My manager and his manager have been in something of a pickle lately while they board of directors has them under the gun. In other words they are currently faced with the dreaded pickle gun. They’re not the only ones. One of my colleagues is c…
Author Archives 
cowboytesting •
Customer Satisfaction and a Unifying Theory of Cows
In the interest of salacious name dropping, I was recently deeply entrenched with Peter Farrell-Vinay over on a LinkedIn discussion about KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for quality in a software release. The all too familiar debate broke out be…
Why I think test certification is wrong … right at this moment
I’ve really nothing witty to say about this subject as a prologue to my thoughts, because its a serious topic. As you read these words, know that somewhere out there a classroom of people have paid anywhere from $50 USD to $250 USD for the privileg…
I’m still here
Hi Everyone,
I just wanted to post something to let you all know I haven’t abandoned this blog by any means. It’s far too valuable to me as a mental tool and general soapbox on which I can stand when declaiming my half-baked theories and ideas.
The Primary Aspects of a “Startup Culture”
Those of you who know me or who simply follow my various ramblings and musings through this blog will probably know I’ve been out there in the trenches for a while now. I first started back in 1998 as a “temporary” contractor with a new product…
The Journey of the Hero Tester
Selena Delesie recently posted a couple of blog entries about her experiences with something called “the hero culture” and its pervasiveness within the IT and Software industry. You can read her posts here and here, and I suggest you do because t…
Attracting and Retaining Good People
During my “sabbatical” I’ve had a lot of time to read and chat with a lot of people from different walks of life, or at least a lot of people who are team managers, recruiters, product managers, and generally high level muckety-mucks. The rabbl…
Honest Advice Series: Location … location … location ….
It’s been a while since I updated this thing, I know. Fortunately all you hungry little prospective cogs out there keep the page views up and running. You know that’s a great way to keep me motivated, you sly boots. I’ve been neglectful, ag…
Honest Advice Series: Pride is reserved for the employed
Good afternoon, evening, and morning to you, my faithful readers. Or as Warren Ellis is fond of saying, “Good morning, Sinners.”
When last we left my tawdry little walk through the ins and outs of seeking out employment with a giant behemoth of a…
Test Management: The job description should already be written
Recently a curious soul put out an open question to the general LinkedIn test manager community at large about whether they, as test managers, or some one else writes job descriptions for openings about to be posted publicly or internally. As with mo…
The Evil Tester Question Time is back! This is your chance to ask a very Evil Tester a question and get some scrumptious and devious ... 
We recently came across a new test management tool, TestPad, which takes a different approach to test management. Along our journey we met and spoke ... 
[Got a testing tip? Why not submit it and get published?] I’m sure we’ve all had days where we need a bit of help coming up with ...