Better Software - June 2008 - (Page 18)

Test Connection Know Where Your Wheels Are by Michael Bolton “Run over that Coke can up there with your right front tire.” Thirty years on, I still hear my dad saying that. Bump— but only one—as my right front tire ran over the can. “Good,” he said. “You always want to know where your wheels are.” Those words came back to me the other day in a discussion about how to train testers. An acquaintance said she wanted to teach new testers by telling them to use scripted approaches. That didn’t seem to me like a way to build skill; following a script doesn’t necessarily engage the cognitive processes of the learner. I thought of the skills associated with driving a car, what good teachers had taught me, and how I had learned. There’s way more to it than just knowing the written rules. When you drive a car, the rules of the road are important, but we’re not always being watched and other people aren’t always following the rules. The laws that nature enforces are more important from moment to moment than the rules of the road: A car travelling twice as fast as yours takes four times the distance to stop, and if there’s another car coming straight at you, you’ll have to deal with it right away, whether the other driver is right or wrong. Good training and practice equip us with skills to deal with unexpected, time-critical situations. Books and classes can help. When it was time for me to learn to drive, I got a copy of the driver’s handbook and my parents sent me to driver education classes. The classes taught me heuristics: Aim high while steering—don’t just look at the hood of the car, instead look several lengths ahead; cooperate with other drivers and make sure they see you; don’t follow too closely and leave enough room to get yourself out of trouble; get the big picture—don’t just look straight ahead, check your mirrors frequently, and note what’s going on around you; move smoothly—when you’re off course, use light corrections in steering and speed so that you address the problem without going out of control. Hearing about those heuristics in advance, and recognizing new ones as I went on, accelerated my learning. Preparatory procedures are valuable. Both the driving instructor and my dad emphasized several checklist items to get ready to drive. They told me to get into the habit of approaching the car from different directions and performing a quick inspection of the tires and the outside of the vehicle. Then they focused on getting me comfortable in my seat, checking that my seatbelt was fastened, adjusting the middle and side mirrors, and making sure the car was well ventilated. Just before turning the key, they had me check the gearshift lever and the parking brake, and immediately afterward, they had me survey the instrument panel—gas, oil pressure, warning lights. Dad taught me to back up close to a wall to check my headlights and taillights by looking at their reflections. No one gave me a sequence in which to check each detail, but they had me narrate what I was doing until they were sure I had absorbed the checklist. Some things are too important to be left to a script that someone else wrote. Practice, coaching, and mentoring are essential. The classroom work had been valuable; it helped give background and structure to my learning. But the real lessons happened as I drove with a coach— the driving instructor, one of my parents, or another experienced driver—beside me. We started in safe places, such as shopping mall parking lots, dead-end streets, and quiet neighborhoods. My mentors gave me easy tasks to perform, instructing me explicitly, observing me carefully, and telling me what to look and listen for based on what I was actually doing in the moment. They directed my attention to what the car was trying to tell me and praised me for good work. The best and fastest learning happened with me literally in the driver’s seat. Good mentors raise the bar. As I developed my skills, my coaches put me into increasingly more challenging situations—busier roads, worse weather, freeways, and so forth. My dad peppered me with questions every few moments to develop my cognitive skills and to make sure I could juggle a bunch of tasks 18 BETTER SOFTWARE JUNE 2008 www.StickyMinds.com ISTOCKPHOTO http://www.StickyMinds.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Better Software - June 2008

Better Software - June 2008 Contents Mark Your Calendar Contributors Technically Speaking eLightenment Code Craft Test Connection Management Chronicles Agile Model-Driven Development The Myth of Risk Management Stop the Insanity! Product Announcements 10 Things You Might Not Know About … The Last Word Ad Index

Better Software - June 2008

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