Telling our testing stories – handout

Telling our testing stories – handout
Isabel Evans, November 2015
Abstract
Our messages are not heard or are misinterpreted. Sometimes we do not hear the
messages other people need to tell us.
Our natural abilities at storytelling and at appreciating the stories others tell us can be
crushed under the weight of the ways we are expected to plan, report and communicate
about testing and quality.
We have a natural ability to tell stories and our natural delight in narrative, which help us
communicate about testing and quality to others in our organisations.
We look at why and how we tell stories in a way that is appealing to our audience.
That means thinking about the role of oral, written and pictorial representations of testing
stories, using the analogies of novels, short stories, picture books, poems and songs.
You need a variety of story formats work best for your testing messages and how to adapt
your testing stories to your audience.
We also examine how we can better listen to other people’s stories about their parts of the
project, about quality and about testing, and how we need to adapt our listening style to
different storytellers when we are the audience.
Purpose of this handout
This handout provides the slides plus notes so that you can follow up the presentation with further
investigation and practice after the event. Story telling takes practise – whether words, music,
painting, songs, embroideries – all need practice to understand how to design, make and execute
the story. Listening also comes with practise.
In the slides I will show you examples, including poems, embroideries and pictures. I’ll mention
different story tellers and stories. I’ll mention some good listeners and some not so good listeners.
In this handout you’ll find the references to websites, twitter accounts, books and other sources that
may be useful for you to follow up.
NOTE: I have tried to put in some Hungarian words, phrases and people – if any of them are wrong
or inappropriate then my sincere apologies! I hope you will take the act for the heart’s wish of
complimenting my kind hosts.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
Page 1 of 23
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................ 1
Purpose of this handout ....................................................................................................................... 1
Introductory slides ................................................................................................................................ 3
Slide 3 Story telling without words ....................................................................................................... 4
Slide 4 Story tellers ............................................................................................................................... 5
Slide 5 Reasons to write ........................................................................................................................ 6
Slide 6 Starting your story ..................................................................................................................... 7
Slide 7 Headlines ................................................................................................................................... 9
Slide 8 Brevity is good ......................................................................................................................... 10
Slide 9 Computer Haiku ...................................................................................................................... 11
Slide 10 Testing Haiku…? .................................................................................................................... 11
Slide 11 Diagrams ............................................................................................................................... 12
Slide 12 The story of the 1000 night and 1 night ................................................................................ 13
Slide 13Long term planning and reporting .......................................................................................... 14
Slide 14 1000 nights and 1 night – a happy ending? ........................................................................... 15
Slide 15 The story of the severed head ............................................................................................... 16
Slide 16 Keeping our stories relevant and timely ................................................................................ 17
Slide 17 The Grateful Beasts ............................................................................................................... 18
Slide 18 Listening and reacting to people ........................................................................................... 19
Slide 19 Endings .................................................................................................................................. 20
Slide 20 Begin at the beginning, go on until the end: then stop ......................................................... 21
References and sources ...................................................................................................................... 22
Thanks and acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... 23
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Introductory slides
The images on the slides are a traditional Hungarian embroidery in cross stitch and a
modern Hungarian embroidery.
"Egyszer volt, hol nem volt..."
Telling Our Testing Stories
A nevem Isabel Evans
2015. november 19
Jó reggelt kívánok!
Good morning!
“Begin at the beginning and go on till
you come to the end: then stop.”
• About stories
•
•
•
•
Who tells stories and who listens?
Beginnings and headlines
Brevity (haiku and diagrams)
Serials and endings
• Telling stories and listening
– Scheherazade: the 1000 nights and 1 night
– The Severed Head
– The Grateful Beasts
• I’m going to tell you some stories
• You are going to think about testing while you listen…
Quote: The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he
asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end:
then stop.' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 3 Story telling without words
Story telling – without words
You will find this experiment described and animated on the internet at various sites. It
demonstrates that for many people watching an animation or looking at an abstract shape,
one tells oneself a story or assigns more meaning and character to the shapes than they
actually have. Different people will interpret the animations in different ways. This is
sometimes known as the Michotte effect, after the Belgian psychologist who researched and
wrote about perceptions of causality. Also referenced here is a web article about similar
work done in the 1940’s by experimental psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel. I
first heard about the Michotte effect in a workshop run by New Zealand expert tester Matt
Mansell, which I recommend:
Matt Mansell: “Heuristics, bias and critical thinking in testing”. See
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/matthewmansell
In the same way, an artist will try to convey a message in a picture using as few lines as
possible – letting the viewer of the picture do the work.
You can look at variants of the animation and explanations of the experiment on the web:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VTNmLt7QX8E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_jKNlC2YKo
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/michotte-demo.swf
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/animating-anthropomorphismgiving-minds-to-geometric-shapes-video/
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 4 Story tellers
Notice the contrast in style and subject of the two embroidery designs – floral versus
geometric.
Story tellers…
Mythmakers, Folk-tale Tellers, Poets, Novelists,
Dramatists, Musicians, Painters,
Nobel prize winners….
Imre Kertész
d Móricz
János Arany
Sándor Petőfi Jenő
Rejtő György
Konrád
Grandmothers,
Fathers,
adnóti Ferenc Kölcsey Géza Gárdonyi Áron Tamási Dezső Kosztolányi
Péter Eszterházy
Frigyes Karinthy Jó
Mihály Babits Kálmán Mikszáth
Báli
Teachers, Children,
You and me…
and our colleagues
Mythmakers, Folk-tale Tellers, Poets, Novelists, Dramatists, Musicians, Painters, Nobel Prize
winners…. Like Imre Kertész. Each country has its own story tellers (in the word stream on the slide
for Hungary this includes Zsigmond Móricz, János Arany, Sándor Petőfi, Jenő Rejtő, György Konrád,
Péter Eszterházy, Frigyes Karinthy, József Katona, Miklós Radnóti, Ferenc Kölcsey, Géza Gárdonyi,
Áron Tamási, Dezső Kosztolányi, Mihály Babits, Kálmán Mikszáth, Bálint Balassi) and epic stories such
as the Toldi Trilogy.
But we are story tellers too – every one of us, and we all listen to stories.
“We move, each day, on an ocean of stories, tales, jokes, reports, elegies, confessions.”
D Pennick commenting on Scheherazade
The author Terry Pratchett once said that humans should be called the story telling ape (Pan
narrans)not the wise man (Homo sapiens).
For a presentation that includes an analysis of the change between oral and written
traditions to transmit information see, for example, “ǝn‫ן‬ɐʌ: Why we have it backwards” by
Shmuel Gershon (http://testing.gershon.info). Discussions with Shmeul and Julian Harty
(http://blog.bettersoftwaretesting.com) contributed to this presentation.
Also see Rob Sabourin’s cartoon/picture book “I am a bug” for a simple explanation of
testing and Karen Johnson’s work on testing storytelling, for example:
http://astoriedcareer.com/karen_johnson_qa.html
DOUGLAS J. PENICK on http://levekunst.com/for-scheherazade/: “For Scheherazade knew a
great truth: the telling and the hearing of stories, the exchange of tales and sagas is the deep
breath of human life. Listening and telling are the inhalation and exhalation of
human experience. We move, each day, on an ocean of stories, tales, jokes, reports,
elegies, confessions. We are sustained in our lives by unending narratives. It is the air we
breathe. Telling stories, by its very nature, sustains us in the face of death.”
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 5 Reasons to write
George Orwell in his essay “Why I write” gave four reasons for writing:
1. Sheer egoism – the desire to seem clever
2. Aesthetic enthusiasm and pleasure both for the story teller and the audience
3. Historic impulse – to see things as they are, document them and store them for the
future
4. Political purpose – using the word in purest sense – wishing to alter people
perceptions or move things in a particular direction
Which of Orwell’s reasons for storytelling apply to your testing story telling?
Note that 3 and 4 are most likely, for test stories, but remember that thinking about a desire
to give pleasure (reason 3) may engage your audience. Be careful of reason 1.
Try to rewrite or reimagine a recent testing story – perhaps a bug report - focusing on each
of the four reasons in turn and see how that alters the story.
Note: When writing in a political way (to effect change) make sure you consider both
evidence and the story. For example a recent BBC4 Radio programme had a group of
politicians, sociologists and writers discussing the point that people often will listen to a
story they want to hear rather than evidence. The case study used was a UK scheme to
reduce the number of young offenders by taking children into prisons to visit in order that
they would be put off breaking the law. The statistical evidence shows this has not worked,
but the scheme continued because the story was convincing politically. Our testing stories
need to convince based on real evidence.
Also consider the place that poets, playwrights, painters, musicians and other story tellers
have played in political movements (In Hungary, think of János Arany, Sándor Petőfi).
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 6 Starting your story
Notice the different style of Hungarian embroidery.
Starting your story…
It is related…
Once upon a time…
Attend!
Marley was dead: to begin with.
The girl screamed once, only the once.
How do you start your testing story?
Headlines?
The beginning of a story – written or spoken or music or however it is presented – tells the
reader or listener whether they want to hear the story.
Beginnings such as “it is related…” or “once upon a time…” tell us that we expect to be
entertained, perhaps with something magical or unlikely, and we might expect a lesson or
moral to be explained during the story. We expect the story and the story teller to draw us in
and tell us something unexpected, or perhaps to tell us a story we have heard before, many
times, for the enjoyment of hearing the story. As story tellers we have to use voice and
mime to draw in our audience and as listeners we need to allow ourselves the time (and
pleasure) of listening and responding.
The early English poem Beowulf starts with the single word “Attend!” and goes on in a
couple of lines to say that we have already heard about the arrival of the Danes and the
raising of a feasting hall. We are expected to know about that already and the story teller is
moving onto the next installment of the story. But, to remind us he recaps very briefly. The
earlier part of the poem is lost, so for a modern reader – or for someone joining a project
late on – we just have to find a way of filling the gaps in our knowledge.
Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol” is a ghost story with a moral. The starting
sentence is:
Marley was dead: to begin with.
This tells us that the story teller has launched us into a tale of mystery – the sentence
implies that Marley was dead, but might not be dead now. We want to know what happens
next. Similarly, the first of Ian Rankins’ Rebus series of detective stories “Knots and Crosses”
starts with the sentence:
The girl screamed once, only the once.
We know at once whether we want to read this book, and we are warned what type of story
we might find. It draws us in.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Here are some other first sentences of histories, novels, poems and plays. Which attract you
to read the story and why? Or, look at your own favourites.
“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession
of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
Jane Austin “Pride and Prejudice” - Novel
“A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the
hill-side bank and runs deep and green.”
John Steinbeck “Of Mice and Men” - Novel
“Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating
noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.”
John Steinbeck “Cannery Row” - Novel
“Scott used to say that the worst part of an expedition was over when
the preparation was finished.”
Apsley Cherry Gerrard “The Worst Journey in the World” –
History/Personal account of real events
“Harald Sigurdsson was a half brother of King Olaf the Saint; they had
the same mother.”
Snorri Sturlson (born 1179) “King Harald’s Saga” translated into
English by Magnus Magnusson – History
“Pwyll prince of Dyfed was lord over the seven cantrefs of Dyfed; and
once upon a time he was at Arbeth, a chief court of his, and it came
into his head and heart to go hunting.”
Unknown author(s) of early Welsh legends/history: “Pwyll Prince of
Dyfed: The First Branch of the Mabinogion”
“Of arms and the man I sing”
Virgil “The Aeneid” Poem/saga based on legend/fact/memories
“To begin at the beginning:
It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black,
the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood
limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack,
fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though
moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as
Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town
clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And
all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.”
Dylan Thomas “Under Milkwood” Radio Play
What is the first line of your latest report on testing? Will it draw in the audience?
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 7 Headlines
"Is the IT Department Dead?" BCS News
"Time for change!" Professional Tester
"Unusual sighting on the stilt ponds" Journal of the Miranda Naturalists Trust
“90 recettes FACILES” Cuisine Actuelle
Which of these front covers/headlines appeals to you?
Why?
Now think about your testing meetings, plans and reports. How do they start? Are they
predictable, perhaps even boring? Do they draw your audience in quickly? If your written
report is detailed, does your spoken report at meetings provide a hook for your audience?
Do your headlines draw them in?
Could you put a front cover on your test plan or test report in the same sort of way to entice
readers?
Could you write a headline for your next progress meeting like a newspaper headline or a TV
news headline?
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 8 Brevity is good
Brevity is good…
How much I desire!
Inside my little satchel,
the moon, and flowers!
This is a poem by the great poet Basho. It is a 17 syllable form, where the maximum imagery
and message is delivered in a set number of syllables. For more haiku see for example:
http://www.haiku-poems.50webs.com/basho-haiku-poems.htm
This haiku reminds me of when we ask for our testing requirements – we want everything…..
(more test environments, more tools, more people, more time, more information…) and the
customers have a huge list of requirements they want delivered in a tiny project!
For more about Basho see:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/basho
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 9 Computer Haiku
Computer Haiku
Out of memory.
We wish to hold the whole sky,
But we never will.
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Windows is like that.
A crash reduces
Your expensive computer
To a simple stone.
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.
This website has a huge list of haiku for different occasions – they have many about
computers. See: http://www.haiku-poems.50webs.com/computer-haiku-poems.htm
Slide 10 Testing Haiku…?
Testing Haiku…?
Yesterday it worked.
Today it is not working.
Configuration error?
Explore and test the system.
Calm mind, systematic work,
Tell good and bad news.
Environment down?
Another day wasted when
We could have tested.
Simple tests are passing
But important tests failed!
Fix, test, then release.
I decided to adapt one of the computer haiku as a Testing haiku bug report, and then I tried
to write some others:
- A test plan
- A comment for a progress meeting
- And a quality assessment
As an exercise, see if you can write the three main messages for your next test meeting, plan
or report as three haiku.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 11 Diagrams
Diagrams
Help people to see you are listening to their stories
Help people to listen to your stories
Technical research
and prototyping
Improve Tech
processes eg
build
Better project scope
Small, iterative, Acc
crit/user story etc..
+ve Pride with
confidence
Fewer defects in
released products
Improved quality
Improve reviews
Management
pleasure
Improve testing
Customer
pleasure
More defects found
before release of
product
confidence
Improve project start up
estimating and reporting;
small, iterative
Work to fix earlier versions
Later, fast corrections that go
wrong
Increased workload
Errors made and not found till
late
Errors made and not found till
live
- ve Pride with fear
Req/des/dev not done well
Testing not done/poorly done
Reviews not done/poorly done
Increased queues - Not
possible to complete work in
time
Poor technical architecture
choices
Initial idea chosen not
challenged
-ve Pride with fear
Architectural
complexity
Complex problem area
Historical
accretions
Improvements
e.g. Acc Criteria,
testing
Not asking for help
Moving targets (third
party & Dolphin)
Silos and specialisation
(SPOFs)
Fear
No risk assessment
Defensive
behaviour
Over-optimistic estimates &
plans
Management anger
demotivation
Over-optimistic management
expectations
Over-optimistic customer
expectations
Failure to meet
customer
expectations
Poor job design
Diagrams are very useful when we are listening or when we are telling a story:
-
To capture information for ourselves;
To show we are listening;
To help us feedback to the story teller;
To summarize information;
To pass on information from many sources in one space;
To help people visualize what we want them to understand from our stories;
To help show complexity.
Many people use diagrams successfully in the testing industry. To see some examples of
interesting uses of graphics for various purposes see these three software testers who speak
and publish on diagramming for testing. It is worth exploring what they have published using
diagrams to listen, collect information, convey information, report, and visualize complexity.
(1) Graham Thomas: www.badgerscroft.com
- See in particular his presentations on presenting information to senior stakeholders – see
resources and presentations on the website
- Also for story telling look at his posting on the Airgraphs – a story in pictures.
http://badgerscroft.com/home/airgraphs/
(2) Derk Jan de Grood: https://djdegrood.wordpress.com/
- See in particular his subway map plans – I have adopted these with success
(3) Zeger van Hese: see for example his Twitter account and blog for on-one-page visual
summaries of conference presentations: https://twitter.com/TestSideStory and
http://testsidestory.com
The website http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html has a really
useful summary of many types of diagram we can use to help us understand and explain
concepts and complexities.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 12 The story of the 1000 night and 1 night
The
1000
nights
and
1 night
Isabel Evans Nov2015
Let’s look at a long project. A long project will involve you in telling and listening to lots of
long stories and maybe, lots of small stories. The story of “1000 nights and 1 night”
originated around the 10th century and stories have been added since over the centuries. It
has also been translated many times, and expressed in different media. It starts before our
heroine enters the stories:
There once lived a mighty king…
In the story, this king is dangerous and powerful. At the start he is betrayed, humiliated,
deceived and let down. He trusts no-one. Specifically, he trusts no women. So each night he
takes a virgin girl to his bed, and in the morning he has her beheaded. Eventually there are
no young virgins left, except the daughter of his Wazir (advisor). She insists on being sent to
the king, and that her sister is allowed to go with her. She tells her sister to wake her just
before dawn and ask for a story. She times the story-telling so that it is still in progress as
dawn breaks. Her sister says it is a pity the rest of the story cannot be heard… and the king
agrees to spare her so she can complete the story.
If Scheherazade bores him he will kill her. She has a short amount of time each night to
keep his attention. She has her sister to help her. This is a long term project. She has to
change the king.
Have you ever worked on a long project where you need to keep in a constant cycle of
planning, reporting and repeat, keep showing your value, keep everyone interested?
Think about how you might structure long term story telling in a testing project to keep your
audience interested.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 13Long term planning and reporting
Long project planning and reporting
Reporting to the big bosses? Telling people about bugs?
Writing a test plan or report? Implementing change?
What do they want from you?
What do you do if they don’t want your story?
Can you still keep them interested?
How long will you last?
Who can help you?
Use Repetition with variation
Scheherazade tells stories for nearly 3 years. The stories are very similar to each other… Yet
each is different. The same cast of characters appears. The same situations appear but she
varies the story. She promises more exciting stories. Each time she completes a story she has
the next one ready to start – she keeps adding value.
“But this is nothing, compared to what I could tell you tomorrow night if I were alive and the
King wished to preserve me…”
Repetition with variation is useful to keep people’s interest while embedding the message
you want to put across. Notice how politicians will say the same thing 3 times in speeches to
add emphasis and make people believe them.
Quote: “What I tell you three times is true…” The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll
In long projects – for example repeated agile sprints, iterative or V model or waterfall, you
may find you need to repeatedly produce plans and reports (written or verbal) that are very
similar to the last ones. People will stop reading them.
Put headlines at the front, and make each one tell a new next installment.
If you know you are trying to change something over the long term, start with messages that
your audience mostly want to hear and gradually change the messages as the audience
changes.
I discussed this presentation with Dr. Stuart Reid, and we noted how people will fill gaps in
stories and lack of evidence with their own fictions. Later he kindly sent me this quote from
the American cartographers Basset and Porter: “cartographic knowledge in the 19th century
was…partly based on non-logical factors such as aesthetics, habit,… and the urge to fill in
blank spaces.” See for example: ‘Mountains of Kong’:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_of_Kong.
Be aware of and beware of this urge in yourself and others.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 14 1000 nights and 1 night – a happy ending?
1001 nights – a happy ending?
This is a graphical analysis of the structure of the 1001 nights. Notice the complexity of the
story layers, as the relationship between the king and Scheherazade changes over the 3
years. Early in the relationship she is telling multi-layered stories that keep him interested,
because they leave unresolved threads that she has to return to later. She is telling a story
within which a character tells a story, and within that story, a character may tell a story.
Then, as his mood and trust improves the stories become simpler in structure. The king
repeatedly threatens her, and she then changes the type of story (prose, poem), the
complexity, the subject matter or the story length to keep him interested. On the 1001 night
she finishes her last story and asks the king for a wish. She asks him if she can stay alive to
bring up their children – three sons. “Will you leave these little kings motherless? Are you
not the father of my children and am I not the mother of your sons?” The king then marries
her. Is this a happy ending?
Similarly in a long delivery project or in a long change project the messages that managers
and colleagues will accept and listen to will change. The emphasis will move between
time/deadlines, quality levels, delivery content and costs depending on the pressures of the
project. So you may be reporting the same thing, but you need to make it into a story that is
of interest to your audience. For example your story about number of unfixed bugs may
need to be told as a story about potential reputation loss or increased support costs. Like
Scheherazade you might need to change the style of your story to meet the type of story
being demanded. And you need to think about end of the story – at the end of the project
do you want to exit or remain?
As an exercise, take your latest test report and make several versions (haiku, diagram,
summary points to say) to emphasize different aspects of the project for example:
-
This week our testing saved x money and time in potential support costs…
This week our testing improved productivity by…
This week our testing reduced costs by…
This week our testing demonstrated X important new user stories now work…
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 15 The story of the severed head
The
story
of the
severed
head
Isabel Evans Nov2015
Let’s look at when you are on your own… or leading the team. If you are a consultant, or a
head of testing, or providing advice, what stories are useful?
We are going to use a Welsh legend, from the Mabinogion, which is a collection of legends
told in four main branches and a series of separate stories. This story is part of the story of
Branwen Daughter of Llyr. It is the Story of Bendigeidfran the severed head.
There was once in Britain a great battle, and at the end only eight men survived and one of
those mortally wounded….
Bendigeidfran is the wise man of the group, not a great warrior, but he is good at advising on
strategy and tactics. After the battle he tells his companions to cut off his head, and take it
with them. The head has been cut off but it still keeps giving advice. Is the advice good? How
long will the warriors listen for?
He explains to them that he will stop talking when he is buried in London, and then leads
them round the country, offering advice and preventing them from getting to London –
there is always something else they have to do first.
Eventually he leads them to a great feasting hall where they stay for many years with him
advising them not to look out of the door. Eventually one of them does look, realizes that
London is visible, and they take the head to London and bury it.
And when the head was buried it was called one of the Three Happy Burials.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 16 Keeping our stories relevant and timely
Keeping it relevant and timely
What do you do if your team is gone?
Can you still keep giving advice?
How long will management listen for?
Do your stories help or hinder project progress?
Will they benefit the business?
Know when to stop…
Do we (heads of testing, heads of quality, consultants, experts…) always provide advice in a
timely and appropriate manner?
For example:
Our stories need to lead the team towards release, not away from it.
Particularly for change managers, we need to keep in mind the current stories that the
organization needs to hear, and not the stories that keep us in place as the resident expert.
We need to change the emphasis of the change programme to meet current problems and
not fixate on continuing to improve something that is already improved.
Use vocabulary appropriate to your audience - speak in their language (Sorry Budapest!) and
use their technical terms.
These tools are interesting to explore:
The ten hundred word list is a list of the 1000 most commonly used English words –
try it using the tool here: http://blog.xkcd.com/2015/09/22/a-thing-explainer-wordchecker
E-prime is a way of using English that makes it (perhaps) more objective by removing
the verb “to be” Try using only e-prime English using the tool here
http://www.compendiumdev.co.uk/page.php?title=eprimer
And there are several websites that explain it, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 17 The Grateful Beasts
“Egyszer volt, hol nem volt..."
"...és boldogan éltek, amíg meg nem haltak."
Isabel Evans Nov2015
Let’s look at the benefits of listening… We need to be aware of what other people are
thinking and actively listen – and act to show we care what they said….
This is a Hungarian folktale, on the internet as “The story of the grateful beasts”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grateful_Beasts
Once upon a time….
"Egyszer volt, hol nem volt..."
The morals of this story are:
Listen to the Ravens, picking over the remains – act on their advice
Listen to the Bees and Mice, and help them
Befriend the wolves and help them – then they will help you
The “hero” and “heroine” are not heroic: they listen, they help others, and they are patient.
"...és boldogan éltek, amíg meg nem haltak."
And they all lived happily ever after.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 18 Listening and reacting to people
Listening and reacting to people
Listen to the people not invited to the retrospectives
– act on their advice
Listen to the users and customer - and help them
Befriend the devs, PMs and BAs, help them
– then they will help you
Listen to people not understanding your stories and find a
new way to tell the stories
You don’t need to be heroic:
listen, help others, be patient,
tell stories
If you use diagramming, note taking and body language to show you are interested, and if
you help others after they ask for it or if you see they need it, they will help you.
If people are listening to your stories but they don’t understand, what can you do? Listen
to/observe that and tell the story in a different way.
The BBC Radio programme Start The Week on 2nd November 2015 was about Embracing
Failure And Uncertainty. The discussion included comments that for many people an
engaging story will be listened when facts will not be. Sometimes it is necessary to take our
facts and metrics and make them into a story that is truthful but also easier to comprehend.
I have experienced facts, evidence and metrics being dismissed in a meeting in favour of a
more optimistic but false story.
The lesson is to use the evidence and metrics to tell the story in the way the audience will
accept it.
See Isabel Evans Tutorial “Using Metrics to tell our testing story” for examples.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 19 Endings
In real life, there are no endings, the next thing always happens.
In stories we need to find an ending:
-A cliff hanger or teaser for a serial…
-A conclusion for a story that perhaps leaves you open to a sequel.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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Slide 20 Begin at the beginning, go on until the end: then stop
Summary:
• Story-telling and listening to stories is natural – but watch out for different people
interpreting the stories in different ways.
• Everybody tells stories.
• There are different reasons for telling stories – George Orwell identified
• Aesthetic pleasure and enthusiasm (for the joy of it)
• Historical Purpose (to make a record of what actually happened)
• Political purpose (to affect how people behave and think, to influence them)
• Ego (to show how clever you are)
• Getting the beginning right for your audience is vital – so do you need a headline to pull
them in? If this is a serial do you need a summary of what has already been covered in
previous weeks?
• Brevity helps – practice with haiku to help you get the most messages into the least text.
• Diagrams help with concise representations of complex ideas – but also help to
demonstrate you are listening but beware of accessibility.
• The story of the 1000 nights and 1 night shows us by its structure that to survive a long
project or role you may need to change the style and complexity of the stories repeating
the same story in many different ways to get your points across and accepted over time.
This is especially true if we have angry managers or colleagues.
• The story of the severed head tells us that our stories must be relevant, timely and help to
make progress rather than delay it.
• The story of the grateful beasts tells us to listen to others – even those excluded from our
usual colleagues and meetings. It tells us to give help, accept help, work with teams, be
humble and helpful rather than heroic, and to listen to others.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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References and sources
Isabel Evans presentation “Restore to factory settings”
Isabel Evans and Stuart Reid Workshop “Using influence diagrams to understand testing”
Isabel Evans tutorial “Using metrics to tell our testing story”
Matt Mansell: “Heuristics, bias and critical thinking in testing”. Workshop/tutorial
https://nz.linkedin.com/in/matthewmansell
Graham Thomas: www.badgerscroft.com
Stuart Reid http://www.stureid.info/
Derk Jan de Grood: https://djdegrood.wordpress.com/
Zeger van Hese: https://twitter.com/TestSideStory and http://testsidestory.com
Shmeul Gershon: “ǝn‫ן‬ɐʌ: Why we have it backwards” and http://testing.gershon.info
Julian Harty: http://blog.bettersoftwaretesting.com
“I am a bug” by Rob Sabourin and see http://www.amibugshare.com/
Karen Johnson: http://karennicolejohnson.com/ and
http://astoriedcareer.com/karen_johnson_qa.html
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
http://blog.xkcd.com/2015/09/22/a-thing-explainer-word-checker
http://www.compendiumdev.co.uk/page.php?title=eprimer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
http://www.haiku-poems.50webs.com/computer-haiku-poems.htm
“1000 Nights and 1 Night” translated by Mardus and Mathers
“Mabinogion” translated by G Jones and T Jones
“Beowulf” translated by Michael Alexander
“A Christmas Carol” Charles Dickens
“Knots and crosses” Ian Rankin
“Pride and Prejudice” Jane Austin
“Of Mice and Men” and “Cannery Row” John Steinbeck
“The Worst Journey in the World” Apsley Cherry Gerrard
“King Harald’s Saga” Snorri Sturlson translated by Magnus Magnusson
“The Aeneid” Virgil
“Under Milkwood”, Dylan Thomas
“Alice in Wonderland” Lewis Carroll
“The Hunting of the Snark” by Lewis Carroll
Pukoroko Miranda News, Journal of the Pukoroko Miranda Naturalists’ Trust, August 2015
IT Now – the magazine for the IT professional, BCS Journal, Autumn 2015
Professional Tester magazine June 2015
©Isabel Evans 2015
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Cuisine Actuelle, November 2015
“Why I Write”, from Essays, George Orwell
“Field Guide to the animals of Great Britain”
“A concise history of painting from Giotto to Cezanne”, Michael Level
“Masquerade”, Kit Williams
“Caught in Motion”, Stephen Dalton
“Embroidery: traditional designs, techniques and patterns” by Mary Gostelow
“Chagall – Love and the Stage 1914-1922”, Catalogue from exhibition of paintings at the Royal
Academy in 1998
http://www.haiku-poems.50webs.com/basho-haiku-poems.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Kert%C3%A9sz)
http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=orczy&book=hungarian&story=_content
http://omacl.org/Njal/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grateful_Beasts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Folktales
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/basho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VTNmLt7QX8E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_jKNlC2YKo
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Discourse/Narrative/michotte-demo.swf
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/animating-anthropomorphism-giving-mindsto-geometric-shapes-video/
http://levekunst.com/for-scheherazade/
‘Mountains of Kong’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_of_Kong
See the BBC website for: StartTheWeek-20151102-EmbracingFailureAndUncertainty for the
anecdote about prison visits (may not now be available).
The Science of Discworld II: The Globe, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen
Thanks and acknowledgements
To David Bennett for coaching me through the drawings and for provision of tea & cake.
To Graham Thomas and Stuart Reid for reviewing, critiquing and calming down earlier versions of
this presentation.
And finally: To my father: for telling me stories and listening to my stories.
©Isabel Evans 2015
Telling our testing stories
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