STP Online Test Management Summit from 2012. The host was Scott Barber and boy this was a lot of fun :)

1. Mentoring Testers: Leading from
the Inside Out

2. Motivation is a term that refers to a process that elicits,
controls, and sustains certain behaviours. Motivation is a
group of phenomena which affect the nature of an
individual's behaviour, the strength of the behaviour,
and the persistence of the behaviour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation
Motivation is literally the
desire to do things…
except for this stormtrooper
Brian Osman
OsmanIT
@bjosman

3.  Lasting motivation comes from within
Wanting to do *good work*
Wanting meet targets
Wanting learn and share
Wanting to be community
Wanting to share and be involved
Wanting respect from peers
Wanting to be successful

4. A tester wanting to share their knowledge
passion to improve the craft
A tester looking to adding new skills such as
learning test automation
A *non-tester* wanting to learn how to test
A business analyst becoming a tester
because they “like to break things”
A tester finding like minded colleagues

5.  These are some factors that drive a tester
Money
Rewards for meeting targets
Green tick syndrome
Fear
Possum testing – KWST 2011 – “Testing that you don’t
value motivated by fear on some level”
“Win one for the gipper”
Meeting artifical test targets baed on artifical metrics

6. “Here is the bonus – you (team) can figure
out who gets what”
“Let’s finish these 200 regression scripts and
I’ll shout you all pizza!”
“Get XYZ certificate and you can walk into
your next testing job”
“One more and we hit 500 bugs!”

12. http://kensviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/delegation-2.gif

13. Delegation is an art…
Pros:
Empowering
New diverse skills gained
Buy in from team members
Motivated by responsibility
Allows recognition of strengths and weaknesses
Con:
Sinking instead of swimming
Feeling pressure
Feeling inadequate
Not being aware of needs

15.  Show them the *problem*
Time compression
Lack of dedicated testers
Complex CRM with complex business rules
 Discuss the approach
Suggested a blended approach and the reason why –
SBTM with some predefined checks (e.g. decision table)
 Demonstrate how the approach can work
Through reports
Through training
Through letting testers *take the wheel*

16. Seven key practices of servant leadership…
Self-awareness
Listening
Changing the pyramid
Developing your colleagues
Coaching not controlling
Unleashing the energy
Intelligence of others
Foresight

17. Found 500+ bugs
Found issues that satisfied requirements but
did not make sense
Verified and challenged business rules
Forced management to rethink Go live (at
least 3x times)
Motivated testers – finding problems, then
helping resolve them

19. Motivation – understand what motivates
testers
Delegation – building responsibility
Mentoring – Helping others achieve