An update or two.

I noticed that I have not written a blog article in awhile so I thought I would put together a short article on what I have been up to so that regular readers can be sure that I am still alive and well.

On the personal front we have had a few health scares over the past month hence my lack of tweeting or blogging.

On the work front I have been very busy and involved in a few different and exciting projects while continuing to look at different ways in which we can improve.

During this period I have been looking more and more into ethnographic research and its connection to testing. I find this area of social science fascinating and how much it appears to collate to testing. Since there does appear to be a connection to this I am current running a couple of case studies internally based upon methods from ethnographic research as mention by Richardson in their article for Qualitative Inquiry: Evaluating ethnography

The findings for this case study will be presented at the UNICOM Next Generation Testing conference 18/19 May 2011

If you cannot make this event I do intend to give a very basic/quick introduction to this approach the Software Testing Club meet up in Oxford on the 14th April 2011 This event will be used as a world premier for the approach I have been working on so that definitely makes it worth attending. Or the fact that Lisa Crispin and Rob Lambert will be there should tick everyone’s box.

Without giving away too much detail before the meet up here is a brief summary of the approach I have been investigating

• The concept is based upon questioning the tester as much as you question the product being tested.
• It is check-list that can be used on an individual basis and should take between 5 and 10 minutes. The idea is to look at what you are doing and checking it is the right thing and see if you missing anything.
• I will be giving away the check-list on the evening of the meet up. (wow a freebie)

Have I given away too much information, not enough or left you wanting more?

If you want to know more then I suggest you sign up to attend the meet-up or the UNICOM conference