CAST 2016

Although we’d like to be able to say “yes”, there are times when saying “no” serves our projects, our teammates and our stakeholders best.

Testers can be subject to many conflicting or unreasonable demands. A manager may insist we work on several projects simultaneously, making it impossible for us to do good work on any of them. There may be enormous pressure to work long hours, which will jeopardize our health and the quality of our testing. Sometimes we’re expected to commit to something that we don’t know how to do. We can even find ourselves pressured to misrepresent our findings about the quality of the software.

Paradoxically, learning to say a good “no” enhances our ability to say a meaningful “yes”. If we can say “no” appropriately to demands we know to be wrong for us or for the project, then we can also say “yes” with whole-hearted commitment.

Saying “no” is not easy for anyone, but it is a skill that we can learn.

This half-day tutorial will consist primarily of experiential exercises and debriefs—as many as we have time for. Some volunteer participants will get to practice saying “no” to unreasonable demands. Everyone will have opportunities to observe the interactions, ask questions, discuss, and draw their own conclusions.

This session is intended for testing practitioners and managers at all levels of experience.

Learning Objectives
Why “no” can be a more positive answer than “yes” in certain contexts
How to recognize and resist the many tactics people can use to get us to say “yes”
How to say “no” when that is the right answer for us—simply, and with conviction, equilibrium and respect