Do they need encouragement?
Do students really need encouragement? Having travelled all five continents before they are 25, speaking 3 languages fluently thanks to longer stays abroad, being more competent than their university professors... Do they need encouragement?
I asked myself this question twice this evening. First, this was when I listened to another of these talks which encourage young students to be self-assurant, to say what they want and to demand their right on success, wealth and career. Is this useful? Is it really the thing that is most important for making a career? I can not remember that any of my bosses liked to hear the slightest hint that I want a training or to do less overwork or anything. When I was a nice girl, I was allowed to buy a book. At each of my jobs, I was asked to be modest. I was told that all my previous job experience was to be considered as null, because it is not relevant in this company or this university. Because here, everything is completely different than in the rest of the world. A clear clue on what hierarchical position I am expected to take, being a woman or being new or being shy or whatever.
After the well-meant encouraging presentation, we had a sponsored dinner. One of the students asked me what I have studied. Everyone asks me what and where I have studied and they want to talk with me about this. Well, boring topic. That was 20 years ago! Why don´t you ask me in which kindergarden I was? So, I told her even what I did after studies. Well, evidently, she does not like my CV. She told her fellow-student how a good CV must look - not like mine. What I wish her is that in 20 years she will think about me and about what she said. And she will wish that she would have been as successful as I have been. Right now, she seems to believe all this encouraging nonsense that in life you can decide which job you want and then you get it. Of course, you will never get to a dead end and never need to give up any dream. If you think positive... Uarg!
Do they really need encouragement? Or maybe, they rather need stories about hard work and evil, too. When my students enter the work life, they are less naive. They are warned.
I asked myself this question twice this evening. First, this was when I listened to another of these talks which encourage young students to be self-assurant, to say what they want and to demand their right on success, wealth and career. Is this useful? Is it really the thing that is most important for making a career? I can not remember that any of my bosses liked to hear the slightest hint that I want a training or to do less overwork or anything. When I was a nice girl, I was allowed to buy a book. At each of my jobs, I was asked to be modest. I was told that all my previous job experience was to be considered as null, because it is not relevant in this company or this university. Because here, everything is completely different than in the rest of the world. A clear clue on what hierarchical position I am expected to take, being a woman or being new or being shy or whatever.
After the well-meant encouraging presentation, we had a sponsored dinner. One of the students asked me what I have studied. Everyone asks me what and where I have studied and they want to talk with me about this. Well, boring topic. That was 20 years ago! Why don´t you ask me in which kindergarden I was? So, I told her even what I did after studies. Well, evidently, she does not like my CV. She told her fellow-student how a good CV must look - not like mine. What I wish her is that in 20 years she will think about me and about what she said. And she will wish that she would have been as successful as I have been. Right now, she seems to believe all this encouraging nonsense that in life you can decide which job you want and then you get it. Of course, you will never get to a dead end and never need to give up any dream. If you think positive... Uarg!
Do they really need encouragement? Or maybe, they rather need stories about hard work and evil, too. When my students enter the work life, they are less naive. They are warned.
AndreaHerrmann - 21. Feb, 20:22
I had a job during the last three months: teaching a group of Bulgarian employees to work as professional testers in a Viennese enterprise. (big enterprise)
Normally, they had to give a report each week.
In that week they were "working productively". And they did a good job. Still this caused me to write the following letter to them.
A test of a different type: (HH is tested :)
What I have learned during the last two weeks:
The week from 3.2. till 7.2. was divided in two sections:
3.2. till 5.2. was training of "experience topics", mainly taken from the book "Lessons learned" by James Bach et. al.
While some of the topics had been already discussed in earlier sessions in 2013, one of the prevalent messages should have been:
THINK! Think for yourself, consider the aspects of your own testing activities, ask when you are stuck with a problem, and collect knowledge that you have found during your testing activities. This will be an everlasting lesson, never to be forgotten.
For me I learn that this is one of the training parts that I have to constantly bring in into training. It is not sufficient to tell it once. Maybe once a week is necessary. That would also be my advice to other trainers.
Testing must never become "routine work". Even if one test case is executed several times in a row, there might be different phenonemons observed. (As could be seen in the next week.)
on 6.2. till 7.2. we were preparing OMDS test case preparation. We tried test cases on different environments as FQA PAQ was still unstable. We knew that we had only little time on 10. and 11.2. But at the end Friday there was a good feeling that 140 test cases runs could be executed.
What I could read in the reports of this week was re-assuring.
The week from 10.2. till 14.2. was also divided in two sections:
10.2. till 11.2. noon was running the OMDS policies. This period was very successful. We met the deadline and did all test cases that were possible. We also did test cases where the test cases had to be written by ourselves. (for change and reversal) The only missing test case was military bundle and that one als failed in the automated regression tests. Therefore we really did not have a chance.
On the next day, we were informed that the brokers for WSTV were not correct.
By now we know, that it was not our fault. We had received a list of unusable brokers.
WHAT IS OUR LESSON LEARNED OF THAT?
We could not have prevented it. The information that we got was seemlingly complete. What we can learn and REMEMBER: you must always think whether there could be a mistake in your test data. In our case we could not know. But if we ever have to do policy preparation for OMDS again, we must remember the situation and eventually ask somebody, if the brokers have been CHECKED. (They should have had a TIS-marking, something we could not have checked ourselves. But maybe just a short question to the guy who delivers the brokers' list could also remind him that "there was something to be checked".)
I would recommend that the technical testers as a group will have a file for them that keeps such data in form of a logging list of "lessons learned".
The rest of the week was dedicated to "PRETEST". There were business consultants that should train our technical testers. With Property & Casualty, the business consultants delivered test cases to be run and the results were very positive. The feedback of the business consultants was very good, Intelligent behaviour and speed of the technical testers were mentioned especially.
There was one day training for car. Due to timing restraints in the pretest-phase this was just one day, but further training was already talked about.
Health was too difficult to organize in a useful way. Therefore our health crew and the life crew were put together. Mr. Belke from life seemed to have done excellent training. There was a report of "contents learned" that showed that a more thorough approach about PM Life was explained. Test cases supplied by Mr. Belke were done and resulted in a confirmation message by Mr. Belke. Also the next days business consultants from life were present to cover new topics and answer questions.
There was some administrative work done in this week, including the introduction of the time management system.
This was also reminding me of a vital message to the testers:
DON'T WAIT THAT SOMETHING IS BROUGHT TO YOU. Yes, for the beginning information and tasks are carried to you and it is sufficient to do what you are told. But now you are on the verge of becoming self-dependent. If there is an appointment that is not kept, don't just wait. Ask for the reason. Do it in a friendly way. Sometimes there exist imminent problems that keep somebody from being on time. But don't just wait!
If there is a reason why a meeting does not take place, you must at least know why it did not take place.
This brings me to another lesson, which was not so important until now:
"Information ist eine Holschuld." (You must ask to get the information you want.) (holen germ. = to fetch engl.)
You are lucky, that you get a lot of information imposed on you. That is different from other colleagues that had to find that out the hard way.
The next months you will be very carefully observative, where you can receive information. After some while you will develop your own strategies and experiences.
What I have learned in these two weeks:
I may be confident that you will manage your jobs not only sufficiently but also very well.
I only have to remind your every now and then to THINK.
Beste Grüße, Hans Hartmann