Well I have not written in a while, so I will try to articulate some recent thoughts. I am certainly not the best wordsmith or most articulate speaker, but I do have an opinion.
Some people you meet in life are inspirational. They advocate for innovation, instilling drive and passion. You read a great book about being a buccaneer scholar, pulling yourself up by your suspenders and achieving great things in life. You attend a presentation at the 2009 STP Conference in Las Vegas and you come away thinking man that person is brilliant. You follow their blog posts and Twitter feeds that lead to inspiration. They teach you to enjoy games and attack challenges. Today these pioneers seem to be taking a position of my way or the highway. We are right and everyone else is wrong.
I am not sure that is the intent of the rhetoric or dogma as one colleague stated, but that has become my perception.
These pioneers have been extremely polarizing in their thoughts and critiques of others lately. I am certainly OK with criticism and the elevation of thought. I guess I think it should be done in a kind, professional, and collaborative nature. What happened to politely learning to agree to disagree.
Word choice is an important attribute when debating or collaborating. I am not great on my feet when it comes to word choice when debating on the fly. When someone says I am wrong I can take it and I can listen to the point of view. But when someone continuously attacks and says your idea is wrong it does not foster a learning environment. I think we have missed the human side of a debate.
There are many people I respect and learn from in the industry of software testing. Ideas should be challenged, but challenged in a human compassionate way. We should push each other to be creative thinkers, but not at the expense of destroying relationships.
Although some people are more skilled than others we should not put ourselves on a mountain top and declare I am right; therefore, everyone else is wrong. It is certainly Ok to think that way, but not belittle the thoughts of others along the way.
I hope the attitudes temper and we can get back to collectively improving our craft of software testing.
I will end with a humorous quote from a colleague - " I am Polish so I know all about Czech's!"
Keep on Testing!
Some people you meet in life are inspirational. They advocate for innovation, instilling drive and passion. You read a great book about being a buccaneer scholar, pulling yourself up by your suspenders and achieving great things in life. You attend a presentation at the 2009 STP Conference in Las Vegas and you come away thinking man that person is brilliant. You follow their blog posts and Twitter feeds that lead to inspiration. They teach you to enjoy games and attack challenges. Today these pioneers seem to be taking a position of my way or the highway. We are right and everyone else is wrong.
I am not sure that is the intent of the rhetoric or dogma as one colleague stated, but that has become my perception.
These pioneers have been extremely polarizing in their thoughts and critiques of others lately. I am certainly OK with criticism and the elevation of thought. I guess I think it should be done in a kind, professional, and collaborative nature. What happened to politely learning to agree to disagree.
Word choice is an important attribute when debating or collaborating. I am not great on my feet when it comes to word choice when debating on the fly. When someone says I am wrong I can take it and I can listen to the point of view. But when someone continuously attacks and says your idea is wrong it does not foster a learning environment. I think we have missed the human side of a debate.
There are many people I respect and learn from in the industry of software testing. Ideas should be challenged, but challenged in a human compassionate way. We should push each other to be creative thinkers, but not at the expense of destroying relationships.
Although some people are more skilled than others we should not put ourselves on a mountain top and declare I am right; therefore, everyone else is wrong. It is certainly Ok to think that way, but not belittle the thoughts of others along the way.
I hope the attitudes temper and we can get back to collectively improving our craft of software testing.
I will end with a humorous quote from a colleague - " I am Polish so I know all about Czech's!"
Keep on Testing!
No comments:
Post a Comment