The results and finished analysis will be published in the Skills issue. We’d really appreciate your support in making sure this reaches as many folk as possible, so please share/[re-]tweet/+1 to all your friends!

Don’t forget you can submit an article to The Testing Planet too. You might need some writing skills and you have until May 31st.

(It’s a 6.1 MB file. Contains PDF, epub and mobi files).

You’re probably well read with a wide range of interests. You follow current developments in your field, but you’re not constrained by them. You understand that innovation is a function of cross-pollinated ideas, and to that end are constantly seeking out new, lost or forgotten knowledge that might be applicable in your work.

You are enthusiastic, dedicated and articulate. Above all you have a passion for sharing what you’ve learned. You’ve come to realise that the best way to learn is to teach.

Sounds like you? If so, we have the perfect opportunity.

The next issue of The Testing Planet is all about skills. We want you to share what tools, techniques, approaches and heuristics are working for you. Maybe you think there is a growing need for an under-utilised skillet. Perhaps you’ve identified something entirely new. Whichever – we want to hear about it.

Please apply for the role of Testing Planet Article Author here. Deadline for applications is May 31st.

Here’s his response:

I am still figuring it out. And I think even if I make VP (and yes Microsoft is one of the few tech companies to have software quality folks at VP level positions) then I will still be figuring it out.

As I look back at each stage in my career I can reflect on different things I learned and did to gain respect in technical or people leadership. And also quite a few things I failed to do or did poorly that lost respect.

In the very early days, as an individual contributor and newbie to the software quality field, the most important thing was doing the task in front of you and doing it well. Now this is always going to be important at all levels, but back then it was not only necessary, but nearly sufficient for success. In those days I recall a development manager joking in a release meeting that the only way they were going to ship was if they sent me on a vacation so I would stop finding bugs. Back then it was a source of pride (well, and still is) but now I know that was a sign of a troubled development process lacking quality. My merely continuing to break their stuff was fun, but insufficient to produce a quality product.

Later as a people manager, having both recalled my own experience and seen others’ experiences of being randomized by disparate requests and the “emergency” of the day, decided that I would protect my group at all costs. I ran those “trains” on time, product launched when it was supposed to, and my team was generally happy. But many of my peers and some of my management not so much. After hearing “no” from me so many times I was thought of as a pessimist…certainly not a leadership trait. So it took years but I learned that leadership is both getting involved and involving other people.. using the many layers of the team (across, up and down, across groups) to deliver the right product.

Now I find myself at a stage in my career where I am afforded the honor of teaching and sharing practices across Microsoft and across the industry. If I can change things for the better for a few folks, then I consider this good leadership. But as always, the next thing to learn about leadership will be just around the corner.

Seth Eliot is Senior Knowledge Engineer for Microsoft Test Excellence focusing on driving best practices for services and cloud development and testing across the company. He previously was Senior Test Manager, most recently for the team solving exabyte storage and data processing challenges for Bing, and before that enabling developers to innovate by testing new ideas quickly with users “in production” with the Microsoft Experimentation Platform (http://exp-platform.com). Testing in Production (TiP), software processes, cloud computing, and other topics are ruminated upon at Seth’s blog at http://bit.ly/seth_qa and on Twitter (@setheliot). Prior to Microsoft, Seth applied his experience at delivering high quality software services at Amazon.com where he led the Digital QA team to release Amazon MP3 download, Amazon Instant Video Streaming, and Kindle Services.

Here’s his response:

Being an introvert, my preferences early went for things I can do quite easily. That includes writing, reading, and bringing my thoughts down for others to read as in blogs, articles, and occasionally even books.

That said, I started early to read a lot of blogs, read a lot of mailing lists, and over time contributing to the larger community. Over time I digested most of the thoughts of other thought-leaders, and continued to work on my own knowledge whenever possible.

In early 2009, Brian Marick wrote two blog entries on getting invited to speak. (http://www.exampler.com/blog/2009/02/04/getting-invited-to-speak-part-1/, http://www.exampler.com/blog/2009/02/05/getting-invited-to-speak-part-2/) Those two inspired me on one hand, though “repeating what others say” still feels wrong – at least for me.

I think the biggest boost was finding a mentor in Matt Heusser, and challenging each other over Skype and mail on various testing topics. A lot of the discussions we had, and still have, inspired a lot of great blog entries, articles, and sometimes even book ideas.

Finally, on a more abstract level, I think you have to try different things, see what works best for you, what provides you with energy to keep going, and do just that. Find out what you can do very well, and do just that. Over time people will start to follow.

Markus Gärtner works as a testing programmer, trainer, coach, and consultant with it-agile GmbH, Hamburg, Germany. Markus, author of ATDD by Example – A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development, a student of the work of Jerry Weinberg, founded the German Agile Testing and Exploratory workshop in 2011. He is a black-belt instructor in the Miagi-Do school of Software Testing and contributes to the Softwerkskammer, the Germany Software Craftsmanship movement. Markus regularly presents at Agile and testing conferences all over the globe, as well as dedicating himself to writing about testing, foremost in an Agile context. He maintains a personal blog at http://www.shino.de/blog. He teaches ATDD and context-driven testing to customers in the Agile world. He has taught ATDD to testers with a non-technical background, and he has test-infected programmers in several domains.

Here’s his response:

I’m not sure I am a leader, at least I’ve never thought of myself that way.

Sometimes I see things that are missing/decisions need to be made/something needs to be said/something needs to be done and I used to wait for somebody else to do it.

In some cases I waited for a very long time for things to happen and in a lot of cases nothing happened.

Don’t wait. Go for it, do it yourself. Don’t constrain yourself, there a plenty of people around who will try do that for you.

Seth Godin wrote a book about getting started and doing things. If you’re umming and arring about anything it’s worth a read.

One of the things that got me moving is perspective on fear and embarrassment. I take the view that there are apparently over 7 billion people in the world. I am one.

A lot of those people do not have pleasant lives. They live in fear and have problems that I will never be able to wrap my head and would never be able to handle.

I am very fortunate, I have the basics like clean water and much much more.

If my biggest fear is embarrassing myself through things like speaking out and I let the fear of embarrassment stop me then I am a idiot and need to realise how lucky I am.

We all have something to offer and share and we call help others so offer, share and help where you can.

Tony Bruce is a professional, experienced, constantly learning, coaching and teaching agile team member who specialises in Testing and people. He has worked in various industries with organisations such as Channel 4, Ernst & Young, LMAX and The Children’s Society. He is an active member of the Testing community, he hosts the London Tester Gathering and speaks at conferences all over the world. And in case his accent has you confused, it’s 1-part Aussie, 1-part English and 1-part American.

Here’s his response:

The short answer is one word; necessity.

There’s a bit of a self-perpetuating prophecy with leadership. Leaders (or would-be leaders) tend to see well beyond the immediate tasks at hand and see a roadmap of a variety of tasks beyond the immediate needs. With this vision comes the burden of having more work to do than can be accomplished by yourself. At this point, you can either _expect_ people to help you achieve your vision, or you can get them to _want_ to help you. To become a leader, I learned to make the latter choice work.

There’s a Dwight Eisenhower quote where he says:
“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

In my job, I don’t manage anyone. But I try to be a leader for my entire organization and for groups and people spanning the company and industry. My role is to figure out what needs to get done, and ensure that it gets done by team members who want to get the same things done.

I enjoy this aspect of my job, and leadership (or my best attempt at it) is necessary in order to be successful and make progress.

Alan Page is currently a Principal SDET (yet another fancy name for tester) on the Xbox console team at Microsoft, Alan has previously worked on a variety of Microsoft products including Windows, Windows CE, Internet Explorer, and Office Lync. He also spent some time as Microsoft’s Director of Test Excellence where he developed and ran technical training programs for testers across the company.

Alan is edging up on his 20^th anniversary of being a software tester. He was the lead author on the book How We Test Software at Microsoft, contributed chapters for Beautiful Testing (Adam Goucher/Tim Riley) on large-scale test automation and Experiences of Test Automation: Case Studies of Software Test Automation  (Dorothy Graham/Mark Fewster). You can follow him on his blog (http://angryweasel.com/blog) or on twitter (@alanpage).

Here’s his response:

People made me a leader – they nominated me internally when I worked in an organization. They asked me to lead and to help with strategy on projects, to help adapt processes and develop policy, and asked me to speak up on ethical issues. I didn’t just talk, but I worked hard so that my work could stand up to scrutiny. I also worked to improve my skills, constantly. I still do today.

That internal, project experience resonated with leaders in the public space, who asked me to share my experiences at conferences and in articles. Early on, they even offered to collaborate with me, which was a huge credibility boost. Once I started sharing publicly, people came up to me with questions and asked for advice, or simply to brainstorm with me as they were facing problems in their own organizations. I did consulting work – short-term and on projects for a while. Again, I poured a lot of effort into my work, and let my work do the talking for me. As much as I could, I channeled my ideas into action. Then I was asked to teach.

As a trainer, I studied adult education and instructional design theory. I spent time with other trainers and learned how to teach someone else’s curriculum. Eventually, I developed my own from scratch, and I tried to do better each time. Was my work helping? Did I learn from mistakes, and more importantly, from the people who were asking me to lead them? Was I providing what they needed, not just what they asked for?

I was then asked to advise local startups. Could I bring my education, experience and expertise to the table to help them as they planned to raise money, to create product lines and to organize and co-ordinate their efforts?

Now, I have a mix of leadership responsibilities. There is the public side of my career – writing, and speaking, and training. There is the confidential, short-term consulting work which is high pressure, but also highly rewarding. There is the mentoring and the hands-on project work. Different people in different roles, different organizations and different parts of the world have different expectations. The demands can be difficult, and I have to work hard to learn new skills and be consistent in how I work. However, there is enormous joy that I feel through vicarious pride. When someone I have helped succeeds because I took the time to help them, it makes it all worthwhile.

Leadership is a responsibility I take very seriously, and it weighs heavily on me. Everything I say or put into the public space has a potential impact, and that can be good or bad. I take it very seriously. As long as people put me in that position, and I feel capable and qualified, I will do my best to lead with them. When they revoke it, it will be time for me to do something else.