Posts

Ways to evenly engage Testers and enforce discipline throughout the Sprint

Quite often I see Agile teams where Test Engineers sit relatively idle during initial days of sprint and struggle hard to complete testing tasks towards the end of sprint. Although Scrum teams follow Agile principles and practices, still at times, teams experience huge delays in Development and Testing which result in spill over of user stories to next sprint or delay in release dates. Typically, Test Engineers focus on following activities during the first few days: 1.        Understanding User Stories 2.        Write Sprint Test Plan 3.        Authoring Test Cases 4.        Follow up on approvals (Test Plan & Test Cases) Test Engineers are supposed to allocate initial 20-25% of sprint duration for the above mentioned tasks and then start Test Execution & Reporting. Mostly, Test Engineers author Test Plan, Test Cases and wait till Programmers del...

My Last Working Day at UOL

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“Last Working Day” User Story ( inspired by Agile )*: Description: As a Team Leader, I would like to move on with the rich experience & exposure gained here at UOL, so that I can improve self  and the following company  substantially   over a period of time. Acceptance Criteria: 1) Meet and greet people. 2) Acknowledge present and past colleagues with whom I worked. 3) Complete all relieving formalities. 4) Send this email L 5) Pick personal belongings and leave the office premise. * ’ User Story’ is equivalent to Software Requirement Specifications in traditional software development models. My career at UOL started as Member Technical in Production Engineering team (maintenance projects), continued with Senior Quality Engineer in Strategic team (long term projects) and now as Team Leader in Agile teams (Scrum & Kanban). After a long time (i.e. close to 10 years at UOL) ... I made up my mind and decided to move on for better prospects in...

My Experience during performance appraisal

Last year, after my performance appraisal I went to my big BOSS's office and seriously asked "what is that I SHOULD do to get 'E = Exceeds Expectations' in my performance appraisal?”. My big BOSS smiled and gently replied "if you DO what I ask you to DO then you will again meet my expectations!" and discussion continued for a while. In deed, it was a healthy discussion. Moral:  a) When in doubt meet your mentor and discuss thinks clearly. Who knows, your interest to ask questions will help you find correct answers. b) Don’t work for getting M (Meets Expectations) or E (Exceeds Expectations) or F (Far Exceeds Expectations) in performance appraisals. Know your strengths, bring out your hidden talent or worth; contribute as much as possible keeping organization goals in mind, without losing focus on individual’s career goals. After all … your work speaks and appraisal follows, leaving no choice to your manager.

Misconceptions that Indians have about India

1.      That we are the most cultured country on the planet 2.      That we are not racists 3.      That Hindi is our national language 4.      That Hockey is our national sport 5.      That we are a democracy in essence 6.      That one vote doesn’t matter 7.      That if you are an IITian, you are the best Engineer 8.      That if you are an IIMite, you are the best manager 9.      That all politicians are corrupt 10.   That all cops are dishonest 11.   That none of the government officials work 12.   That we worship and respect women 13.   That it’s okay to litter anywhere and it is not an offence in India 14.   That sex shouldn’t be discussed 15.   That eventually we’ll become the economic and military superpower 16.   That bribing is not a...

What Makes You The Best Manager?

Are you mentoring or leading or managing a team for a while? If not, you have time to revisit this article later in future. Until then, go over below links:                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapter 1                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 2 & 3                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 4 & 5                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 6 & 7                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 8 & 9                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 10 & 11                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 12 & 13                 Sri Chanakya Niti Shastra Chapters 14 & 15     ...

If Else Condition

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if ( you are a student )   { //  Check:                  Books Online                 Is It Attitude Or Qualification That Matters   } else if ( you are searching for a job )   { //  Check:                  Competency Based Interview Questions                 What Makes You Hot Cake In Job Market                 Prototype Future Of Job Hunt   } else if ( you are a fresher in company )   { //  Check:                  From College Campus To Corporate Climate                 Email Etiquette                 Common Phrases To Avoid In Conversation   } else if ( you are leading or managing ...

Sprint Checklist

Article written by Sreenivas Mothukuru After working for many years on projects developed using Agile (Scrum) I came up with below sprint checklist (3 week sprint). Please go over below items and help me fine tune the checklist. Thank you! Before Sprint Starts 1 Book conference room for backlog grooming meeting 2 Review prioritized user stories in product backlog before attending backlog grooming meeting 3 Attend backlog grooming meeting 4 Book conference room for sprint planning meeting Day 1 5 Review user stories in sprint backlog before planning meeting 6 Come up with Dev tasks for (already groomed) user stories 7 Come up with QA tasks for (already groomed) user stories 8 To come up with QA and Dev estimates 9 Identify (module/code) dependencies 10 Attend sprint planning meeting 11 Come up with t...