Episode 5
· 45:25
Vernon (00:00)
Greetings and welcome to the latest episode of the Vernon Richard Show, your fortnightly podcast where we talk about software testing and other related random nonsense. I'm Vernon.
Richard (00:15)
And I'm Richard. Hello everyone.
Vernon (00:18)
And this week is gonna be a little bit different than the other sessions, isn't it? Because you put out a call for questions, didn't you? On LinkedIn.
Richard (00:27)
I did, I've been inspired by the Rest is Football podcast where they do like ad hoc bonus AMA episodes. And I thought it would be quite good fun to answer some of them and they will shape the conversation for us. And it's a good way for the audience to get involved and influence, you know, future episodes.
Vernon (00:47)
Yeah, so thank you to everyone who responded to the call for questions, whether that was on LinkedIn or whether you listened to the episode where we asked the questions. We've got some fantastic questions. The trick now is going to be, do we have some fantastic answers? We'll let you be the judge of that, I suppose.
Richard (00:59)
We do.
No football questions, which is good though, for the people who, you know, don't want any of any football banter. No football questions.
Vernon (01:12)
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say thank you for the questions, but also thank you for the feedback. Got some really good feedback. Hopefully you're still with us, because I think there was a bit of football in the episode before this one. So I hope you've come back. Biggest crust, you're still.
Richard (01:24)
That was a little bit.
We will make effort to keep the balance. There definitely will still be football banter, there's football banter happening right now, but we'll keep it tight. Right, first question then, Vernon. Do you want to start? Do you want to go first or second? We'll answer both ourselves, but in terms of reading the questions.
Vernon (01:40)
Mm. Yeah, man.
I don't mind. Okay, so the first question is from, I hope I've got your name right, Joëlle Burkhardt So if I mispronounced that, forgive me. Joëlle asks, what would you do if you weren't in software testing? So what would you do if you weren't in software testing? Richie Rich?
Richard (02:07)
Two things come to mind. So there was one, one that I wanted to do, which was, I wanted to be a pilot. There's a Concorde right behind me. so I wanted to be a pilot. I couldn't be a pilot because of, these, well, not these, because of the thing behind these, my eyesight. So my eyesight wasn't good enough to be a pilot. I then tried to go into, mechanical.
Vernon (02:21)
makes perfect sense.
Hmm.
Richard (02:37)
aviation engineering, basically, and the placement year, which didn't quite, didn't work out either. And then I went into computing. So I think a pilot was kind of the dream as a kid. If it wasn't in computing, I'd probably be a developer would be my guess if I was any other role within software. I do still very much enjoy coding. And then outside of that, if I was following my like parents, like mom, yeah, like teaching or.
DIY builder building, like something really hands on. Like I've done, done a few, I've done a lot of DIY and I've done a lot of like large scale landscape. Well, I say a lot of them, one very large scale landscaping project. yeah, so I really, I love the, I, yeah, I kind of feel like it would be something really hands on. Like I do love the physical activity of doing like, you know, a non desk job where you're like, your feet are on fire and your hands are ripped to shreds at the end of the day. Like there's something.
It's very satisfying about that kind of work, but then doing that all year long. I don't know. I don't know about that. How about you?
Vernon (03:42)
Well.
When I was younger, my plan was to be a football playing, hip hop emceeing.
video game designing astronaut and.
Richard (04:05)
One of them, just one on their own, not good enough. You need all four to be fulfilled.
Vernon (04:05)
I think, I think I'm.
Why am I doing one? Like I'm doing all of the things that are awesome. So that was my plan was to do all of those things. So the hip hop MCing, the closest I got for that is I've got a load of friends who are DJs and MCs and producers. So they've made tracks. And the closest I got to that was one night, a friend of mine, shout out to you Kid Fresh.
Friend of mine, he DJs out in Ibiza all the time now. But when we were at uni age, he was DJing in this club at a uni night. And he was digging, so I just went with him and he was digging around in the crates with some tunes and just like gave me the mic. And I just started, I just started MCing. It was so, man, it was so good. It was so good.
Richard (04:42)
Thanks for watching!
This is why you love MC and IC, and this is where all the dancing comes from at these conferences. It makes sense now.
Vernon (05:05)
It was too good. I got such, man, I was buzzing. I got like, it was such a infinitesimally small whiff of a shadow of a sniff of what it's like to be famous. That shit is like crack cocaine. I can see why all these Hollywood people are bonkers because that stuff is, was very addictive. All the, you know, all the adulation at the end of the night was incredible.
I half designed a board game, a football board game. So I sort of have scratched that itch. It's something I'd like to go back to. I haven't got anywhere close to football, sadly, although I did work at Leicester football club for a little while. So that was nice. I'd see some famous footballers back in the day.
Richard (05:37)
Okay.
I worked at Sheff United Football Club for several years. Yeah, I met Pele at Sheff United Football Club. Yeah, because it's the oldest club in the world, they did their 150th anniversary, whatever it was, and Pele was the guest of honour. And he came walking through the ticket office one day. So he stopped to say hello to us all. Yeah, pretty cool. Right.
Vernon (05:58)
Is he?
What?
What? Amazing. So yeah, and then astronaut, I've gotten nowhere near that. Nowhere near astronaut. Got nowhere near space.
Richard (06:24)
yeah. Pitching an astronaut trying to do keep you up is in space. Like you'd, you can only do one, right? That's it. That's all you can do. Right. Let's jump on to the next question. The next question is from James Thomas. You have to summarize what a tester's primary mission for a team is in a snappy one -liner.
Vernon (06:35)
Yeah.
Richard (06:51)
that can be applied across many contexts. What is your one -liner?
Vernon (06:56)
I think I'm basically just trying to make everybody awesome. That's it. James actually has a really good answer for this. I'm gonna dig it out while you're answering. But that's my answer. It's like, I'm just trying to make everyone on my team look awesome.
Richard (07:01)
Interesting. Okay.
I am more of a, I feel like my answer, whenever I think about testing these days, I always fall back to information. So I feel like my job is to help the team get the information they're looking for as quickly as possible. So whether that is this going to, is this fix going to work? Does that fix work? Is this feature working? Do we think this is a good direction to go in? I'm like thinking what information can I bring to the table to help the team make a decision?
and to help us keep moving forward. So I think for me, that's my main goal is to help us like, you know, unveil that information, especially when it, when we see the word tester, that's what I always go to. I think slightly differently with the quality engineering side of it. Cause then I think I care a little bit more about how that information is being used. But when I stick just my tester hat on as per the question, yeah, it's about helping the team get information as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Vernon (07:53)
Mm.
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Nice answer. James seems to have amazing answers to all the questions. He'd probably get sick of me bigging him up, but I just think he's that awesome. But his most recent blog post, this is how he answers the question. He says, I want to help whoever I'm working with build the best version of their thing, whatever best means for them, given the constraints they have.
Richard (08:42)
Oof. Nice.
Vernon (08:43)
definitely definitely want to check out a post because then he goes on to explain it in a little bit more detail. But that's it.
Richard (08:48)
It's in the show notes, right? Wherever the show notes go.
Vernon (08:54)
That's a good point. Please like, share, subscribe to YouTube. Share it with as many people as possible, because I want to be able to point to the thing, like I see all my favourite YouTubers do, point to whatever that thing is called. So yeah, thank you for that question, James. Very cool question. I think your answer was better than mine. It was very similar to Richard's.
Richard (08:57)
You
Vernon (09:16)
So this question is from AJ Wilson. Thank you AJ. So the question is, what advice would you give the version of yourself that was two years into software testing if you could? And what would all the wiser Richard advise new blood Richard?
Richard (09:31)
Ooh, we'll definitely replace Richard with a Richards as well. So you can answer, you can answer as well. trying to think two years into my career was what? So 20, 2009, 2008. I think at that time I hadn't made the connection with manual slash test cases and exploratory testing. And I hadn't made a connection where.
Vernon (09:39)
You
Hmm.
Richard (10:02)
I realized that most of the bugs I was finding were coming from me and not from the instructions or test case steps that I was following. And I think if I was more aware of that ability or that, you know, the heuristics, oracles, you know, exploratory testing charters, like the, or even just the models that I was obviously clearly applying in my head as I was following these scripts.
I think I would definitely go back and encourage them to be more aware that, you know, these are just instructions and I promise you right now, Richard, two years into your career, you are not following those instructions. You think you're following them, but you are not, right? You are absolutely checking a thousand and one things, not just that one thing that that little box at the bottom says.
Vernon (10:41)
Yeah.
Richard (10:52)
And you're also, you know, you're, you've, your mind's filling with questions as you're following these steps and you're, you're going to go and find answers for them. So yeah, I'll be definitely the, you know, test cases and they're not bad. I'm not saying they're a bad thing, but making me two years into my career, realize that they're just guiding me. And with that guidance, I could have better shared the work I was doing and the value I was adding instead of just ticking boxes on the test case.
Vernon (10:52)
Thank you.
Amazing, amazing answer, love that. What advice would I give myself that was two years into software testing? I think for me,
So I had the complete and auto opposite experience to what you just described. When I think about two years into testing, when or Richards, I should say, because I was a games tester. I started my first testing role was games testing. And that's all explore. Like the whole thing is explored. The closest you get to something that might look like a test case is a checklist. And it was all about like,
Richard (11:53)
Yeah.
Vernon (12:04)
Anyone who's played games or anyone who builds games knows that gamers are nefarious bastards. Like they'll just look for any rule to exploit. They'll find a bug in your thing. They are mean. So it was, that was cool. So the thing I would, the thing I would, I would have the opposite lesson. I'd say it would be more around.
It's actually kind of the same thing. It's like get serious. Like this is serious. Like you're doing some cool stuff. So you aren't just playing video games all day. You are using a lot of skills and heuristics and you're using your curiosity. You're using your communication. You're using your technical skills because you're turning on debug mode on these consoles and you're, you know.
Richard (12:40)
I see.
Vernon (12:56)
In those days, I didn't really know anywhere near as much about computers as I do, like the actual hardware, as I did after I'd done that job. And so that, you know, I was learning how to install stuff and uninstall stuff. And if the drivers needs update and all this kind of crap, these are all things I never did before that job. So I'd say, look man, get serious. Like you are learning a lot. So go and see what you can do outside of games, because games...
Richard (13:02)
Yeah.
Vernon (13:24)
So especially in those days, it's not going to pay the bills then like you can save yourself at least 18 months. Go and do that.
Richard (13:35)
I like it. So the main one there then would be that you were doing really good work, but like a lack of awareness that why you were doing such good work and then maybe formalizing that into something that could be a bit more useful for you and others.
Vernon (13:46)
Yeah. Ames testers are absolutely incredible testers. I'd say, and obviously I'm biased because I've done these roles, but tech support and games testers, my God, like.
Richard (13:52)
Alright.
Yeah, especially the tech support people that are allowed to, you know, debug a little bit and, you know, try and, you know, when you've got the multiple layers of it and some of them actually do get, you know, to do some debugging and some, you know, they, they gather information real quickly.
Vernon (14:16)
But do you know what it is? It's the, it's the, they are at the co face. They are the first people who are going to get told when it doesn't work by actual customers. And those customers are going to be pissed.
Richard (14:22)
Yeah.
And the impact, we mentioned... Yes. So we were talking in the episode that's hopefully out by the time this one's out, right? We were talking about the impact. So they get to hear that impact, don't they? They get to... They can hear it in their voice, they can hear it in their tone, they can hear the actual, you know, the impact verbally or the same, so...
Vernon (14:33)
job is.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
straight straight from the horse's mouth man it's crazy. So if you've got tech support, customer success, whatever they're called in your business, you need to go make friends with those people because they've got so much Intel it's unreal. It is absolutely incredible. Yeah. Thanks for the question.
Richard (14:51)
Nice.
Perfect right. Next question from Mark Gillott. Why is pineapple on a pizza still not illegal? What's your stance on this for and for or against?
Vernon (15:15)
my god.
Mark you are man I miss you man Mark Gillett absolute I think it's Gillett it's Gillett right let me know Mark I think it's Gillett anyway why is pineapple on pizza still not illegal I do not know as we're recording this a general election has been announced in the UK and I am going to be asking my local MP why it's not illegal because it needs to be it's an outrage and it's an absolute disgrace we need to remove this abomination from all menus everywhere certainly in the UK.
Richard (15:27)
Is it Gillett? I don't know.
Vernon (15:50)
at least in Leicester and that's where I'm going to be onto my MP and sort out amongst all the horrors of anyway let's not get political. Yeah I
Richard (15:59)
And if you share the same views, if you share the same views as Vernon, Vernon will publish his letter for you to download and copy and sign and send it to your own MP.
Vernon (16:08)
Yeah, you know what, it's one of those polarizing topics isn't it? I'm definitely team no pineapple on pizza. It's outrageous. What about you, Rich?
Richard (16:15)
Yeah. So what does that translate to in the UK election now? Let's not go there. So I'm known for being very much against pineapple on a pizza, but like, so yeah, I don't know why it's not illegal. It should be, but then also it got me thinking about context just to bring it back into the world of testing a little bit. It pretty much is illegal in Italy. It might not be, you know,
Vernon (16:22)
there. my god.
Mm -hmm.
Richard (16:43)
in the book illegal right but it's you'd be pretty i don't know that there'd be a lot of places that would be at pretty badly like so
Vernon (16:52)
there would be you would lose a lot of social capital if you even ask the question. It's funny how that stuff works. So back in my first testing job, I worked with that team. I'm still friends with a lot of them now. They're all amazing. And one of them, Salou Monomy, my friend Olivier, Olivier Bernal, my God.
I remember we went to eat lunch one lunchtime. He's French. So they've asked, I've ordered, you probably see where this is going. I've ordered steak. They've asked me how I would like the steak. And I said, well done. I thought I was going to be killed.
Richard (17:36)
So thank you for listening everybody. That's the end of today's question episode. Well done. What a waste.
Vernon (17:43)
man. All the I thought all he killed me bro like he was living like he's like what are you doing? So yeah.
Richard (17:52)
Is that why you're a vegan now? Is that what happened? You got banned from...
Vernon (17:58)
No, no, it's not why I'm vegan. It's not why I'm vegan. But yeah, I'm definitely team no pineapple. Please let us know which team you are, whether you're team.
Richard (18:00)
Okay.
And in the comments as well now, like if you know, if you win the comments, are your team, team well done, team medium, team rare, team blue? Team blue as in steak, no, let's not get into football. All right, next question.
Vernon (18:14)
Mm -hmm.
Let's not get into football. next question is from Lee Rathbone. So Lee's got a really, this question is awesome. So what do you prefer being a trainer, brackets, providing instruction and direction, close brackets, a mentor, a consultant or a coach? So what do you prefer being a trainer, a mentor, a consultant or a coach?
Richard (18:22)
You
See, I think it's a tricky question because for me, a very good consultant probably wears all three of those hats. At this, you know, in an engagement, right? You're going to be switching between those hats. If my preference right now, where I currently am right now, I'd probably go with, if I'm going to rank them.
Probably consultant trainer coach mentor is my current, my current thinking at this moment in time. I very much want to be hands on. I'm very, I'm being back in an active, you know, QE role and really enjoying the hands on aspects and learning a lot of new tech. Like I've the time this will go out. I've been sharing on LinkedIn about having to deal with Salesforce and like getting my hands dirty with Salesforce. I'm learning stuff in AWS step functions, lambdas.
Vernon (19:31)
I almost saw that. Yeah.
Richard (19:38)
There's tons of third party payment gateways I'm dealing with. Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of very interesting tech that I'm getting to play with. And I think I'm enjoying that hands -on side of it. And at the same time, I'm also consulting with the client. So the client have their own internal QA team and, you know, we're working together to, you know, bring them into a place where.
Vernon (19:54)
Mm -hmm.
Richard (20:03)
You know, we leave, right? You always say the best thing of a consult, the main goal of a consultant is to not be there, right? I want to do myself out of the job. So to do myself out of a job, I need to coach them and mentor them and train them to, you know, help them get to a point where I'm not needed. And even though that's like, I'm not needed. It's like, actually, no, that's a win. That is, that is the goal. So yeah, that's probably my, at the moment, I would say, yeah, consultant still absolutely love training.
and then yeah, coach, mentor. How about yourself?
Vernon (20:38)
The answer for me is yes.
Richard (20:40)
Next question.
Vernon (20:42)
I like all of those things. Yeah, next question please. I probably zero surprised anybody. Coach is probably first for me. I'd probably say coach, mentor, consultant, trainer, but similar to Rich, it's not, you know, you probably flow through all of these different positions and spaces and perspectives, you know.
in any given day for sure, certainly in any given week and absolutely in any given month and beyond. But I'm definitely since 2020 kind of time.
I've been really trying to use my coaching skills first and foremost, definitely bias towards those. Well, at least yeah, coaching behaviors maybe.
Richard (21:37)
Really good question though. It's got me thinking that, like I said, the immediate time I read it, like you, you know, we had a quick look at these questions off air and you were like, my answer is yes. And I was like, my answer is also pretty much yes, but like, I probably do have like at the moment in time of preference. I have, you know, I've had daydreams of like, you know, wanting to be a full -time trainer, you know, go back into that space, but it's a lot of work. It's a lot of traveling. You know, it's, you know, you don't have to do those things, but.
Vernon (21:40)
Yeah.
Richard (22:07)
like usually. Go on.
Vernon (22:07)
I'll say not necessarily Richard.
Richard (22:12)
Not necessarily, no, but, but yeah, at the moment I'm enjoying the fact that I'm in this, like I actually am in a, you know, a true consultancy role where I get, I do get to wear all those hats and like this great question. Cause it's made me realize when I've been switching between them in the recent weeks as well. So yeah. Right. Next question is from Deb Sherwood. What does quality mean for you?
Vernon (22:28)
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks Lee. Cheers.
yeah, I immediately invoke the legend Jerry Weinberg at this point, like quality is value to some person. I really like that because it just gets me thinking what kind of value to what kind of person, you know, in which kind of situation. You know, it's not just that.
different people value different things. It's like individuals value different things at different times, at different moments. So it really gets you thinking. So I really like that. There are a bunch of other ones. I need to have more definitions of quality. So if you're out there and you've got some different definitions of quality to Jerry's, as awesome as it is, please throw those into the comments section somewhere.
because I keep hearing them and I never write them down. There are some good ones out there. But that's the one that sticks because it's the one that I probably like the most.
Richard (23:47)
I have a memory, I have a weird memory. But... Yeah, Joep Joep, I can never get his, you'd always surname better than I do. Joep, shh, shh, yeah that one, yeah that guy.
Vernon (23:57)
If he's listening, he's now got his head in his hands like Vans butchered it yet again.
Richard (24:05)
Yeah, I think he did a series of blog posts. I've just had a very quick Google for one and I can see that there's already a few definitions of quality on his blog. But yeah, I agree with Vernon, anyone out there that's got some definitions to share. I'd love to hear them. I also immediately go straight to Jerry's, you know, value to some person. But I think if I was going to answer that for me, obviously it depends what it is, you know, for talking about software, then, you know, it's...
doing what it's meant to do. You know, it's like first and foremost, like doing that in a, you know, a responsive, efficient, you know, pretty nice fast way. Then you could obviously then bring in the, it looks nice and the UX and it's accessible. Like you could go quite far, but if I thought in general, like I am just such a functional person that I just need, I just want things to be functional. Like I don't really mind how they look.
or what, you know, things like that, like clothes, for example, they're very functional to me. I might slightly higher quality than, you know, buying all my t -shirts from, I don't know, two pound t -shirts or whatever. Right. And then, you know, I, but I'm not in the space of buying, you know, cashmere t -shirt. I don't even know what a good fabric would be like silk t -shirts. Right. I'm not in that space. I'm at the, I'm above 60 % polyester. I'm probably on the 80 % polyester, 20 % cotton.
Vernon (25:07)
Mm -hmm.
Richard (25:32)
kind of space. But like that's my current view of quality, right? It's got to do what it does. And then I'm at the next one or two tiers up above like, you know, basic, basic, but I'm no way near the, you know, the premium models of, you know, devices and gadgets of the world and stuff like that.
Vernon (25:32)
Hehehehehe
Well, I just, sad times for me. You've just got me thinking, so, you know.
I got myself a new car in...
January, no January, got a new car in January. And so the old car has been sat on the drive up until tonight, literally right before we started recording this podcast.
Richard (26:16)
It literally was, yeah.
Vernon (26:19)
they came to collect the car and I was gutted So the new car is new. I've had my old car is old. Like it is, the car is 15 years old and I've had it for 12 of those 15 years. So my car is like,
going from a car that you bought off Fred Flintstone from Bedrock, from the Flintstones, going into the Starship Enterprise. Like the car pretty much drives itself. And yet I want my old car. So as I was driving away with the old cars, like, man, cause there was a functional side, like you were talking about Rich, but there was all this emotion. There was all these experiences that I had in that car. And...
My wife was asking me like, why are you so attached to this car? Like, it's just like, you've got, you've, you've sold other cars before. Why are you so, I was like, well, I didn't, I didn't choose to get rid of this car. I would have kept this car. If I hadn't started to go wrong a bit, I probably would have still been driving it now. I loved it. I didn't want a new car. I didn't want a self -driving car. This, this, that was my car. You know, I had that car when my daughter was born.
Richard (27:29)
Yeah.
Vernon (27:34)
The first time I drove up to Scotland, which is still the most incredible drive I've ever done in my entire life up until this point. Beautiful with my son was in that car. You know, all the just man, man, emotion. So it's not functional qualities. There's other qualities. They've got nothing to do with how well it works. Literally, my car is broken and I'm sad that it's gone. That doesn't make any sense.
Richard (27:48)
It's a, no, I honestly, I think that's a great, that's a great analogy. Yeah.
Vernon (28:04)
Show me.
Richard (28:04)
Yeah. You remind me of those stories you see all the time when like people have had to sell their cars for like, you know, financial reasons or whatever, and then they get them back later in life. And like, it means it's completely different. Like, you know, you, if you, if you got 10 people to look at that car with you, they're all going to be like, I don't want that car. And then you're like, this is the best car. Like, if I had all the money, I would get this car running again and it would be my car and I would keep it. All right. But obviously not the case.
Vernon (28:20)
Mm -hmm.
call.
Yeah? Yeah?
Sat time for me. Sat time.
Richard (28:34)
Five
Vernon (28:35)
so this is from Mark Tomlinson, Mr. T. So Mark asks to test or not to test.
Richard (28:46)
Is that the question? Hey! So, to test or not to test? That's the question.
That went straight over your head the first time, didn't it?
want to like, think it's like a noddy question, but actually is a genuinely good type of question. And the thing it gets me thinking about is, and it's going to go a little bit meta, but it is a meta question. Is there ever a situation where we don't test? Cause I'm not convinced there is because if the devs built it,
Vernon (29:16)
Mm -hmm.
Richard (29:25)
they've probably done some aspect to testing, but even before they built it, somebody probably reviewed a requirement or somebody else went, I think that's okay. I think that makes sense. Right. So maybe not, maybe a tester didn't test it, but is there ever a situation where not a single test has taken place at any point on the left to right software development lifecycle?
until the point it got to production. Is that even possible?
Vernon (29:58)
since you were going meta.
I was gonna say
Because there's other variable. So when
You know, you might, you might be, I was thinking of like old software on an old machine that you're about to throw in the bin. Now you're not gonna test that. Or maybe there's something that you're gonna decommission. So you're not gonna test the software. You might test something else related to that, but you wouldn't test the software itself. You're testing that it's been decommissioned. Cause there's an older, I say old.
The first software testing meetup I went to, James Back was there and he posed this question to the meetup which was.
You're carrying the calculator.
and you trip and it falls to the ground. How would you test if it's still working?
And then, you know, at some point, somebody will
where were you even going? Like why? I wouldn't test it. Maybe you were walking to the bin to throw it away. Like why are you even testing it? And that's what this question makes me think of. It's like, you can imagine quite a broad set of situations where you wouldn't need to test. Cause like, I don't care about testing this thing. I'm throwing it in the bin. Like things getting decommissioned. It's trash. We've upgraded it.
Richard (31:16)
Yeah.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Interesting. Yeah, I can see the angle you're going down. I think the first one, the decommissioned one, just got me thinking, how do you know it's been decommissioned? So how do you know that it's actually gone?
Vernon (31:34)
Got a new car. Doesn't matter if the old one doesn't work.
you're right. I think that's more a question of testing the platform or the infrastructure potentially than the software. Cause the software, do you know what I mean? There's a load of assumptions there. It's such a good question. Cause there's a load of assumptions that you have to like realize that you've made and articulate somehow to, it's a really good question. Very interesting.
Richard (31:59)
Okay.
I'm sorry.
That is a really good question, Mark. I don't know if we've answered it very well, but I know what you meant by sending us that question anyway, so...
Vernon (32:17)
That's it.
No, we haven't!
Well, how would you answer it, Mark? Clever clogs. How would you do it?
Richard (32:29)
Yeah, so anyone who's asked a question, we're going to tag you all and you've got to answer your own question as well.
Vernon (32:36)
Yeah, indeed. Yeah, good.
Richard (32:39)
Right, so I think we'll do, let's try just a couple more. So the next question is from Anna Roseman. Testing mindset, are you born with it?
Vernon (32:44)
Okay.
Are you asking me? I've got to go first. Okay. I think some people are and some people are not. And I think you can learn it. You can acquire it. You can adopt it. You can cultivate it. Nurture it like a child that grows and realizes its full potential. That's what I think. So you might be a natural.
Like I am with the football like Messi, you know, naturally talented and gifted. Just didn't get opportunity with Liverpool. I'm still available. Yeah. But some people can learn the skills or the mindset or cultivate that perspective. What do you reckon?
Richard (33:29)
DJing football astronaut.
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think, I don't know, being born with stuff always throws me into a space where I know I am not, I have no authority to answer those questions. Like, you know, people talk about, you know, genetics and all this stuff. And I know, I just know such a, what's the, I don't know what the phrase I want is, right. But I know so, so very little that I never would even talk with any authority on that topic. So can you be born with things? Yes or no? I don't know.
Vernon (34:11)
Mm -hmm.
Richard (34:13)
But I definitely with my little three year old that I've got now like Finlay, like I can see how you could encourage and nurture the curiosity side of life, right? I've
some parents like just like give answers, right? Just straight away. Whereas not saying I'm doing this intentionally, but perhaps it's because I'm also curious. There's been times where
encourage Finley to think about it himself and try and get into
point about, you know, get getting him to be a bit more specific
saying, you know, like, he loves these little magnet, magnet, magnet tiles that we have. And he's like, do you think we can build a boat? And I'm like, well, what do you think? You know, how are you going to try and start building a boat? Like,
of sometimes, and I would just build a boat for him and go, Hey, there you go. There's a boat. Right. As opposed to now it's kind of like, you know, where would the next piece go?
Vernon (35:01)
Yeah.
Richard (35:05)
Where would this piece go? And just trying to encourage that critical thinking side of things. So yeah, I agree with you. I think you can nurture it. I don't know about the being born with it stuff because they are my bit skeptical and I don't know enough about that space to learn. I think there's a lot of physical traits that you are definitely born with. Like, you know, there's a lot of, I think that side's been kind of heavily proven, but I'm not sure on the mindset. Obviously I do know evolutionally wise, right? We're born with a lot of, you know, instincts as we call them.
But I'm not sure like about the other side of it, but yeah, definitely, definitely can be nurtured. And like you said, it can definitely be taught now. and I think there's lots of big, great people out there already in this industry doing lots of great training on that very topic.
Vernon (35:35)
Mm -hmm.
Mm.
Nice. Yeah. I don't, cause I don't think, I don't know. I've always enjoyed understanding how things work and looking for connections between things. And that's, I think that's, I think that's helped me in my career. That definitely feels like it was a foundational part of my testing mindset.
What even is a test in mind? What do you think a testing mindset is?
Richard (36:19)
but yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm this very similar to you. I've always been curious about how things work. I think, yeah, how, how things hang together, how things are built, the process about building stuff lies always.
definitely curious about this stuff. And we mentioned it in a couple of pods ago, didn't we? In a, in the software space. Now my go -to is I can't work on this tech stack and this product until I have a better model in my head of how this thing is hanging together. Cause I don't want to treat it like a black box. It's so alien to me to treat it as a big black box and stuff going in and stuff coming out. Like makes me so uncomfortable.
Vernon (36:36)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard (36:59)
Like I need to know that there's not just an if statement in there that says if enter one return 10, right? I need to know that. All right. So like that, that desire to always want to know more and how things work. And as I said, I've not, I've never necessarily in like great depth, like, you know, in software, I want to go great depth, but just generally in life, it's kind of like, I've always got a little bit of curiosity about how things work, how they hang together. Like things that like, there's been other things that work recently, like policies around stuff. I'm like.
Vernon (37:24)
Mm.
Richard (37:28)
You ask your people leader, what's the policy? And they tell you, and my first reaction is always, why is it that? How did it get to that? And what was the journey? Like, you know, there's been things at lunch, like, you know, they do builders lunch and dojos and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, that looks great. Why do we have them? Who made them? When did they start? Right. It's like, you know, it can go too far, right? To the point where you just, you know, you're the, you're the five why person going around all the time. But yeah, I just am, I've always been that really curious to.
Vernon (37:45)
Mm.
Yeah.
Richard (37:56)
understand things and I'm I don't know where it come from but I'm guessing I'm going to assume it's from childhood at some point.
Vernon (38:04)
curious as kids, anyone who's around kids, who has had kids, you know, knows what it's like to be subject to that amount of curiosity. I mean, it can be pretty intense. But if you can, if you can, like, not crush that and nurture it, then I think, I think it's just a good thing for us to have, regardless of whether we're software testers or not.
Richard (38:32)
Absolutely, and I think that's a good time to go into the final question then.
Vernon (38:36)
Okay, let me bring up the final question. So this question is from Melissa Fisher. Thank you so much for this question. Melissa asks, if you could jump in a TARDIS and go back in time, what would you tell your younger self?
Richard (38:57)
So we decided to take this one, didn't we, as more like outside of testing, right? And not, because like we had the question from AJ, so yeah, what would I tell my younger self?
Vernon (39:06)
Mm -hmm.
Richard (39:11)
Get therapy as soon as possible. God knows. Yeah, don't know. You got any answers yet? I'm trying to think what would I tell my younger self.
Vernon (39:26)
gosh, I'm trying to, I'm deliberating with myself about how vulnerable to be. Is this psychologically safe for me to share? Is it safe out here?
Richard (39:39)
It's that's yeah, that's that's a judgment for you. I guess very similar to the quality judgment
Vernon (39:47)
I would tell my younger self, I don't know if it would work, but I would tell my younger self to be more confident.
And I would also tell them, it's such a weird duality. What I would tell myself is to be more confident, but at the same time, confidence is not enough. You need evidence. Because I've always felt like I was gonna be successful and achieve certain things.
But then they didn't happen because anyone who knows me knows that at least some years ago, I was not the most proactive individual in the world. Let's put it that way. But now I am. And I think if I'd realized that a lot sooner, that the talent isn't enough and the confidence isn't enough, you need to actually take action and just generate evidence for yourself.
It's not even for anybody else. It's just generate the evidence for yourself so that when those moments of self doubt happen, David Goggins calls it like going into the cookie jar. Like he stores all these calls. He puts all these, his successes into a, I don't know if it's a physical cookie job, a mental one. He just draws them out. It was like, this awesome thing happened. Sick. That was me. I did this thing. That was amazing.
Richard (41:04)
Yeah, I've seen that.
Vernon (41:18)
That's why that's the advice I give myself. That got pretty heavy. Sorry man.
Richard (41:22)
Yeah, well, I think mine might just get a little bit heavier then as well, because I think I would probably tell my younger self to be kinder to myself and realise that I'm worthy and I'm important and to give myself praise, like have this cookie jar that you just mentioned, right, and actually put it in there instead of my mentality has always been, well, you could have done that better.
Right? You could have done that differently. So even if something went very well, I'm immediately on the, the 1 % of negativity and I ain't putting anything in that cookie jar. I'm like, I'm adding it to the list of failures to beat myself up with and keep knocking myself back down. so I think for me, yeah, it would be the, be kinder on myself, embrace the successes a lot more.
And then, yeah, finally, I would say just, yeah, take care of myself a bit more. Like, I've had so many burnouts in my life, like, just prioritize my own well -being in a more positive way, I would say.
Vernon (42:34)
Yeah, so it's going to say so much stuff going through my head right now. Melissa, thank you so much for that question. You got me thinking. I'll answer. I can next time. Next time I'm in I'm I'm in the same place as you, Melissa. I'll happily go into more, some more depth on this question because a bloody good one. Yeah.
Richard (42:34)
Oof. Deep to end on.
It's such a good question, I think, and I think it's, yeah, it's a question I feel like you should be asking yourself all the time as well. Like, not just this, like, one -off thing. It's a question that you should be just bringing yourself up every three, six, nine months or whatever. You know, that's what we should do.
Vernon (43:04)
Right.
I mean, that's what we tell our teammates and our customers and our colleagues to do. we're agile. So you've got to reflect and celebrate and what you can do and not just be down on yourself and then step out of the office as it were. And I do none of that. I'm trying to do more. I'm trying to do more of it. That is for sure. Thank you. I'm really appreciating this question. You've got me.
Richard (43:20)
Hahaha.
Yep.
Vernon (43:38)
refocused to go away and reflect some more. I don't know, I could, I could, I amassed some reflecting this exercise to do some end of year reflection, which I never actually done because the start of my year was so utterly bonkers, I never got around to doing it. But I could share that in the show notes, maybe I think I will. I'll share the show notes. I'll dig out. Thank you. Great way to end the pod.
Richard (43:44)
Absolutely.
Awesome.
Absolutely. Yeah. So thank you for everyone who posted the shared those questions with us. Again, we want to do more of this kind of style. We are going to keep interchanging with our usual, you know, what's going on in the world of Richard and Vernon and our own testing jobs, but we're going to drop it a name all the time. So whenever you've got a question for us, let us know if you see a question from somebody else on another thread that you think is worth asking, tag us on that thread and tell us, you know, to...
Maybe add this one to our list. So yeah, please do send us your questions and subscribe, follow, feedback, like all those wonderful things.
Vernon (44:47)
Mm -hmm. Please share. We appreciate all the shares. We appreciate all the comments. Still blown away that people are listening, appreciate all the downloads. And if you've got questions like Richhead, send them in. But also remember, if you ask the question, don't be shy about answering the question yourself. Maybe turn it into a post of your own, you know, and share the answer with us and we can give it a signal boost on the pod. I'd love to...
I'd love to hear some of the answers to these questions. They're really good questions. Thank you.
Richard (45:21)
Absolutely. All right. Goodbye everyone.
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