Perhaps They Should Have Tested More - Jaguar

Meow?

Jaguar is recalling certain X-Type cars, due to a software glitch affecting the cruise control system.

• 17,678 cars recalled due to a software glitch
• affects cars made between 2006 and 2010
• error with certain interfacing systems copyrightjoestrazzere
• cruise control cannot be disengaged in a normal manner
• must turn off the ignition to disengage the cruise control function

What's that up there?  Is that a police car?  Yup, better disengage the cruise control and slow down a bit. Doesn't seem to be working!  Hmm...

Perhaps they should have tested more.

See also:

http://www.pcmag.com/article/print/289544

http://www.itproportal.com/2011/10/25/software-glitch-forces-jaguar-recall-17500-cars/

http://www.information-age.com/channels/business-applications/news/1663983/jaguar-recalls-17500-cars-due-to-software-glitch.thtml

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/10/jaguar-recalls-over-17600-x-type-cars-due-to-software-glitch/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15410253

http://www.addpr.com/articles/business/93780.html

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

Newest People In Testing - Jeff Nyman

Jeff Nyman is a People in Testing

I'm happy to include Jeff Nyman on my People in Testing page, and to include his "Stories from a Software Tester" blog as part of my What People Are Writing aggregation.

I recently re-discovered Jeff's new site.  Jeff was a terrific contributor over at SQAForums.com a long time ago, and seeing his site made me remember how much I enjoyed his writing. He's clearly a smart guy, knows testing really well, and seems to have a lot of teacher/mentor in him. copyrightjoestrazzere

Reading "Stories from a Software Tester" is like reading pages from a well-written book on testing.  Perhaps that's what he has in mind?

Check it out for yourself and let me know if you agree.

And if you know any other people who have a blog and should be included here, send me a note!

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

I'm Bill Belichick?

I prioritize substance and preparation over style and glibness.  Plus, I like wearing hoodies.

Since it's the bye week for the New England Patriots, local writers are scrambling for material to fill the sports pages. The Boston Globe's Boston.com website posted a little quiz today (http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/extras/which_patriot_are_you/).

You answer 10 multiple-choice questions like "What's your favorite way to express yourself? a. Facebook b. Twitter c. Dress/Physical appearance d. I let my actions speak for themselves". copyrightjoestrazzere

Then the answers are tallied, and the "member of the New England Patriots you are on the same wavelength with" is revealed.

Apparently, I'm most similar to Bill Belichick. Go figure! Now, where is my whistle, anyway?

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

Are You A Lark?

A lark. (Not actually me)

I am a morning person. I like getting up reasonably early, and find that I am most productive before noon. According to "Brain Rules" by John Medina, this apparently makes me a "lark".

In general larks report being most alert around noon and feel most productive at work a few hours before they eat lunch.  They don't need an alarm clock, because they invariably get up before the alarm rings - often before 6 a.m. Larks cheerfully report their favorite mealtime as breakfast and generally consume less coffee than non-larks. Getting increasingly drowsy in the early evening, most larks go to bed (or want to go to bed) around 9 p.m.

In recent years, my morning tasks look pretty much the same during the work week. I find that I can get a lot done before the flood of meetings and other tasks begin each day.

My morning workday routine looks like this:

• Wake by about 5 a.m. without the benefit of an alarm clock
• Shower, shave, and get dressed
• Make coffee for myself and my wife
• Make my lunch
• Have breakfast (sometimes) and drink coffee while watching the local television news
• Leave for work around 6 a.m.
• Drive to work copyrightjoestrazzere
• Turn on the lights, since I'm usually the first one in
• Arrive at my desk about 6:30 a.m.
• Read and respond to overnight emails, cleaning out my inbox
• Read bug reports that have been filed or updated since the previous day
• Check on the status of monitors and logs for some key Production and QA systems
• Check the results of any overnight test automation
• A quick chat with the India QA team as needed
• Review the schedule of meetings planned for the remainder of the day
• Plan the day and reserve blocks of time in my Outlook calendar as needed
• Address anything that needs my immediate attention
• Have another cup of coffee around 9 a.m.
• Deal with any corporate administrivia needing my attention
• Get on with the rest of the day

This works out really well for me. It makes me feel good to get these things out of the way early, and have a good, quick start to my lark day.

How about you - are you a lark, too? What does your morning routine look like?

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

Vegetable Garden Results 2011

Cucumbers - yum!

Over the (unseasonably warm) weekend, I harvested the last of my cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and herbs from my vegetable garden, and cleaned up the beds.

This year I had narrowed down the varieties of plantings, and was a bit more careful with their location. I was striving to produce veggies that really made a big difference when grow fresh, rather than those that were almost as good when purchased in a supermarket.

Just like last year, some of the plantings worked out really well - others, not so well. But the specifics were almost completely different from last year. Once again, all of the herbs flourished. But this year, the cucumbers were the big winner - both regular and pickling varieties were bountiful and delicious. And this year, in spite of my high hopes, the peppers yielded almost exactly nothing. A huge disappointment - I was really looking forward to a nice selection of hot peppers. copyrightjoestrazzere

Still, the garden was fun again and looked nice in the back yard.

That's it for this fall - we'll try again next Spring!

Successes

• Cucumbers
• Pickling Cucumbers
• Curled Parsley
• Basil
• Rosemary
• Lavender
• Cherry Tomatoes

Mixed Results

• Zucchini
• Big Boy Tomatoes

Utter, Pathetic, Dismal Failures

• Several varieties of hot peppers

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

Business Casual Confusion

That's me on the bottom-left, but not on Fridays.

Ok, I get that companies like to have dress codes. My company has a "business casual" dress code. Except...

• We have "Casual Fridays" where folks can wear sneakers and jeans. copyrightjoestrazzere
• For one week per year we have "Dress Down for Charity" where you can buy the privilege of wearing sneakers and jeans in return for a donation to charity.

So it's important to have this dress code, but it's not important on Friday, nor when you cough up a few bucks?

Sometimes I just don't understand the thinking behind these things.

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

My Free Status Report Template

My Status Report

When reporting status to my boss, we have worked out a format that works well for both of us. It conveys an entire year's worth of information, yet lets us focus on just the past few weeks as we discuss it in our weekly one-on-one meeting. I can also print just the currently-relevant portion easily, and bring it with me.

This excel-based report shows all the projects currently in process, along with projects that have recently been completed. The Status column is green if the project is doing well, yellow if it is in danger, and red if it has already gone beyond the expected completion date. This column also shows the initials of the currently assigned tester(s). copyrightjoestrazzere

The Dates column typically shows the expected release date for the project. Sometimes the next milestone date is used instead.

The Comments column is where I put important information about the then-current state of the project. If something significant has changed in the past week, it is bolded.

Each week, I hide the oldest visible Status-Date-Comments columns (note how columns B,C,D are hidden) and insert a new group to the right. Then I update the status of each project row.

If a project has been released to Production, I move it into the "Completed Projects" group. After two weeks, that row will be hidden (note how row 15 is hidden).

The bottom portion of the report lists vacations and important scheduling issues, such as new hires arriving, contractors leaving, etc.

I update this report throughout the week as events occur. I finish it up on Friday, then email it to my boss before I leave for the weekend.  We use it during our Monday discussion.

I also use this report to help me prepare quarter-end and year-end reviews.

Check it out at:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1X3i44SoVGlODdkODdlNTAtNTQyMy00N2NkLTk2ZTUtMjBkOGRmZjY3OTg1&hl=en_US

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

Errors Are...

Er, an error?

According to Google (and Google knows everything), errors are ...

• Errors are magic
• Errors are normally distributed
• Errors are not in the art but in the artificers
• Errors are independent
• Errors are the portals of discovery
• Errors are correlated
• Errors are not normally distributed
• Errors are corrected in dna
• Errors are human copyrightjoestrazzere
• Errors are common and under-reported
• Errors are mistakes
• Errors are my own
• Errors are offensive
• Errors are more common than suspected
• Errors are intentional
• Errors are more than an "oops"
• Errors are costing $17 billion a year
• Errors are entertaining
• Errors are essential for survival
• Errors are going to occur

Can you add to the list?

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.

What People Are Writing

People Are Writing!

For a while now, I've been looking to find a way to aggregate blog posts from tester friends and present them here on All Things Quality.

The Blogger service hosting my blog provides a Blog List "widget" that gives me something close to what I was looking for. The problem is that widgets are restricted to a few particular portions of each page. I have a long list of testers I wanted to aggregate, and I didn't want to make every page extremely long.

After some experimentation, I hit upon a solution. I was able to create a second blog that basically contains nothing but this one widget. That way, I could make the widget area cover the width of the page, be as long as needed, yet not impact every single post on the primary blog. I used the same overall colors and formatting as my original blog, and included links to make it look as seamless as I could manage.

If you click on the tab for What People Are Writing above, you'll see the result. I like the way it came out.  This aggregation shows snippets from the most recent article of each per blog, ordered by the date of the post. I think this will be an easy way to keep up with all the excellent blog posts that people in test are writing. copyrightjoestrazzere

Please let me know what you think.

And in particular, let me know if there are any other really good testers' blogs that I've missed.

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This article originally appeared in my blog: All Things Quality

	My name is Joe Strazzere and I'm currently a Director of Quality Assurance. I like to lead, to test, and occasionally to write about leading and testing. Find me at http://strazzere.blogspot.com/.