Applied Humility

And lastly, his great Resignation and Humility in acknowledging the Just Censure passed on his Essay, joined to his hearty Repentance, as well for that as other Sins of the like Kind he has heretofore been guilty of, together with a sincere Promise of Amendment for the future.
- A Defense Renewed (1)

Humility is multifaceted. It’s not just moderating one’s self opinion to avoid arrogance, but also having a modest or low view of one’s own importance and knowledge. Humility is understanding the distinction between what you do know and what you don’t know. And when you encounter the boundary between the two, humility is see that before you barrel across the line into a morass of uninformed arrogance and pride.

And like most of the virtues, perhaps especially so, humility is hard to maintain but glaringly obvious when you don’t have it.

I recently inherited a company wide initiative that fell off the rails (2) in the hope that I can, at least, drag it kicking and screaming nearer the finish line for the current development version. Because at this point, it’s bloated and decomposing carcass is way too heavy to actually get it across the line.

Yeah. So, part of that screaming involves getting people on all the other applications to finish the analysis of their data that we asked them to do in 2014. For lack of previous completion, we created some high priority bug reports that show up on all the application reports with really red text. The idea being that, by hook or by crook, we’re going to get people to pay attention.

In our bug tracking system, you can attach the bug report to a development tracker and, once you flag that development as complete, it flags the bug report as fixed. And it then drops off all the reports. One team opted to attach the report to a development log and set the dev as complete. In about an hour. Without attaching any development objects or filling out the requested research documentation. So, poof, the bug report fell off all the reports.

I found that the next day when reviewing all those reports to see if they had, at least, been assigned for review. And I wrote an email.

In said email, which included their team lead and the application manager, and my boss, I did anything but assume for competence. I assumed, rather, that because they did the above they were trying to game the system and avoid all the red marks on their application reports. And boy did I make that clear. This was about 6pm that night so I went home.

The next morning I was greeted with a few BCC “hey look at what this jerk is saying about your team member” emails. And a voicemail from his team lead. To his team lead’s credit, he was calm and deferential. He said that he understood how all this looked, understood where I was coming from, and dang it they were going to fix it, and that email read as really mean — don’t do that again.

In short, he was doing everything opposite what I did and acted without ego.

And I felt awful.

I immediately called the guy I accused of gaming the system and apologized. We worked out what was going on, why he did what he did, and both arrived at the place we needed to for tracking their research progress as intended.

And I felt better. And I called his lead and apologized to him too.

Well, sort of. I felt awful for all those assumptions but great about where we ended up. I was, ultimately right that we needed to track things and that was what he was trying to do. He just didn’t realize that the way he did it defeated the escalation path we were using. Which made sense as he had only been around for about 7 months.

A couple of lessons taken from this total failure at humbleness: 1. Don’t assume people are trying to work around the system. Ask them what’s going on. 2. Assume for intelligence, dedication, and a desire to do right in the world until you have evidence to the contrary. And even then, be helpful and not accusatory. 3. Don’t send angry emails when you’ve been working late for most days the last few weeks. And wait to send it when you’re NOT BEING EMOTIONAL. 4. When you screw up, acknowledge it and make it right.

4 is clearly the most important part if you find yourself in this sort of hole which is easy to do in a world of digital communication. You cannot include tone or intention in your digital breadcrumbs, one can only infer it.

And inference is a dangerous hubris.

3. John Webbe: Defense Renewed, I. Printed in The American Weekly Mercury, November 27, 1740. Accessed from FranklinPapers.org.↩︎

4. I’m not entirely sure it was ever on the rails.↩︎

   Also: the more time you wrestle with each virtue the more you find your flaws with them. When do you actually start getting better at them?

Iterate iterate iterate

Version 3

Never content (or posted the other too early?) I made two more revisions. Removing the computer frame around the bug was an obvious improvement in the second revision. The computer was unnecessary and bulky. The bug is the more recognized symbol for a QA engineer. I had also removed the lines and kept the text left aligned.

And then stared at it for a good 2 minutes before saving it off then doing something else.

When I came back to it, I reworded the principles in the third iteration and moved the developer one to the end for a better balance in the text. The text block looks a little more like a heart this way, which is nice. This is not to say respecting development is the lowest priority but to remove that impression, I chose not to include ordinals. These things aren’t hierarchical.

I think I prefer this over the 1st version, sure, but I’ll probably change something again later! What do you think? Do the principles ring true for those of you that do QA work?

Seven Principles to Quality QA

As naturally follows from yesterday’s post: a poster of the principles.

Well, a first draft of it. Something feels off that I can’t put my finger on.

QAing your QA

Work has been tough lately. I’ve been overworked and requests for help have been mostly ignored. It is up to me to fix it ultimately which is pretty great, all things considered, because I am trusted to handle myself and my growing team.

Much of my overwork is self-inflicted because I assign myself too much to do and it reduces my ability to focus on the quality of my job. And quality is the entire point.

I am Quality Assurance.

It’s, like, right there.

But it’s hard to see that whn there’s a crush of development to test, unhappy customer calls, company wide initiarives to rescue.

Now though? I’m post deadline and I have had a chance to breath, step back, and look at what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been doing it. Which ives me time to think and when I think, I philosophize about goodness of things. Of quality, if you will.

I”ve written up what I think are guiding principles for any quality assurance engineer.

Seven Principles for Quality QA

1. Quality first, excuses never.
2. Why is your strongest asset.
3. Where there’s one bug, there are more.
4. Find bugs sooner, get them fixed faster.
5. Write it down or it didn’t happen.
6. Break the code, respect your developers.
7. Advocate for your end user.

I am not sure if that is complete or the right wording. I initially had “love your developers” but people look at me weirdly enough when I say normal things.

What am I missing? What matters for quality software testing?

Little grids

I made some little custom grids for the continuationof my virtue project. I’ve stopped using the Art of Manliness notebooks because of how hard it is to use - the binding is just too tight that I can’t hold the darn thing open and write in it concurrently.

I also switched to using a hobonichi planner to track my daily schedule. I write (1) my daily schedule in it and then add a page index for any notes or writings completed that day. My notebook has page numbers (2) so all I need to do is add an identifier so I can look things up afterwatd as needed.

It is mostly nice except that I have a hard time taking the time to copy out my schedule for reasons likely obvious:

1. You already have one on your phone.
2. You already have, like, 7 calendars.
3. You don’t reference your notebooks anyway….

Well, to that I say: Pbbbtttllll.

It’s useful and the rigor is probably a good idea. I’ve been bad about getting up in the mornings (it’s so cold and my heater is finicky with timers).

Still. I like writing in the hobonichi (3) and that it can act like an index for more extensive notes is super useful. Also, it has pockets and has replaced my wallet.

And it was a terrible excuse to get a multipen (4).

1. I am not so good at that. I find it hard to justify for the rasonans specified AND taking the time at work do it. Even if it helps me focus for the day. It’s purely mental.↩︎
   
   
2. I use the Leuchtturm Medium. It is very fountain pen friendly and comes in so many colors, like white, because it matches all my other stuff because I’m apparently that guy.↩︎
   
   
3. “Hobonichi” translates to “almost every day.” The planner tsekf has a neat story that you can read a little more here. There’s a huge community for it like most organization tools.↩︎
   
   
4. A Pilot Hi-Tec-C Coleto with 3 pen inserts adn a pencil. The build quality is blah but the refil ink is really nice. I like having convenient colors but I actuslly disolike the size I got - .4mm tips - which is really scratchy to write with. I think my next refills will be reollerballs to smooth it out. The pen taes standard D1 refills.↩︎

Humility

So. First: it’s been a busy week. Deadlines at work, stress keeping me from sleeping well, bad moods. I’ve neither been virtuous nor particularly well focused on being a good human being. I think we’ll call this week a practice round on Humility and try again next week, okay?

I have been thinking about it, about humility this week. Franklin took the virtue his thirteen in the advice of friends.

…a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show’d itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent…

An act of humility itself to recognize that particular failing and kind of amusing that it fell to the end of the list. The scheme of it all suggested that the previous virtues were supposed to inform subsequent virtues, that building the previous would help the others. I wonder if adding it to the end was an act of contrition to his friend or an acknowledgement that this would be the hardest of them all to acquire.

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it.

This raises an interesting question. If you appear a virtuous person, is that success? Regarding Franklin’s semi-acquisition of humility, it seems like it is success. It is human nature to have the emotional response to stimulus but it is the mature person who does not act upon it.

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I deny’d myself the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some absurdity in his proposition; and in answering I began by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appear’d or seem’d to me some difference, etc.

Franklin would still hold his belief he just would present his counter example with acknowledgement that the other person may well be right. Is that humility or is that justice? I suppose it depends if you believe that in conversation, you should assume the other person is deserving of space to talk. Franklin, likely being among the smartest people alive at the time, may not have thought so.

In the same chapter of his biography from which the above is excerpted, Franklin describe some methods, phrases in particular, he used to appear more humble in conversation. He would lead a reply with “I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine” rather than ascribe complete certainty to his own correctness.

You can be right and know it without losing humility. Humility is understanding that others may have valid and right knowledge. Humility is recognizing there is value outside yourself.