startup
A digital breakdown of Silicon Valley goings-on; insights into the next big startups, tech entrepreneurs to watch and emerging trends in the startup space.
A Story of a Senior IT Manager Fears Real Agile, But Talks Highly About It
In 2020, I worked at a large financial institution. My agent told me that this IT division's director was an excellent IT leader who loved Agile, test automation, DevOps, CI/CD, and wanted to change the industry.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Estimating Test Automation Story Points is a Total Waste of Time
Many fake “agile project managers/agile coaches” are fixated on Velocity Charts. The so-called “velocity” is based on the rate of completing the story points estimated by the team. As a result, “story estimation sessions” are a part of “Agile Ceremonies” in some projects, along with“stand-up meetings”, “retrospectives”, and “sprint planning”. (see the end of the article for Kent Beck’s, the father of Agile, view on these ‘agile ceremonies’)
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
A Practical Advice on Rejecting Estimating Story Points for Test Automation
Many years ago, I worked in a small start-up company on its client project. B, A co-founder (without coding/testing background), was particularly fixated on story points. His actions led me to believe that he thought he had cracked the secret code of software development, which was "Velocity based on User Story Points", as the project went very well.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Comparing the Cost of End-to-End Test Execution in CT Servers: Cypress Cloud and BuildWise
One user’s feedback on my article “Comments on the claims of ‘7 ways Cypress is different’. All False, Wrong or Lie”: “Cypress Cloud is good”. Oh well, I haven’t used it. For failed Cypress test automation attempts I rescued, they were in a complete mess, previously planned Continuous Testing never occurred. On rescue missions, I usually got some converted (from Cypress to the great raw Selenium WebDriver + RSpec) running in the BuildWise CT server on Day 1, then every day onwards.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
A Story: “Promised E2E Test Automation Training”
During my time working on contract at a major financial firm, a new QA Director was assigned to the position. He held a meeting for all testers (about 50, I think), as you know, the usual introduction and layout of future plans, …, etc. Towards the end of the meeting, he asked: “Any particular thing you like to see happening, please let me …”.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Story: “What is the Most Challenging in E2E Test Automation?”, Part 2
Continue from Part 1. This is an Important Realization but often Neglected “Test Maintenance” is the primary effort of test automation, and shall be the base for any decisions. Sadly, this is often neglected in practice, like in this story. For example, many software companies over-emphasized test creation when choosing a test automation framework/tool. Many managers and tech leads fell in the sales pitches of bad and expensive test automation tools, such as QTP and Ranorex, claiming “How easy to create automated tests using record-n-playback or assistance of its Object Identification GUI Utility”. History proved them wrong. The code-based (and free) approach, such as Selenium WebDriver and Playwright, has dominated test automation since 2011.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Story: “What is the Most Challenging in E2E Test Automation?”, Part 1
This is one of the Stories series. The Story In 2016, I worked in a large tech company (over 500 IT staff, considered a large one in my city) as a test automation engineer (contractor). One day, the newly-joined testing director, S, who is responsible for the overall testing process in the company, invited all software testers (~70) to a meeting.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Why I don’t use Jira and Confluence at all for my software development? Part 2
Continue from Part 1. Solid evidence of “Jira and its alike is non-essential for Agile Software Development” People would assume companies depend more on Jira or similar tools for working remotely(due to Covid). But Atlassian's share dropped 73% last year. Two other Jira alternatives performed even worse, Monday.com: 83%, and Asana: 77%.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Why I don’t use Jira and Confluence at all for my software development? Part 1
It seems that Jira and Confluence are used everywhere within the software industry. As an owner of several commercial software products, I don’t use Jira or Confluence, have never had the need and do not see any benefits from them.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
Benefits of E2E Test Automation & Continuous Testing (Part 2: to Wise Managers)
E2E Test Automation & Continuous Testing (enables software teams to push software updates to production daily, not fake CI/CD talks. Check out “Continuous Integration at Facebook” and AgileWay Continuous Testing Grading) is the heart of the software development process. It benefits all stakeholders from a software project.
By Zhimin Zhan2 years ago in 01
