Schedule and Events



March 26-29, 2012, Software Test Professionals Conference, New Orleans
July, 14-15, 2012 - Test Coach Camp, San Jose, California
July, 16-18, 2012 - Conference for the Association for Software Testing (CAST 2012), San Jose, California
August 2012+ - At Liberty; available. Contact me by email: Matt.Heusser@gmail.com

Monday, July 16, 2007

Something old ...

I just got back from the wedding of a collegue.

In that spirit, I am reminded of the talk I gave last year at the Indiana Quality Conference - something James Bach recently refered to as a "Kick-Ass Podcast." (No really, his words, not mine.)

It's at the very bottom of the stack for Creative Chaos, so I thought I would let it bubble up -

The title is "So You're Doomed" - Here's a link to the PowerPoint (5MB)
And the Audio (45MB).

The audio is forty-five-ish minutes. I look forward to your feedback!

3 comments:

Ben Simo said...

Great presentation.

If the project is a large project, I'd suggest adding multiple buffers throughout the project instead of one big buffer at the end. The key is to separate the risk-based buffer from the actual expectations. If we pad the actual expectations, people will procrastinate.

We need to be careful in estimating whatever we estimate. If our estimate is too big (or buffered too much), a good project may never get approved. If our estimate is too small, we get into trouble when we can't perform whatever miracles we promised. The challenge is to find something realistic using whatever data we have and identify the risks and conditions when communicating our estimates.

As is said in the financial information business: Past performance is no guarantee of future success.

Ben Simo
QualityFrog.com

Ben Simo said...

I used to think we could gather requirements and I as a tester should enforce those gathered requirements. I now know that requirements are going to change and we are better off making requirements a fluid part of an iterative process.

Hard up-front written requirements without checking back with the customer delivers what they asked for but often misses what they really want.

"That's exactly what I asked for. That's not what I need."

Excellent!

Ben Simo
QualityFrog.com

Unknown said...

It sounds like it was a really fun presentation.

I especially liked the quote about writing and drawing. :)