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Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers

Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers. Carol Dekkers Quality Plus Technologies, Inc. dekkers@qualityplustech.com Florida, USA. Quality experts Yesterday & today…. Philip Crosby W. Edwards Deming Armand Feigenbaum Kaoru Ishikawa Joseph Juran

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Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers

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  1. Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers Carol Dekkers Quality Plus Technologies, Inc. dekkers@qualityplustech.com Florida, USA

  2. Quality expertsYesterday & today… • Philip Crosby • W. Edwards Deming • Armand Feigenbaum • Kaoru Ishikawa • Joseph Juran • Robert Pirsig • Walter Shewhart • Genichi Taguchi • Lean six sigma • Others…

  3. But, today is a whole new world... Leadership & collaboration are key

  4. Soft skills “trump” hard skills Medicare Consumer Focus Groups (Readers Digest Feb 2007):“While 39% of hospital patients listeddoctor communication skills as a top concern, just 7% citedpain management.”

  5. How can QA professionals survive?

  6. Today’s specialA soft skills Toolkit ! • Ethics • Written & verbal skills* • Pressure,stress & time mgmt • Change-readiness • Public speaking • Planning & organization • Problem-solving • Tact & diplomacy • Critical thinking* • Team building • Self-awareness • Leadership • Flexibility • Creativity • Perseverance • Interpersonal (empathy, EI)* • Active listening

  7. Research… J&J survey: Best performersHigh self-awareness, self-management, social skills, & organizational savvy HR managers: 93% say technical skills easier to teach than soft skills HR executives:50% say entry workers lack writing skills; 27% cited deficiencies in critical thinking NY Times:“It appears young employees are writing company e-mails as if they were texting cell phone messages with their thumbs” Source: http://www.bettersoftskills.com/research.htm

  8. Starter Toolkit Remember…“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”“A fool with a tool is still a fool.”

  9. Interpersonal (EI, empathy) YOU CO-WORKERS Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

  10. Written & verbal communication DEATH BY POWERPOINT

  11. email charterwww.emailcharter.org 1. Respect recipients' time 2. Short or slow is not rude 3. Celebrate clarity 4. Quash open-ended questions 5. Slash surplus cc's 6. Tighten the thread 7. Attack attachments 8. Give these gifts: EOM NNTR 9. Cut content less responses 10. Disconnect!

  12. Critical Thinking

  13. You + Soft skills = Win / Win / Win Quality is not accidental… quality is emotional Leadership & collaborationare critical “Quality starts between the ears”Claus E. Heinrich, SAP AG2007 SAP Global Quality Day

  14. Blog: ABZ’s of Communication http://MusingsAboutSoftwareDevelopment.wordpress.com • 10 / 20 / 30 • One idea • Learning styles • Tufte’s big Ideas/ 5 Grand Principles • Tools (+ / - ) • Pre-test • Live

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