Testing Smarter with Matt Heusser

This interview with Matt Heusser is part of the Hexawise “Testing Smarter with…” software testing interview series. Our goal with these interviews is to highlight insights and experiences as told by many of the software testing field’s leading thinkers.

Matt Heusser is a software craftsman with a deep background in software delivery and testing. In 2014, Matt received the Most Influential Agile-Test Professional Award at Agile Testing Days in Potsdam, Germany.

Read the full interview here: Testing Smarter with Matt Heusser

Excerpts from the Interview:

Hexawise: If you could write a letter and send it back in time to yourself when you were first getting into software testing, what advice would you include in it?

Matt: My advice would be to trust your instincts and experiences more than what you read in books or online. Often the advice I read in books and online seemed vapid (shallow), or simplistic, or I felt it "just wouldn't work here." Eventually I realized that a lot of it (this was the testing advice of the 1990's) wasn't working well most places.

Today we have better advice. The time from research to publish is short, and there is a lot less "loss" in the system. Still, what works for Google and Microsoft might not work for your 20 person company, and what works for that cool, 100% physically distributed, 40 person software company might not work for your 2,000 employee insurance company. Take it with a grain of salt, trust your instincts - but always keep exploring and experimenting.

Hexawise: You have spoken at many conferences. What advice do you have for people attending software conferences so that they can get more out of the experience?

Matt: Try to come up with three things to do on Monday that justify the investment. These things should be entirely within your power to do. They should not require training, a team-level change in process, particular learning time, purchase of tools or hiring of consultants. Things you can just do - that you will not ask permission for (your boss probably doesn't know what you do anyway).

Then do it and tell the team about it. If you want to write a trip report, it should be a one-pager, and describe what you are doing, not what you heard.

Hexawise: We share an interest in seeing lean thinking concepts be adopted by software testers. How would you suggest someone interested in learning more about lean thinking in software testing do so?

Matt: You could try a Google search for "heusser lean" and see what it returns, seriously I've written a lot. Here are two older articles that I think cover the start of it. Applying Lean Concepts to Software Testing and The Secrets of Successful Lean Software Testing.

Read the full interview here: Testing Smarter with Matt Heusser

Read previous interviews: 

1. Testing Smarter at StarEAST
2. Testing Smarter with Ajay Balamurugadas
3. Testing Smarter with Hans Buwalda
4. Testing Smarter with Rikard Edgren
5. Testing Smarter with Michael Bolton
6. Testing Smarter with Mike Bland
7. Testing Smarter with Alan Page
8. Testing Smarter with Dorothy Graham
9. Testing Smarter with James Bach