whole-of-project representation: While programmers use automated testing in agile environments one aspect that can’t be automatically tested is whether or not the system behaves in the way that matches the way users need and want to use the product. Here the BAs diplomacy is his most valuable asset to bring to the agile project. He has to balance the needs of everyone, as well as their expectations, to help negotiate an agreement that the solution works, or whether additional things need to be incorporated in order for the solution to be acceptable to those who will use it.Of course, the outcome also needs to be communicated to The Powers That Be. With their strong skills in diplomacy and negotiation, a BA is able to represent the team and project as its Roshi, Scrum Master, or Project Lead.Then there’s letting the team know they’ve not suceeded in producing a valid solution. Lots of people get very attached to what they think is the right way to proceed and having users tell you that it’s not what they want can be incredibly frustrating. It means that the BAs skills of diplomacy are not only valued as an outward facing ability but also as an inward facing one as well

Implementation

Diplomacy and sign-off: Having completed the ISO13407 cycle final implementation the feature set needs to be signed-off. Someone has to remind users and the business of how the iteration has been conducted and the points of agreement throughout. This can be a delicate matter particularly given many users and sponsors want a big thick document to read at their leisure and then sign.I usually print and package all of the smaller deliverables and put them into a folder. The first page lists the milestones and activities, agreement dates and who was present/represented, and when agreement was reached. The bottom of the page has the dotted line on which to sign.
Setting expectations: I’ve found other sponsors don’t care so much about being this formal, particularly given the BA has been in constant communication with them and set expectations along the entire feature set iteration.

Ultimately, while there is no actual BA role, a BAs skill sets are of incredible importance throughout an agile project. This is a breath of fresh air for those of us who are only invited by the PM to elicit requirements during the first stage of the a waterfall project only then to be brought back onto the scene to help with users acceptance testing. This, ultimately, is why as BAs, we should all be championing agile. And if you’re not, then you should be!

So where are your strengths? What skills do you use most often as a BA in agile environments?

Digital inclusion for social inclusion. From Brazil to the world.

youtharoundtheworld — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:07:54 +0000

Founded in 1995, pioneer of the digital inclusion movement in Latin America, CDI (Center for Digital Inclusion) is one of the leading social enterprises in the world with a unique socio-educational approach. CDI Founder and Ashoka Fellow Rodrigo Baggio and our work at CDI have been recognized with more than 60 international awards. Today, we are a network of 753 self-managed and self-sustaining CDI Community Centers throughout Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay – monitored and coordinated by our 31 regional offices.

In addition to low-income communities, our schools are also present in indigenous communities, psychiatric clinics, hospitals for the mentally and physically disabled, as well as youth & adult detention facilities. CDI is an international NGO with US 501c3 status, headquartered in Rio de Janeiro. CDI has operations in the USA, UK, and and Latin America. With the support of James Wolfensohn, former President of the World Bank and the Wolfensohn Institute, CDI is in the process of expanding to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, to be followed by India and other parts of Africa. (CDI Global)

THE PROBLEM

“Computers and computer-based communications and information systems are opening up new opportunities in virtually every field of human endeavor. Distances of many kinds are being erased, and the “global village” is becoming more of a reality with each passing day. In education, in the workplace, and in many leisure pursuits, the computer embodies the fundamental difference between yesterday and today.

Unfortunately, however, the benefits of this remarkable tool are not being evenly shared. In countries like Brazil, where poverty is widespread and public education systems are extremely deficient, both the high cost of computer hardware and limited opportunities for training in computer skills deny access to those benefits to most people of modest economic means. As a result, in several important respects the gulf between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is widening, and with that widening, the opportunities open to economically disadvantaged groups are correspondingly curtailed.

The essence of the challenge that Rodrigo and his colleagues are addressing, therefore, is the urgent need to broaden access to computer and information science skills and, through those skills, to improve economic opportunities and more fruitful participation in virtually every dimension of modern life. The campaign in which Rodrigo and his associates are engaged is at the forefront of the continuing battle for social justice. It is also of central relevance for the future of democratic governance in Brazil.” (Ashoka.org)

THE SOLUTION

“We use knowledge to stimulate local economic development and job creation. Technology is one of the most powerful catalysts of change at hand today. But technology, in itself, is just a tool. The true challenge is making technology relevant and useful in the context of marginalized populations. For 14 years CDI has empowered disadvantaged groups to use Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) as tools to exercise their full capacities as citizens and tackle the issues that affect their communities. CDI Community Centers are technology and learning centers in impoverished communities. Each CDI Community Center is a partnership with an existing leading grassroots organization. The community based organizations provide the infrastructure and CDI provides free computers and software, implements educational methods, trains instructors and monitors the schools.” (Ashoka)

THE RELEVANCE

“The Committee for Democracy in Information Technology, founded by Baggio, was chosen as one of the world’s top three Principal Voices in the field of Economic Development. (Ashoka Fellow)

THE SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR

“The Brazilian social entrepreneur, 40, has worked tirelessly to overcome what he calls “digital apartheid”, explaining that “79 per cent of the population of our planet is excluded from accessing technical development.” (Digg)

THE RESULTS

CDI website – Brazil CDI global website

Source of picture: GenPolicy

What is a social entrepreneur ?

Homecoming at CSDR

caseykins — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 23:58:35 +0000

alifornia School for the Deaf, Riverside was all aflutter with activity. The football field was blindingly lit. Clumps of parents stood around in awful flourescent yellow vests proclaiming “Event Staff” in black letters. A long line of cars waited patiently to pull into the parking lot. I parked by a tree and made my way to the football field in time to see the kickoff, winding my way through a busy avenue of red easy-ups selling food, Riverside t-shirts, and phone services. Kids ran here and there throughout the vast crowd, a sea of sporadic red. Some of them had paws or “go cubs” drawn on their faces in red lipstick as they ran. I took my place awkwardly at the back of the crowd, trying to find a spot where I wouldn’t be in the way, but could still see the football game. As I watched the crowd around me, the cheerleaders trying to excite the crowd and the game happeining on the field, it struck me just how similar and different this event was from the events I had been to at my mainstream high school.

A festival atmosphere surrounded the crowd. It was impossible not to notice how excited everyone was to be there. As I joined them, I couldn’t help but notice how quiet the crowd was in comparison to a hearing crowd of the same size. There was very little talking going on, with everyone signing excitedly to their neighbor. Hearing children would run by me, chattering to their friends as they went, and students stood talking quietly in little groups. People were constantly walking by me on their way for another drink or a funnel cake, and they would inevitably be stopped by someone who was thrilled to see them. It seemed to me as if the whole crowd knew each other.

There was a cheer squad standing on the sidelines in red outfits. They stood in lines, high school aged girls in red and white cheer uniforms and little elementary aged girls in white t-shirts with red pleated skirts. They did several routines clumped together on the sidelines, staying together as well as if there were invisible music playing. At half time when they spread apart onto the field, they weren’t as united as when they had been clumped together, but they were still very good. As the night wore on, the littler girls joined the crowd and the cheerleaders started throwing things into the audience. Suddenly, people were waving their arms and cheering at the girls, just to get a little football thrown their way. It was the first time all night that the crowd seemed interested in what was happeining on the field. The cheerleaders were great, but somehow they didn’t seem to hold my interest like they normally do at a game.

On my way back from the snack booth at half time, I ran into Red from my Deaf Culture class and I realized that she was standing with a whole group of people who I also knew. I joined them, chatted a lot, and tried to keep one eye on the game. For some reason, I had such a hard time paying attention to anything going on out there. Every once in a while I would look up and realize that the score was different, but there had been no fanfare to tell me that things had changed, no collective cheer or groan from the audience about another touchdown being scored.

Overall my experience was great, if a little unusual. It took me a long time to find people I knew in the crowd, and I spent most of my time feeling outside of things. At the same time, people tapping my shoulder to ask me to move or signing “excuse me”, and being otherwise treated politely like a true member of Deaf Culture, made me feel like I belonged. While things were remarkably similar to the Homecoming activities I remembered from my own days in high schoo, the lack of noise and the lack of attention payed to the game really marked this event as different. I think that if I knew more people there I would have loved going to Homecoming. As it was I had a very good time and would certainly go again.

Problemi con la tastiera del iMac in Parallels

venny11 — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 22:45:44 +0000

Mentre aspetto il lettore del MB mi godo kubuntu in virtualizzazione, grazie alla versione di prova di Parallels 5.
In virtualizzazione si riscontrano alcuni problemi che altrimenti non ci sarebbero, come ad esempio la mappatura sbagliata della tastiera italiana del iMac: la punteggiatura non corrisponde e la lettera M è spostata sulla fine della riga superiore, alquanto fastidioso.
Per risolvere il problema, apriamo le impostazioni di sistema, sotto lingua e paese>mappatura della tastiera, selezioniamo l’italiano, e alla voce modello della tastiera scegliamo dal menù a tendina Logitech tastiera generica.

Privledged

collegelifeplanning — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:09:31 +0000

In living in a country like America, we have unique opportunities that many other countries simply do not offer their people. Here, rich or poor, you can affect your destiny; you can change your circumstances! This is the profound reality of going to college or trade school. All I want to do is create opportunities for people, young and old, to live in their purpose and calling. Do what you love to do. The days of working in a job you hate for 25 years are over- the new dawn has come.

Read this article and ask yourself, what could you do with your life? How much more can you be in the world?

================================================

Two years ago, I took a trip to India over summer break. I expected to experience new adventures and see famous sights. What I didn’t expect was to live in an underprivileged neighborhood in Southern India.

Nothing could prepare me to see how these people lived.

The people there lived in abject poverty. The homes were made of garbage, plastic and sticks. Every meal was filled with bugs and consisted of a handful of rice. There were no beds; we slept on the ant-infested floor. The children were uneducated and dirty. They bathed in a polluted lake nearby. The kids got up early and worked on chores all day. I didn’t know how these kids could possibly live knowing that their futures were right here in the same village.

One night, I saw all the kids going to an open field. I decided to tag along. The kids had been given a treasure some months ago from a visiting pastor, and it became their prized possession: a soccer ball.

Every night, they came together to forget about their problems and play. They were laughing, smiling and cheering. Gone were the weary, sad faces; they were in their own world now. Nothing in the world mattered except this game. It wasn’t about winning or losing; it was about getting away from the problems of poverty for an hour and being with a treasure that made them all feel rich.

As the slowly came to an end, the kids trudged back to their homes with smiles, prepared to go back to reality, but knowing that their treasure was waiting for them for the next night.

Becca Mathew, 16, is a student at Stevenson High School in Chicago. Becca won $100 for this article.

===================================================

You too can win money for your talents! Let me show you how!

Siege of Mirkwood: Lone Lands Revisited

Branadoc — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:45:27 +0000

In the upcoming Lord of the Rings Online expansion – Siege of Mirkwood – Turbine is revisiting the Lone Lands and giving the area some much needed love. Developer Orion talked about the upcoming changes to this zone in his most recent Developer Diary, and I am going to give you all my views today.

The Lone Lands have always been a sort of ‘Red Headed Step Child’ in the game, there exist some serious disconnects between Epic Quest lines here, and the area itself had some amazingly crazy difficulty jumps (Being sent amongst a bunch of elites in a Group Quest area to complete a Single Player quest for example). Some great questing moments have happened here though, I am willing to bet that any LotRO player will be able to tell you memories of their first time Retaking Weathertop, or their first venture over the Last Bridge that crosses between the last of the ‘Settled Lands’ and the ‘Wilds’ of the Trollshaws (If you remember The Hobbit you will certainly remember the bridge).

The Last Bridge

The Siege of Mirkwood update will be changing the difficulty of getting into the Epic Quest parts in the Lone Lands and will introduce a new faction to facilitate this:

With the release of Siege of Mirkwood, all players following the Epic storyline will find that Gandalf now sends them to Saeradan to enlist the aid of the Rangers, to assist with finding another of Gandalf’s order. After making their way to Saeradan, players will find that he will now offer them a free ride to Candaith’s camp in the shadow of Weathertop. Be careful and watch out for any folk in need of assistance on the ride to Candaith! Once at his camp, players follow Candaith’s tale through the battle at the peak of Weathertop and learn of a new faction within the Lone-lands, the Eglain. (This is discussed further in the diary.)

Weathertop will also be receiving a make-over – players will now have the option of playing it as a Solo character, or playing it as a Group [the original method]:

To ensure that we continue forward with the same practices that we attempted to utilize in the Bree-land revamp, there will now be two versions of Weathertop. There is the group version, which remains unchanged, and a new solo version that will enable players to assail the great hill alone against the forces of the White Hand.

This is a pretty good idea in my eyes – it means that more people will be able to experience the great story line in that quest, though part of me is sad that so many quests are going in this direction. While forced grouping isn’t really my thing, some of my best memories come from working through a challenging area with a good Fellowship at my back.

As I mentioned above, and quoted, there is a new faction that will come into play in the Lone Lands – the Eglain. People who have already done quests there know who these people are, they are the broody folks in Ost Guruth who don’t have much trust for outsiders. In Mirkwood, these folks will be added to the Reputation system – anyone who has completed quests in the past for them will retro-actively receive reputation points for those quests, and there will be new quests added for more reputation. At different levels of reputation you will be able to get some nifty gear, including a set of jewlery. Gaining reputation up to Friendly should be as easy as just doing the quests in the area, and more can be obtained by purchasable profession quests.

Garth Agarwen (GA to most) will also be receiving a face lift – which is great because finding folks willing to take the time to run that area could eat up entire play sessions alone. GA has always been a thorn in the Lone Lands experience, the difficulty of dealing with all Elite mobs is just a bit much for many people – especially with how long that particular quest chain is. More on the changes to GA in a following post (as the changes tie in to another update coming with the expansion).

Many more changes to the region will be included in the expansion, most of them I see as being awesome. One of those little nice changes is the reduction of the Goblin Elite mobs to solo-able signature goblins in the central Lone Lands area, the annoying spiders in that area have received the same face lift thankfully (that could be one tough couple of levels dealing with those quests).

Overall the upcoming changes to the Lone Lands are something I am looking forward to experiencing – LL could be a frustrating place to do quests if you were not high enough to move on to the next area yet. North Downs will be receiving a similar update in a future expansion, so the lower levels will become much more easily manageable as time goes on. Orion puts it very well at the end of the developer diary:

The Lone-lands has undergone a massive overhaul and should prove to be a good option for players looking to level from 22-32. In our next update, we plan to continue the revamp effort focusing on the second of the level 22-32 areas in the North Downs. This revamp will target areas from Trestlebridge to the Fields of Fornost, then east toward Kingsfell stopping short of Esteldín, Orthrikar and Meluinen.

Read the entire Developer Diary discussed in this post here.

Stay tuned for a post on the GA changes, and what changes to the game as a whole are related to those updates!

~Branadoc

Technorati Tags: developer diary,gaming,Lord of the Rings Online,LotRO,mmo,News,siege of mirkwood,skills,Updates,Lone Lands,Garth Agarwen,Epic Quests

Cómo un MBA puede impulsar una carrera

landingmba — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:40:03 +0000
Cómo un MBA puede impulsar una carrera Mantener a los empleados motivados es una lucha constante al

Writing in PR

prprospering — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:33:13 +0000

Effective and creative writing in PR is necessary. Being able to write will get you far and bring you success in the industry. There is a range of materials and work that Public Relations Practitioners might be asked to develop for their organization. Some of these include:

Mission Statements

Communication Plans

Press Releases

Articles

Brochures

Newsletters

Special Event Letters

And the list goes on. So in order to be recognized as a notable PR practitioner make writing a priority. To get better at writing you should (as one of my instructors would always say), “practice and practice writing anything, whenever you can” … ” this is one of the best ways to improve your writing skills.”

More Siege of Mirkwood update information – Lord of the Rings Online (Part 2 of 2)

Branadoc — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:30:20 +0000

I am continuing my 2 part article on the updates coming with the next Lord of the Rings Online update: Siege of Mirkwood. I was originally hoping to have everything covered in 2 articles, but since posting my last one Turbine has come up with even more Dev diaries! There is a ton of information out there, and I will cover as much as I can.

In my part one of this article, I talked about the changes to Character statistics and the Character panel. In this part I will be talking about forthcoming Skill Updates/Additions for the new level range. I will also peek on some legendary item changes, but will leave further debate to those more experienced with the system.

Skill Additions/Upgrades coming in Siege of Mirkwood:

While most large updates have brought some sweeping skill changes to the playing field, Siege of Mirkwood will only feature very few changes. Turbine instead used the development time/man power to make sure the core changes they are working on will be as annoyance free as possible. While most people may find this disappointing (and some have pointed it to it as a sign that Mirkwood isn’t really an expansion, but just a paid for content patch), I think that this may end up being a good thing.

The overall combat system changes should go more than far enough to bring some new feeling to the game without the addition of a whole new set of skills for each class. I prefer it when developers refine things rather than just adding more ‘shinies’ onto the current system. That said, each class will be receiving a skill upgrade or new skill at level 62.

Here are the upgrades/new skills broken down by class:

Burglar

Burglar’s Antidote replaces Cure Poison
This is a long awaited upgrade to the Burglar’s Cure Poison skill. It is upgraded in almost every way, including level of effect dispelled, range, and induction time.

Captain

Fighting Withdrawal replaces Withdrawal
This upgrade removes the damage penalty, increases the amount of threat reduction, and minimizes the threat gained through damage by the Captain while in effect.

Champion

Remorseless Strike replaces Relentless Strike
This skill is identical to Relentless Strike in all aspects except that it has much increased critical and devastating critical damage multipliers.

Guardian

Brutal Charge replaces Charge
This upgrades Charge to have the same effect as the Champion’s Sprint. Brutal Charge overwrites most snares while it is in effect. There is also a short term damage buff when Brutal Charge is first activated.

Hunter

Guide to Mirk-eaves – new skill
This skill is available from Estellien, a reputation reward vendor in Echad Sirion. It requires acquaintance faction with the Malledhrim, the Elven expedition launched across the Anduin against Dol Goldur. This skill functions like other Hunter guide skills to port the Hunter and his Fellowship to Echad Sirion.

Lore-master

Ancient Knowledge of Cures replaces Leech-craft
This skill uses all the restrictions and upgrades for Leech-craft but combines Wound cures and resistance with Disease cures and resistance.

Minstrel

Chorus of Restoration replaces Song of Restoration
This skill now removes Dread from all members of the Minstrel’s Fellowship (including the Minstrel!).

Rune-keeper

Shall Not Fall This Day replaces Do Not Fall This Day
This skill adds a small amount of Melee, Ranged, and Tactical Defense to the target in addition to the self-revive ability. In addition, if the target is defeated while this skill is in effect there will be no item wear due to the defeat.

Warden

Muster in Mirk-eaves – new skill
This skill is available from Estellien, a reputation reward vendor in Echad Sirion. It requires acquaintance faction with the Malledhrim, the elven expedition launched across the Anduin against Dol Guldur. This skill functions like other Warden muster skills to port the Warden to Echad Sirion.

As you can see, only Hunters and Wardens get new skills – and they are carbon copies of each other. While I appreciate the reason of the minimal skill updates (see above), I am disappointed that the Hunters update is yet another port. I have so many ports right now that they take up a full action bar by themselves just about – not to mention carrying around a lot of Traveling Rations as consumables. The upside is that skills can now be used from the newly updated menu system that will be coming with Mirkwood – but still, another port? And Wardens getting the same thing? Color me disappointed a little bit.

Read the whole dev diary entry for Skill Upgrades here.

Legendary Item Changes: Legacy Pools

Another change coming with Siege of Mirkwood is regarding Legendary Item System legacies. As talked about in the Legendary Item Update Developer Diary, legacies will be separated into 2 pools for each class.

Pool A legacies will be the most common and are to be the most desired/all purpose legacies. These legacies appear during initial Legendary Item Identification and have a small chance of appearing during reforge at LI levels 10, 20, and 30.

Pool B legacies are labeled as more ‘situational’ and will only appear during reforging at LI levels 10, 20, and 30.

To view a comprehensive list of changes / pool contents, take a look at the Legacy Pool Distribution Developer Diary.

I know I will like the update, even with the things that worry me or disappoint me. Turbine has been doing a great job with this game and I see it lasting for many many more years to come. Just as I see even more dev diaries coming down the line that will tease me and make me want to post on them!

Stay tuned to Sneaky Hobbits blog for more Developer Diary updates and information as the release of Siege of Mirkwood gets closer. I will also put up the Patch Notes as soon as they are available.

Siege of Mirkwood is due to release on December 1st, 2009.

~Branadoc

Should government spend so much money to push people into higher education?

Wintery Knight — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:00:51 +0000

Both fiscal conservatives and social conservatives agree: government spending on higher education should be cut.

Fiscal conservatives oppose government spending on higher education

Consider this podcast from the libertarian Cato Institute.

Here is the MP3 file. (7 minutes)

It’s an interview with Dr. Neal MCluskey.

Topics:

does higher education necessarily deliver skills that employers want?

do most degrees really benefit employers?

should government subsidize higher education?

About the guest:

Neal McCluskey is the associate director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom. Prior to arriving at Cato, McCluskey served in the U.S. Army, taught high school English, and was a freelance reporter covering municipal government and education in suburban New Jersey. More recently, he was a policy analyst at the Center for Education Reform. McCluskey is the author of the book Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education, and his writings have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun, and Forbes. In addition to his written work, McCluskey has appeared on C-SPAN, CNN, the Fox News Channel, and numerous radio programs. McCluskey holds a master’s degree in political science from Rutgers University.

I think people should face the costs of the university education themselves. Then they would choose areas where they could make enough money to live and pay back their loans.

Social conservatives oppose government spending on higher education

My wonderful friend Andrew sent me this notice about an upcoming Family Research Council lecture.

Allan Carlson to Speak on Student Loans at Family Research Council

World Congress of Families founder and International Secretary Allan C. Carlson will deliver a Witherspoon Lecture at the Family Research Council on December 4 at 11:00 am, on “The Crushing Burden of Student Loans on Family Formation For Generation X.”

Studies have shown that significant numbers of graduates who are burdened with college loans are less likely to marry and have children – with negative consequences for society. Thus, there is a need to re-think the entire program.

[...]Allan Carlson has a Ph.D. in Modern European History. He is the author of many books, including “Conjugal America: On the Public Purposes of Marriage” and “The Natural Family: A Manifesto,” with Paul Mero. Click here to order his books.

Click here to download the flier.

Isn’t it amazing that fiscal conservatives agree with social conservatives? Actually, they should agree on many more things, in my opinion. It’s a bad idea for government to redistribute taxpayer money to schools, because the teacher unions just turn around and use it to influence politics, which cannot be good for giving children a quality education. Teacher unions are bad for fiscal and social conservatives – we really need to unite and make sure that they are de-funded, and de-fanged.

A funny story about libertarians

And I have to tell you a funny story. One of the quirky things about me that everyone knows is that I am able to get into the most deep and controversial conversations within a few seconds of meeting someone. For example, in the time it takes to get a blood test, I was talking to the nurse about lethal injections, capital punishment and different goals of the criminal justice system. Well, I managed to beat my score on Monday.

I was passing by a security guard to show him my badge and I noticed a book on his desk. As soon as he turned his back I leaned over the desk and read the back cover. It was a book by Lew Rockwell. So I asked him about it, and then we started talking about how libertarians ought to support social conservatism in order to keep government from having to deal with the fallout from broken homes and crime. I was just about to start talking about John Lott’s study on the link between abortion and increased crime, but there was a line-up by then, so I moved along.

So that’s what my life is like – the joy of a comprehensive Christian worldview means that you are never at a loss for something interesting to talk about. And there is a lot of reading people – knowing who you can talk to and when you’ve gone too far. Practice, practice, practice.

Time Management Skills Build Your KASH Box for sustainable change

harry5599 — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:44:16 +0000
Is your inability to manage time Empty financially, mentally, physically and emotionally? Perhaps th

KRS-One & Buckshot - Survival Skills Music Video

forbus — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:37:52 +0000
“To defeat him, put 4 coherent bars together” ROFL

Why Your Product Demo May Be Worthless

elliotross — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:13:32 +0000

For B2B vendors that are in the business of selling software, One common method of driving customers to your product is providing a time limited, demonstration version of that product.

This can be a great way to let prospects try before they buy. When done correctly and simply, It can give prospective customers a real world look at the basic features and functionality of your product.

While there is nothing wrong with providing demonstration versions of your software;

If you don’t do it right, don’t bother!

A story of the the demo that can only be used by experts.

I have been looking for a particular software tool for my organization. The market and vendors in this tools competitive space has hundreds of products, so it is not as if there is zero competition. In my research I found one vendor that had a product that looked to have the features I was looking for, and it also had a demonstration version of the product. My first thought was great!

I downloaded that demo and then looked on their web site for installation instructions. None.

I extracted the downloaded package and searched it all for installation instructions. None.

I called their sales team for instructions. None.

Let me give a little bit of background, this tool is not a stand-alone product that you double click the SETUP file and follow the bouncing ball until it tells you to click FINISH.

This software is a departmental tool that can be configured to use a few different Web Server products for the front end portions that people interact with, plus several different database products for the back end data storage. The installation and configuration of this type of software gets a little more complex as you have to get the pre-requisite components (web server and database server) properly configured and set up first.

What happens?

I start the application installation, then get some cryptic error message that kills it dead.

Now, unlike my my previous rant about graphics and tutorials, at least software and servers are in my skill level!

So I have been able to overcome the errors and blow ups one by one to determine what is happening after the installation dies! I fix that one piece, try again, it dies again, I track down that reason, try again….

You get the idea. frustration. Hours of time wasted and I am not even at the stage where I can actually evaluate the product!

Would everybody keep doing this trial and error install? For a demo version of software? Probably not!

Who is the audience of your demo?

If the target market of your demo software is senior marketing, sales, or operations staff. Would they be able to try it on their own? Do they even have an IT team available for the hours of what I went through?

Or will this type of frustration have them just saying forget it?

The three choices; easy, difficult, and the hard way

The easy way to provide a software demo is to ensure that it is entirely self contained, no external dependencies at all. Everything your software needs is installed automatically.

A little more difficult is acknowledging the dependencies mentioned above, but at the minimum having explicit warnings and instructions on what is required, and what will be expected.

The hard way is the trial and error that I have been going through.

If you are planning your demonstration software the hard way – you probably have killed any benefit of your demo!

You can get updates to this blog by clicking the RSS icon on the Home Page!

Photo Credit Doug Becker via flickr

First reflections from Vision not Division: Responsive education (that’s appropriate to the individual) Dan Sutch @ Futurelab

blogukyouth — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:53:32 +0000
Dan Sutch, Futurelab Futurelab’s Blog Ploughing through copious notes from the Vision not Divi

7 questions on "Testing vs. Checking"

Albert Gareev — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:28:22 +0000

While I was enjoying reading the series of articles and discussions around the subject, some points of concern questions were crystallizing in my mind, and now I feel ready to join the discussion by asking them.

Part I – Overview

What’s it about?

In the nutshell (in my humble opinion), a dire need in terms separation was inspired by highly analytical nature of authors on the one side, and a serious misunderstanding of the subject (Software Testing) by business (and I mean Sr. Management and all kinds of recruiters here) on the other side.

Long time ago

Historically testing derived from debugging. Since programs that times didn’t have much of “User Interface”, testing was closely involving looking at the source code and tracing it. Once program functionalities were wrapped around with user interface, functional testing (“Black Box”) arose. With years, bad coding practices were identified, good coding practices were proven, and code testing (“White Box”) separated from debugging. In the mean time, functional testing was growing mature on its own, no longer requiring programming knowledge and skills, but indistinctly separating to functionality-oriented testing and defect-oriented testing.

Added 11/25/2009

“With years, bad coding practices were identified, good coding practices were proven”

Coding, i.e. creation of program code, could be done in a variety of ways, utilizing different logic and following different patterns.

Programming language (compiler or interpreter) looks after syntax but not the logic. Some logics may seem to be working but not for the all user scenarios. Some other logics work perfectly but they are hardly maintainable or they may impact other areas, security, for example.

Creation of code that is defect-prone, hardly maintainable, or may impose other issues is a bad coding practice.
Following coding standards and using right programming patterns is good coding practice.

Please refer to “Making Wrong Code Look Wrong” article by Joel Spolsky for detailed examples.

Added 11/25/2009

“indistinctly separating to functionality-oriented testing and defect-oriented testing”

Functionality-oriented testing is not a new definition or type of testing but is about verification and validation testing types, like User Acceptance Testing and Business Acceptance Testing processes used in Waterfall software development model.

On the other hand, User Story Testing in Agile methodology, is also a process of verification of implemented functionalities, allowing to confirm that it works as expected.

Defect-oriented testing is an exploratory process targeting any unwanted (defective, inconsistent, unsafe, etc.) functionalities, side effects, any other behavior of an application. That involves “improper” interaction with the application-under-test (Negative Testing, Stress Testing, etc.), or putting the application-under-test into “improper” conditions (Disk Failure, Low Memory, Network Timeout, etc.), or “hacking” the application (Security Testing, DB Attacks, etc.).
“Improper” is quoted because it’s not a regular interaction way or environment state but most likely may accidentally happen or be created on purpose with harmful intensions and thus have to be tried.

New branches on a tree

Certain types of tests were impossible to conduct purely manually sapiently, and they were called “non-functional” (load/performance testing, security testing, etc.). However, those tests are generally conducted NOT on development team’s side.
Certain testing activities (i.e. GUI and non-GUI interaction, data entry, verification, reporting, etc.) became possible to conduct with help of other programs, and this is how computer-aided testing appeared. In turn, it could be separated to manual sapient testing with help of a tool, and automatic test case execution by a tool.
Certain managers found out that when requirements are clearly documented, and the all possible “needed” test cases are created, test execution tasks do not require much of tough testing skills. Testing becomes simple data entry task which can be done by virtually anyone.

Automation of “Black Box” testing activities

Creation of automatically executable test cases requires programming skills; the more comprehensive tests are, the more powerful test automation framework should be, and the more skilled and experienced developer is required to create the framework. Note that it is still about testing activities automation with test results as an output, and the final judgment is still on human. Anyway, here’s how we got automated testers (obviously, oxymoron, but look how many positions are named so), and automation developers (ironically, hands-on testing skills very often are not considered mandatory, while they should be critical in automation skillset).

Automation of “White Box” testing activities

Apart from code reviews conducted by a human being, isolated pieces of code (functions, procedures) could be verified by calling and executing them. The core idea here that for a call with particular arguments a function is expected to return specified value. If the value is wrong then the test is failed. This is how automatic unit testing appeared. Once test rules were created (either manually by programmer or by using code-generator), tests could be run by a person without programming skills. Note that even if “right” result was returned by a function-under-test, it does not 100% guarantee that the functionality is always correct, or even the function will work the same way in production environment.

“Data entry testing”

Degradation of testing to data entry opens wide saving opportunities for business. Surprisingly, some managers also find it beneficial because they get more [junior] people to manage. All kinds of outsourcing perfectly fit here too, from summer students to off-shore companies. However, down this road company will face two types of critical issues. First of all, “data entry testing” is purely verification-oriented; except of trivial ones, defects won’t be revealed. Second, as automatic test execution requires final human judgment, “data entry testers” are incapable of qualified analysis and investigation of defects they may encounter. Outsourced teams require heavy coaching and support. As a result, either somebody has to do re-testing, or software product’s quality degrades.

Why separate?

From a hiring perspective, job requirements for QA/testing positions are total mess. Irrelevant subjects are often thrown in, and mandatory skills are overlooked. Separation and, more importantly, clear description of the each role in testing world might help in getting higher quality candidates. That in turn will benefit teams with higher quality resources, and companies – with higher quality of testing.
Clear distinction will benefit professionals too. At the end, 10 years of “data entry testing” are not nearly equal to 1 year of sapient testing, and such experiences must be treated differently.

Conclusion

I strongly support the initiative of distinction and clarification. However, looking on how it evolves so far I see that it becomes unclear itself. Certain subjects and concepts that are distinct by nature are now mixed up.

I hope my questions will be considered by authors. (I don’t put any obligation to reply, of course).

Part II – Questions

1. Code Testing vs. Product Testing – why mixing up?

Any program code becomes a software product after the build. Before that happens, code modules and atomic functions also can be (and should be) tested. This phase of testing does not substitute Functional Testing in any manner. Code testing is not meant to be only function checks. Primarily, it is code review, which is purely sapient activity.
The original article, however, fully disregards the sapient part of code testing, and also sets code testing as opposite to functional testing. Why?

Added 11/25/2009

Testing vs. Checking, “Testing Is Not Quality Assurance, But Checking Might Be”

“Checking, when done by a programmer, is mostly a quality assurance practice. When an programmer writes code, he checks his work. He might do this by running it directly and observing the results, or observing the behaviour of the code under the debugger, but often he writes a set of routines that exercise the code and perform some assertions on it. We call these unit “tests”, but they’re really checks, since the idea is to confirm existing knowledge. In this context, finding new information would be considered a surprise, and typically an unpleasant one. A failing check prompts the programmer to change the code to make it work the way he expects. That’s the quality assurance angle: a programmer helps to assure the quality of his work by checking it.”

The whole chapter and the quoted block put label “checking” on programmer’s part of testing – the code testing. Since “checking” is posed as non-sapient, and code testing is checking only, does it mean programmers don’t do any sapient testing as opposite to software testers?

In fact, when a programmer writes code, he reviews every created block. Before code is checked-in to the code base it has to be reviewed.

In the article I see “compliant” examples were elaborated (e.g. Automated Unit Testing) but “non-compliant” (what about Pair Programming ?) were omitted.

2. Why checking is a confirmation?

As per suggested definition, checking is rule-based, while the rule itself is comparison-based. It is also assumed that the comparison rule returns either “TRUE” or “FALSE”. But that’s not the end! Any verification (or checking) also needs to be validated. Validation is a context-specific rule, outside-of-the-box rule, which is applied with sapience.
Example: “Check if the door is open”. Both TRUE and FALSE could be VALID, depending on the context. Without validation, checking results are useless.

3. Why testing must be done only through exploration and investigation?

“A person who does nothing but to compare a program against some reference is a checker, not a tester.”

A Tester may not know how a transaction is expected to be calculated but Business Analyst does. Does asking BA for the information versus manually investigating the App mean the Tester is not a Tester anymore but only a Checker?
If a Tester knows an application very well, and can predict an expected result, could he/she test those functionalities without becoming a Checker?

4. If testing is about asking questions, isn’t checking about answering them?

Any defect report contains in its core reproduction steps, actual result, expected result, and the comparison rule.

Any sapient investigation, broken down to atomic steps, involves obtaining actual results, defining or retrieving expected results, defining or retrieving a comparison rule, applying the rule, and finally validating the check performed, based on the context.

5. Testing programs do not create new rules. Testers do. Why didn’t you clearly state that?

Added 11/25/2009

Regular computer programs may strictly follow the predefined rules, may come up with one of the predefined rules, even may build-up a new statement from the predefined blocks, but they do not learn and do not create.

The whole idea of “Testing vs. Checking” is in “Testing is a sapient activity”. Large part of the article is dedicated to proving of that with examples and logical chains. Did it have to be so complicated?

Testing programs do not create new checking rules. Testers do.

What could be more sapient than the act of creation of something new?

6. What is the value of testing if it doesn’t help improving the quality?

“Testing Is Not Quality Assurance, But Checking Might Be” is stated in another paragraph. As the purpose of sapient testing is concern, not confirmation, why the ultimate goal of testing is not assurance (at least – improvement) of software quality?

Added 11/25/2009



If a tester finds a lot of defects and throws reports via email or into ticketing system is it the end of tester’s job? Developers may reject them [defect reports]; sales people may urge with the release; PM may not realize severity of issues…



Bug fixing improves the quality. Bug finding without hunting them down until they’re fixed has zero business value. That’s useless (no profit, no saving and minus tester’s paycheck) gathering of information.

Testers should not and don’t have to be able forcing bug fixing through management or business power. They have other means to do it. Communication, first of all.

Not having power is not an excuse. It’s just stepping back from quality.

I don’t know what business would hire people interested in “gathering of information” only, and careless about product’s quality.

7. “Checkers Require Specifications; Testers Do Not “. Would you look at this statement as exactly opposite?

Checkers require execution steps. They don’t care about specification. If clear and detailed specification is presented, but not covered with execution steps, checkers won’t bother.

Testers need specification so much, that if it’s not presented or unclear they will make it up and clarify, through communication, from documentation, and they will practically prove it on the product. (“There are ALWAYS requirements“, by Joe Strazzere)

Added 11/26/2009



There is an old good game of playing semantics. It allows disputing everything, and simply ignoring any argument.

Here I can’t help but put links to online dictionaries to give an idea why “specification” and “requirements” can be used interchangeably, and why “execution steps” are not the same as “specification”.

References

1. Testing vs. Checking
2. Transpection and the Three Elements of Checking
3. Pass vs. Fail vs. Is There a Problem Here?

4. Sapience and Blowing Peoples’ Minds
5. Elements of Testing and Checking
6. Testing, Checking, and Changing the Language
7. Tests vs. Checks: The Motive for Distinguishing

8. “Merely” Checking or “Merely” Testing

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References