Interview-with-Michael-LarsenMichael Larsen
Organization: Socialtext
Current Role/Designation – Senior Software QA Engineer
Location – Palo Alto, CA, USA

Michael Larsen has been proud of the fact that he has made a living, and a life, of taking opportunities that come at unusual angles. Described by many as a whirlwind of enthusiasm, cheerfulness and a complete inability to say “no”, Michael has taken on a variety of opportunities in life. He strived to be a rock star in his younger years, and when that was looking to sink him financially, he went to a temp agency to help him find work, any work. That meeting landed him at Cisco Systems in 1991, and lit the fuse of a career in testing that has had its ups and downs, twists and turns, and has led him to where he is today. Michael is the Chair of the Education Special Interest Group, as well as the Treasurer and a member of the Board of directors for the Association of Software Testing. He is the primary facilitator for Weekend Testing Americas. He has produced over one hundred podcasts for Software Test Professionals and others, acting as a frequent contributor and commentator. He teaches the Black Box Software Testing series of courses for AST. He writes papers and articles for various testing organizations and magazines, and speaks at various conferences, usually championing continuous learning and active interaction with other testers. He tries his best to practice what he preaches, using the TESTHEAD blog as his own space to try ideas and live up to the subtitle of being “The Mis-Education and Re-Education of a Software Tester.”

1. Tell us about your journey to becoming a software tester. How did it start and how this has been so far? Was it planned or by accident?
Not only was it by accident, it was a completely “off the radar” entirely. Between the ages of 17 and 23, I dedicated almost all of my time, talent, energy and resources to becoming a professional musician. I went to school part time, worked part time as a pizza delivery guy and as a housekeeper so I could have the freedom to write music, create bands, and play in the San Francisco Bay Area and work towards stardom. As you might guess, success in music isn’t just hard work, there’s also a bit of luck and timing that goes with it. We were a rather popular band, and things were looking good at the end of 1990, but I was going to go broke from my debts that were piling up. Being a housekeeper wasn’t going to get me out of the hole.
My drummer at the time was doing well as a Sales Representative for an electronics company, and he told me he got where he did through a temp agency. I decided to try the same approach. That temp agency sent me to Cisco Systems in March of 1991, at a time when they had about 300 total employees. I had the good fortune of meeting several people in the release engineering group, including the lab manager, who was buried in trying to do a bunch of different things. I realized that the lab setup was similar to recording studios that I had wired up in the past, so I said “hey, I can help you with this” and with that, I took on whatever jobs the release engineering group needed. What I didn’t realize at that time was that release engineering had two main roles. The first was that it was the group that did all the software builds, but the larger role was that almost everyone on the team, in some way or another was a software tester. Their titles may have said any number of things, but Release Engineering was the group in Cisco responsible for software testing, and since I fell in with them, and decided I really liked them as a group, I aimed to do whatever it took to get hired full time to work specifically with that team.

2. When did you realize your passion was software testing?
I became a software tester by chance, and then applied myself to it for a number of years. I had little to no formal training, and made up a lot of what I did on the fly, often talking with my co-workers and doing whatever it was that they did. I wouldn’t say software testing was ever a passion, but it was something I was good at so I kept with it. It wasn’t until 2009, when I was having a “career crisis”, that I asked myself “why do I test? What is it about testing that’s important to me? Is it important to me?”
I decided to find out, and in the process, created the TESTHEAD blog. That process, of writing about testing, about what I found that worked, what didn’t, my own frustrations and insecurities about what I knew and didn’t know, and realizing there was a broader community that shared many of the same struggles, is what ignited testing as a passion for me. I’ve been a software tester in some way shape or form for twenty years, but I grew to love it and want to become an advocate for it just four years ago.

3. Do you regret being associated with software testing today? Given a chance would you move from testing to any other field in IT?
There’s no question that I could have done different things, or been involved in areas that could have been more lucrative, but really, no, I don’t have any regrets being a tester. I’ve regretted a few environments that I’ve been in, or some of the decisions that were made, but really, with the way my brain operates, I think testing is the best fit for me. As to moving to other areas, I’ve been a network administrator and a support engineer, as well as an application engineer. In almost all cases, the gravitational pull seemed to always pull me back to software testing, so I think the writing is on the wall now.

4. You’ve been leading Weekend Americas. Do you feel that people are taking what they learn from those sessions and incorporating them to their day-to-day activities?
Weekend Testing, at least as I’ve seen in the sessions I’ve facilitated, has a benefit that goes beyond just learning testing skills. The real value, at least to me, is that you can go back in sessions and you can witness the process of real learning in people. Do they take that learning to their everyday work? From watching participants over multiple sessions, and seeing how they integrate what they learned in previous sessions, and applying it in the more recent ones, I can only guess the answer is “yes”.

5. QAamp, can you briefly go over what your plans are for this?
Briefly might be a tall order. SummerQAmp is an initiative that the Education Special Interest Group of the Association for Software Testing is involved with to help develop training materials aimed at 16-24 year olds who may have a limited level of experience with software and technology. The goals going forward are to develop more modules that can be picked up by anyone, even those with a limited technical background, and learn the fundamentals of software testing, to the point that they could be effective as interns in various companies.
Currently, we are reviewing the past two years of participation and looking at what worked well and what didn’t work so well, and we are reworking and expanding the modules based on that feedback. Some of the feedback included that we take for granted the meanings of certain terms that will be foreign to true newcomers, as well as looking at areas where we can help bridge between basic skills and the ability to cover more involved, technical topics. We are also working on ways to explain the skills that inform exploratory testing, as well as foundational skills around using the scientific method in software testing.

6. From all the book reviews that you do, is there one book that stands out the most for new people coming into QA?
This is tricky, because I would suggest different books for different reasons. If I wanted to talk to just developing software testing skills, especially those skills related to exploratory testing, I would strongly encourage everyone read the book “Explore it!” by Elisabeth Hendrickson. For those who wanted to learn a broad set of ideas about software testing, I would recommend Cem Kaner, James Bach and Bret Pettichord’s book “Lessons Learned in Software Testing”. If I wanted to encourage curiosity, wonder and getting people primed to think about things in different ways, especially with the mindset of a tester, I would recommend picking up a copy of James Burke’s “The Day the Universe Changed”. I could suggest many others, but if I were really to sit down with someone who has chosen to be a tester, and give them three titles to pick through first, this would be my top three.

7. What is your next big idea?
I’m not sure I would classify myself as someone who will come up with the “next big idea”, but I have a pretty good knack at being the “psychological glue” to help people with a variety of great ideas move them forward. With that in mind, I would love to see a way that we could de-mystify software testing, and help show that between the viewpoint that “anyone can bang on a keyboard and call it testing” and “software testing is this hugely complicated and highly adaptable skill set that is very difficult to explain to people”, there is a path and a method to getting those skills and developing them, and many of those skills are only peripherally associated with software testing.

8. According to you, what is lacking in today’s commercialized training industry, especially in testing?
I think we spend too much energy trying to train people to be tool users, and not enough effort in helping people learn how to actually make good and effective tests. Tools are great, don’t get me wrong, but we put too much energy, In my opinion, talking about automated tools. Without given testers the underpinnings that can help them actually develop good tests, they will simply be able to automate more bad tests faster. A phrase I am fond of using is “forget the tool, start with the problem”. I’d like to see us spend more time examining the actual problems, and spending time looking at ways to develop real thinking and inquiry skills. I’m paraphrasing Jon Bach with this, but we need to spend our energy focusing on ways to encourage curiosity in testers, and helping develop that knack in people. With curiosity, everything else can be taught and practiced. Without curiosity, all the technical skills will be significantly less effective. Therefore, I’d love to see ways that we can help encourage curiosity. that’s one of my goals with the SummerQAmp initiative. Time will tell if we are successful :).

9. You are working in Education Special Interest Group. Tell us more about that.
The Education Special Interest Group (EdSIG) is where those of us in AST who want to work on areas specific to software testing education can create new initiatives or work on initiatives that are already underway. BBST is our biggest area, and that is focused on delivering the BBST classes, as well as training instructors for the four courses we currently offer. The EdSIG members are also the largest contributors to the SummerQAmp modules and initiative. We have several additional education initiatives we are currently looking at that, but since they are still incubating, please forgive me for being a little cagey and saying “we don’t want to prematurely announce something that may not see the light of day”. I’m old enough to remember what “pulling an Osbourne” means ;).

10. What qualities will you look for in a candidate when you want to recruit someone for software testing job?
First and foremost, I want to see curiosity. I want to very quickly gauge if you are someone who follows a template, or likes working without a map. I like to walk testers through scenarios of simple mock-ups of application, and see what questions they ask. For me, curiosity and inventiveness are the biggest indicators of future success, even more than lots of technical know-how. I also make the distinction between a “programming” tester (i.e. one who is expected to do a lot of programming in their role for maintaining automated testing frameworks) and an “exploratory” tester, who I expect to be able to focus on inventive test design and implementation. Of course, testers can be strong in both, but technical skills can be learned. I don’t want to have to try to teach curiosity (I don’t believe I can).

11. What will you suggest to people who want to join IT industry as software testers?
I think it takes a special mindset to be a software tester, and while I understand that many people will use “QA” as a stepping stone into other careers (and really, there’s nothing wrong with that) I would ask that those who discover that they are “really good at testing” consider hanging around for awhile. Seriously, there’s a lot of disciplines that inform good testing, and I often see people in a variety of roles that set me to thinking “wow, this person would make a great tester!” If I see that, I really want to encourage them to try it and see for themselves if “testing is a good fit for them.”
Other aspects I recommend are to develop a thick skin, be able to critique without criticizing, and understand that finding bugs is really only half the equation. Championing the important bugs and lobbying to get them fixed is the other half, and arguably even more important than the first.

12. Name few people you would like to thank, people who helped you directly or indirectly in your career as a software testing professional.
Going back several years, Shannah Miller was my first mentor at Cisco Systems, and lobbied for a long haired skinny kid to get hired. My first “official” manager, Marcia Bednarcyk, for showing me that I could learn a lot in a short amount of time and be more effective than I ever realized, to Chuck Hein for showing me how dynamic and fun software testing could be, and many others along the way who guided, mentored, and offered encouragement.
Covering the past few years, I definitely owe a debt of gratitude to Matt Heusser for encouraging to me to write, to speak, and to produce podcasts with him. He’s been a wonderful “Partner in Crime” for the past few years and for helping me step into venues I might have been too shy to go into on my own. I also want to thank Markus Gaertner for being my official “sensei” in the Miagi-do School of Software Testing, and Marlena Compton & Ajay Balamurugadas who, along with Markus, encouraged me to bring Weekend Testing to the Americas.
James Bach wrote a book called “Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar”, and Seth Godin wrote a book called “Linchpin”. I read both of them in February of 2010. Combined, they were the catalyst that encouraged me to launch TESTHEAD. The rest, as they say, is history :).

13. One last question – Do you read Testing Circus Magazine? If yes, what is your feedback to improve this magazine?
I do read Testing Circus, and I enjoy the different perspectives that are provided, and the global reach and participation. I loved the size and the coverage of the third anniversary issue. If I had to make any single recommendation it would be “more of that” :). Otherwise, continue sharing multiple perspectives, especially from the practitioners perspective. We need more of us to contribute, and avenues like testing Circus make that possible. Encourage more practitioners to contribute their expertise, and keep encouraging all of us to “up our game”.

Blog/Site – http://mkltesthead.com
Twitter ID – @mkltesthead

 

https://i0.wp.com/www.testingcircus.com/wp-content/uploads/Interview-with-Michael-Larsen.png?fit=450%2C337&ssl=1https://i0.wp.com/www.testingcircus.com/wp-content/uploads/Interview-with-Michael-Larsen.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1Testing CircusInterview with TestersInterview with TestersMichael Larsen Organization: Socialtext Current Role/Designation – Senior Software QA Engineer Location – Palo Alto, CA, USA Michael Larsen has been proud of the fact that he has made a living, and a life, of taking opportunities that come at unusual angles. Described by many as a whirlwind of enthusiasm, cheerfulness and a...