It’s This Time of the Year 2013

Since I have the tendency to forget the good and remember the bad, this blog post serves as a future reminder about things that I should be proud of.

Events and such

Let’s Test conference – it inspired and “rehydrated” me in significant ways. Without it, I know I wouldn’t really be where I am now.

BBST 2.0 – I actually did it. I’m still kind of baffled about it but hey, I’ve got proof! I know I need to go back to some of the stuff we covered but I plan on doing this in 2014.

Speaking at Nordic Testing Days – here I’d like to borrow a saying. Proud but not satisfied is what I am. This characterizes me sentiment best.

Interviewing James Bach and Michael Bolton with Simon Knight – a very entertaining and rewarding experience. I wish I could have gone one for a few more hours but well…

Coaching Testers with James Bach and Ann-Marie Charrett – a genuine learning experience topped off by awesome location (Brighton – I’m coming back to you next year!).

Taking a break – well, I’m the kind who takes a break when my body physycially “yells” at me that I should stop (meaning I have low fever which doesn’t go away and I feel like a zombie). So I took this yelling seriously and decided to take a break. After finishing BBST I went traveling (planned not spontaneous). And since then I haven’t really kept track of blogs, or articles or Twitter. I’ve been tweeting some but I’m not pushing myself.

Transpection Tuesdays – my weekly dose of sanity checking and inspiration.

Sketchnoting – not an event but I’m glad I discovered it.

Work

Risk reporting is probably the single most important thing I did. I do have a draft post that I’ve been fidgeting with but haven’t posted yet about what has happened since I started with risk reporting. I promise I’m going to publish it and I hope it’s going to be an interesting read.

People

Erik Brickarp – probably the single biggest influence on my testing life this year.

Huib Schoots – thank you for telling me I’m not crazy (or something along those lines).

Scott Barber who posted the most awesome and inspiring comment on my blog.

And a bunch of others from Twitter and elsewhere (new and old acquainances) that have greatly contributed to my wellbeing with their mere existence (and some kind words) 🙂 I won’t try to list the names for the fear of leaving some people out… this would be worse for me at least.

Things I wished I’d done

Read more books/articles – however, I’m tempted to ask why do I think it’s so necessary to read more. I should figure that out in 2014.

Learn more programming – same as above but I still want to learn more. Maybe next year.

Less obsession over obstacles/bad people – I think I’ve been quite patient with a number of people/issues in our company that have to do with how testing is or isn’t included/regarded. It’s hard for me to tell, though, if my patience is wearing out with trying to get the Titanic on the right track or am I just paying too much attention to things I should shrug off. In any case, this year did have some very tough moments emotionally when I doubted if I’m the right person to be doing what I’m doing or if what I’m doing is the right thing or if I’m at the right place. I’m wired to get my motivation from seeing progress, so if I don’t see it and I feel others drifting back into bad patterns (which pretty much tells me that what I do doesn’t matter), then this is the sure way to kill my spirit. I think I should reframe it better, not think about it too much and talk a walk on the bright side (which is difficult because of my ambivalent brain). End rant.

Lessons learned

Focus! Focus! Focus! Do less, think more, then do even less. I think this is one of the major lessons of 2013. I used to be better at focusing but then the context was different. I feel like my brain has overload most of the time which makes me forget a lot. I mean A LOT. It’s somewhat disturbing as I wasn’t this way before. Still have to figure out what to do about it.

Stuff to look forward to in 2014

Some events: Copenhagen Context and TestBash.  I hope to be able to go to Let’s Test. I’m dreaming of CAST…

I’m on the content team for Nordic Testing Days 2014, so I’m looking forward to that experience (the good, the bad, the exciting…). And I’m looking forward to awesome workshop and track proposals!

Learning from my mistakes and improving myself as a tester and test lead. I have a mental list (which I should write down lest I forget) of things I need to consistently work on, so we’ll see if I can keep at it.

Inspiration. I hope I can keep finding it (or else I’m doomed). If I say this… does this actually mean I need to change something in my testing life? Not sure…

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If there was something else… I may add it later but this is what I could gather from the scorched field that is my memory if 2013.