Quality Reflections: 2025

This is the second time I’m revisiting resources I’ve shared over the year. So many good reflections and insights. It’s also a reminder of new connections I’ve made this year! Excellent articles written by incredibly professional people who make me grateful I’m a part of this community.

Here are some of my favorites:

1. Verbal Processing: Why You ‘Think Out Loud’ And 5 Tips to Support You by Sam Dylan Finch

   1. Are you an internal processor or an external processor?

2. The System of a Button by Patrick Prill

   1. What may seem simple is, in fact, very complex

3. Oops! We Automated Bullshit. | Department of Computer Science and Technology by Alan Blackwell

   1. One of the greatest risks is not that chatbots will become super-intelligent, but that they will generate text that is super-persuasive without being intelligent,

   2. as Frankfurt observes, “Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about”

   3. Graeber revealed that over 30% of British workers believe their own job contributes nothing of any value to society. These are people who spend their lives writing pointless reports, relaying messages from one person to another, or listening to complaints they can do nothing about. Every part of their job could easily be done by ChatGPT.

4. Herding Squirrels Ep 05 w Jessica Mosley hosted by Brandon Wetzstein

   1. "Your team isn't expecting Tony Robbins or Lee Iacocca or something like that. They're expecting you." - Jessica Mosley

5. Empathy in FinTech Testing: The Human Element Behind Every Transaction by Ujjwal Kumar Singh

   1. Excellent article about testing for the user experience. Love the idea of having "In their shoes" testing sessions

6. The Testing Trap: When Narratives Become Strategy by Brijesh DEB

   1. When automation becomes the goal instead of a means to achieve better quality, the focus shifts. The question is no longer "Are we building the right thing?" but "How fast can we test what we already assume is right?"

   2. "The automation was fast but superficial. The tool struggled with dynamic content. Test data dependencies caused false positives. The team had automated everything they could, but not everything they should. They were measuring success in terms of coverage rather than effectiveness."

   3. "The assumption became that if the tool can handle it, there is no need to question it. But good testing has never been about just doing. It has always been about thinking. When tools replace thought instead of enabling it, we trade insight for illusion."

7. Crawl, Walk, Run? by Hanisha Arora

   1. You skip the “walk” part entirely. Because walking is boring. Walking means building things properly, documenting them, setting up feedback loops, and—god forbid—maintenance.

   2. In product, running isn’t just velocity — it’s repeatable velocity without chaos.

   3. You learn in loops. Not sprints.

8. Testability Is About People, Not Just Code by Maria Kedemo

   1. Testability is how easy it is for a specific person to test a specific product in a specific context.

   2. When testability is low, it doesn’t just slow down releases or make bug-hunting harder. It drains energy. It discourages curiosity. It not only undermines confidence in the product but may also create a dangerous illusion of reliability.

9. The Importance of Trust in Software Testing and AI with Host Joe Colantonio and Damian Synadinos

   1. Excellent discussion about trust and AI.

10. Software migration: Pain vs Risk by Leon Adato

    1. Final spoiler: We wait for something to explode. We wait for a system we know is unstable to experience a surface-of-the-sun hot nuclear melt down. Because at that point, all the hurdles and bullshit clear away. The executives who were so picky before are now screaming bloody murder. They’ll do ANYTHING, agree to ANYTHING, to make sure that EXACT PRECISE problem never happens again, Then and only then can a tool be adopted quickly.

11. Suddenly, a wild tester appeared! A developer’s guide to caring for software testers by Olly Fairhall

    1. Testers will often challenge you and your thinking. They’re not being “difficult” for the fun of it. Okay, maybe a little bit for the fun of it. But it’s all part of the job, possibly in their DNA, and it’s all in aid of creating something better together. They truly don’t do it with the intention of annoying anyone.

    2. There’s a good chance they’re underappreciated and undervalued, often literally getting paid less than everyone else, regardless of how hard they work.

🍌 Honorable Mention: I tried out Nano Banana. What do you think of my new haircut?

Till next time…

Written with Judy’s 2025 Recap Playlist playing in the background.