Taking Testing Seriously

CHAPTER 19Technical Work Is All About Learning

—By Karen Nicole Johnson

At a certain point in a long career, you look back and see so many stories, so many situations that took place, and how those vignettes shaped you when you hadn't noticed. It's almost like looking through a kaleidoscope: a mix of events, people, and places. You need to pull your eyes off the scope and think a moment to decide which influences were so vital, so shaping. You need time and distance to cultivate perspective. Of all the things I've learned over the years, I see now that learning how to learn has been the most valuable lesson.

How did I shift from a journalism major in college to a business and customer-focused software professional? When did I shift from a tester focused on bugs to a professional focused on clients? How did I become the person who often serves as the “glue” between the tech team and the executives?

Walk with me, would you?

Learning through Play

My quiet writing job marginally involved talking to other people, and the work was interesting. I wrote the technical documentation, but often I didn't have anything else to go on but my own efforts to learn and explore the software. Mentally, I effectively went into a hole, a place of deep thinking and learning, and, in the quiet of my job and in the quiet of my mind, I discovered a whole world of software. I could experiment and discover intricacies of software, so discovering how software worked was part of my job. Exploring on my ...