Year in Review : Reflecting on 2023

As we wrap up another year, I spent some time on reflecting on the highs and lows of 2023, a year that brought its fair share of challenges and achievements. This tradition of year-end reflection not only helps me appreciate the journey but also sets the stage for what lies ahead.

I've been doing this tradition of reflecting back on a year for the last four years, and it's been great to look back at each year-end review. It's like flipping through the pages of a personal growth journal, seeing the progress, the lessons learned, and the challenges overcome. Here's a snapshot of my 2023 story:

• 2023 kicked off with me joining Ship30for30, a writing course that taught me the importance of consistency, generating ideas, and embracing constructive feedback. Check out my 30-day writing adventure here.

• Throughout the year, I had the pleasure of being a guest on various podcasts, discussing topics like observability for testers, the importance of representation, and the concept of shifting testing left. You can catch some of these conversations 👇
• Shweta on QA Q & A - here
• Interview with Nicola Lindgren - here
• Marie Cruz and Nicole van der Hoeven on Adobo & Avocados - here
• Conversation with Ruslan Akhmetzianov - here

• My time at Thoughtworks was like a journey through a place where I learned and grew a lot. Working with great co-workers on different projects, making friends forever, and tackling challenges have all contributed to shaping a better version of myself.

"Growth always happens when you step out of your comfort zone."

• One of the personal milestones of the year was delivering workshops at conferences. From a 99-minute session on continuous testing to an in-person workshop on inclusive cross-functional requirements, the feedback from attendees was incredibly rewarding. You can find more about these workshops here. If any conference is seeking workshops on these topics, feel free to reach out to me as I'm looking to do more of these in 2024. Apart from these workshops, I got an opportunity to be part of a panel discussion on 'Driving a culture of quality' at TestBash Autumn 2023. It was an honour to be part of this alongside Ben Dowen and Calab Grandall.

Cross-functional requirements (CFRs), most commonly referred to as Non-functional Requirements (NFRs), form an integral part of software quality. And testing for them and making them as part of them

➡️ https://t.co/8AHBT9yWgE@Parveen_Khan10 #AgileTD #SoftwareQuality pic.twitter.com/hMcB0EzJSt

— Agile Testing Days (@AgileTD) July 26, 2023

• Said goodbye to Thoughtworks and jumped into a new role as the Quality Practice Lead at CFC. The first month has been a rollercoaster of learning, and I'm excited about what's coming next.

• In response to health challenges stemming from remote work(not taking frequent breaks), I committed to a journey of healthy eating habits. Shedding 12 kgs wasn't just about adopting healthy habits but also about dedication, consistency, and bouncing back after setbacks. This achievement stands out as a personal highlight for me in 2023.

• Mentoring on platforms like ADPList and celebrating 500 minutes of mentorship was a highlight. Mentoring isn't a one-way street; I'm constantly learning with every conversation. I have also joined various platforms like 
• ADPlist - Book a session
• MentorCruise - Book a session
• The Mentoring Club - Book a session
• The Test Tribe - Book a session

• Being named a RisingSTAR Finalist was an honor. While my idea on cross-functional requirements didn't take the top spot, standing among brilliant finalists was a win in itself.

• I was humbled to be recognized in the tech community as one of the 100 Women in Tech to Follow and Learn From.

• Additionally, I contributed as part of the program review team for Testμ 2023 by Lambdatest, adding my voice to the testing community as a reviewer. I was also invited to be a Llambdatest Spartan which is a great community to be part of.

We are excited to share @Parveen_Khan10, Senior QA Consultant at ThoughtWorks, as a member of our program review team for #TestMuConf 2023. 🎙️

A quality advocate, Parveen's commitment to cultivating collaboration and refining methodologies has been key in delivering first-class… pic.twitter.com/f8ajyuchUu

— LambdaTest (@lambdatesting) June 22, 2023

As I bid farewell to 2023, I acknowledge its ups and downs. Each challenge has contributed to my growth, and I'm proud of how I've navigated them. Despite falling short on consistent blogging, 2024 holds a simple goal—write at least 5 blogs. Putting it out here for public accountability! 😄

In closing, I'm grateful for the experiences and lessons of 2023. Here's to growth, resilience, and the untold stories awaiting in 2024! 🌟🎉

Stay tuned for more adventures! ✨

Recommended Resources

 These are some of the resources that I have collected on various topics like testing, exploratory testing and heuristics. These have been very good source for continous learning and by no means complete list. 

• Explore it! Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing. This book is really useful and good starting point for anyone who is interested to start learning about exploratory testing. 
  

• Useful List for Exploratory Testers This has a huge list of resource links that can help in finding all the resources related to exploratory testing at one place. 
  

• Test Charters A nice read to understand how to use test charters for effective exploratory testing

• Exploratory Testing Index It is a whole list of blogs, talks and presentations all related to exploratory testing by Maaret Pyhäjärvi
  

• Heuristics Cheat Sheet This is a great list of resources related to heuristics
  

• Applying Holistic Testing Model Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory has a huge list of resources all related to testing, devops, agile and holistic testing approach. Follow this blog to find more resources around these topics.
  

• Test Automation in DevOps This is a free course on Test Automation University by Lisa Crispin

• Whole Team Approach Another free course on Test Automation University by Lisi Hocke on the topic of 'The Whole Team Approach'
  
• Exploratory Testing Foundations by Maaret Pyhäjärvi

• Software Tools for Easy Effective Exploratory Testing by Mirza Sisic

Testing Tour Stop #11 : Pair exploring on Test Strategy with Toyer

My testing tour continues with more interesting sessions and I was already on  my 11th session. I was really looking forward to pair with Toyer. Previously I got an opportunity to join Toyer and his power learning group in one of the session.

Had another awesome session on my #TestingTour with @tottiLFC discussing all about Test Strategy.
Thank you so much Toyer for sharing all your ideas and learnings 😊🙏#TestingTour #FeelingAwesome #Motivated #Inspired pic.twitter.com/4gPuG8GcEU

— Parveen (@Parveen_Khan10) March 8, 2020

Before even deciding the topic or booking a session with Toyer , I had been having conversations with Toyer around Test Process and Test Strategy. When I booked the session , I suggested Test Strategy as a topic for our session and Toyer was happy to do it. I was really keen on this topic as I have always struggled on this and having those previous conversations with Toyer where he shared  his innovative ideas helped me a lot. 

Session :

The topic was decided but I was not really sure if we could just use any sample application to use for our session to define the test strategy. So I just thought we could decide this during our session. 

We started off by discussing Toyer's approach of sketching out the Testing Strategy from the scratch. He mentioned that we should always think of different testing activities all the way from the start to  implementation. 

We should always plan and start sketching out test strategy based on what process the team is following. For ex: If the team follows kanban then we should be keeping that in mind while planning our test strategy or if the team follows scrum that the planning goes different. 

Then step towards thinking about what are the tasks that needs to be performed by the testers. The interesting part was how Toyer used 3 different buckets while defining test strategy. 

• People
• Process 
• Tech

When you get a huge blank canvas to define the test strategy from the scratch, its too overwhelming to decide where to start from and how. But these three buckets would help in those situations to start organising and defining the activities and keep adding them to the relevant buckets. This was so awesome to learn as I had always struggled with the starting point and this gives an organised view to start with. Toyer mentioned that he uses mindmap tool to create the test strategy and its one of my favourite tool as well. 

Our discussion was getting more and more interesting . When defining test strategy it always going to depend on 

• What is my application?
• What is my process(agile/scrum/kanban)?
• What tools are we using?

Toyer mentioned that these are the main factors and we should always ask "Where" , "How" and "What" while defining test strategy. We did not have enough time to use an application and build a test strategy for that. But hopefully we might have a follow up session to try this. 

Learnings 

• People, process and tech buckets , this was a great way to start organising the test strategy.
• We need to consider all the activities by testers from start till the implementation while planning the strategy.
• Test strategy should be aligned to the process being used(scrum/kanban).
• A reminder that we have to always remember that we are masters of testing.
• The biggest takeaway for me was how to start when you have been given a complete blank canvas.

It was amazing session and finally I'm glad I got chance to pair with Toyer. I'm really very thankful for all the ideas he shared with me during the session.

Testing Tour Stop #8 : Pair exploring about exploratory testing with Simon Tomes

I was on my eight stop with Simon Tomes to discuss all about exploratory testing. When I was very new to exploratory testing, where i was trying to figure out how I can structure my exploratory sessions and show value to my team, I came accross Simon's #PQIP - Problem , Question, Ideas, Praise and here's the blog for more details.  I started using this approach along with various different approaches to document and share it with my team. It was so great to pair with Simon and learn more about exploratory testing.

All about exploratory testing with @simon_tomes. I had my eight session on my #TestingTour discussing all about exploratory testing, not just that but exploring the product I work on. Thank you soo much for so amazing session @simon_tomes ☺️🙏 pic.twitter.com/P68l3SG2Pq

— Parveen (@Parveen_Khan10) January 24, 2020

When I reached out Simon about doing this session, he was so kind that he just gave me his available date straightaway and we booked in 2 weeks time.

It’s incredibly kind of you to ask, I’d love to pair up on a testing tour session with you. It’s not something I’ve done before and I’m super curious to learn from the experience and from you.

Session

We started off our session with lot of energy and excitement and the first thing we discussed about was about testing community. Then I asked Simon, how and when does he integrates exploratory sessions and how does he plan for it. And I shared that I sometimes use mindmap as well to take notes during each session and then add all this information to the ticket. The reason why I add information to the ticket is not as a proof or something, but to help us reflect/revisit our testing approach. Simon translated this very well - 

“We don't document our discoveries to cover our backs. We document our discoveries to give back to the product.”

Then Simon ran ran through an example of exploratory testing notes for an exploratory session : "Explore Lean Coffee Table, cross-browser, to learn about sharing a board".

Then Simon mentioned that we always need to think first about what value does the product need to provide to the users, what are the potential risks that might come up, what questions do we have to come up with to identify those risks and then taking those questions and turning them into tests. This for me was #VRQ - Value, Risks, Questions.

Then after a long interesting discussion we decided to explore the product I'm working on. Zoom was great to share the screen and then I started to give some context about my product. Simon asked me how did I approached to understand this product when I was new to this. Initially it was difficult to go through the documentation and then explore the product because I was completely new to this domain. Our product is called Mia platform  which is a cloud platform that automates the accounts receivable life cycle which delivers greater efficiency, accuracy, visibility and cost savings for companies.

Then I shared with Simon that , I started to pair with project managers/product owners who were very close to the product and the users/clients to understand how it used.  I then reflected back on what Simon mentioned about asking questions to understand risks on one of the functionality of our product.

• When the user logs in, the user can see a diary panel that gives the information about what kind of tasks needs to be done and for which customers and lot of other information. Its just like a simple diary or journal with notes of what needs to done today. 
• Once the user clicks on one of the item from the diary panel, it takes the user to the customer account to perform the task or action or can also create a task.
• If I'm exploring these two steps without asking any questions then its just a page with some call to action links which takes the user to customer account and we can click through to create or complete a task. It feels simple. 
• But, if we ask some questions like - 

1. How does the user use this diary panel?
2. What problem is the user trying to solve by using this diary panel?
3. What is the impact or risk of this diary panel not loading up with the items?
4. What is the impact or risk of this diary panel loading up with incorrect details?
5. What is the impact or risk if each item on the diary panel is not clickable?
6. Where does the information come from on this diary panel?

• By asking these questions(which are just few and there might be more questions that can be added) we can understand what value is this diary panel providing to the user, what are the different risks and then these could be in turn tests to check this. 

• Then we discussed what if we applied the same approach for creating tasks functionality to find out value and risks. 

It was really interesting to share and discuss different approaches while testing. Here is the video which Simon shared  about - Exploratory testing  - Risks and questions and a handy note taking template .

Learnings from the session

• A new approach of converting questions into tests and using those questions to find the value and risks. 
• Being a solo tester you always have that fear of being not sure if you doing it right, by having conversation during this session and sharing my approach and getting the validation gave me so much confidence. 
• We can always prioritise(by getting what is important from the team) which part or where to explore and come up with risks.
• Its not just about finding issues while exploring but also finding useful information.
• Technology can always give us troubles, even if you have back device as an option :D. We did face lot of unstable connection issues which is part of the remote pairing challenges but we overcame by switching to back up devices we both had. 

We could have really continued for another hour or so if we have not had this technical difficulties. Simon did mention that he would be happy to collaborate again which was awesome. Thanks to Simon for sharing all the valuable information and being part of my #TestingTour.