Would Heu-Risk It? - Lightning Mode

Lena Nyström's profile
Lena Nyström

Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker

Challenge Description

Would Heu-risk it - Lightning mode lets you reflect on situations in your past work life and how you could use heuristics like these cards to explore your own, your team’s and your application’s strengths and weak spots. 

Instructions:

Pick a random card from https://www.pejgan.se/WHRI

Click the “random card” link in the top menu bar. This is your card.

Individual reflection (10 minutes)

Think of, and write down a few sentences about what this card means to you and a time in your work life when it was relevant. 

(Tip: If you can’t think of a time, try to imagine a situation when it would have been)

Questions you can use to spark ideas:

  • Is this something I come across a lot? 

  • What does this card mean to me?

  • How does it apply to my current scope? 

  • If not, how could I imagine using it?

There are three different categories of cards. You might have to think slightly differently depending on the category: 

Traps: A time when you fell into this trap, or you observed someone else fall into it?

Tools: A time when you, or someone else, used this. What was the result? 

Weapons: A time when this was a problem in a project you worked on.

Group reflection (15 minutes)

Share your reflections around the table and add your thoughts to each other’s cards and reflections.
If the discussion sparks new ideas and thoughts - add these to your reflection.
As a group - summarize the discussions and reflections you had.

Demo (5 minutes)

Share the group reflections in the larger group.
Did you learn something new?
When could you use this in your team and/or own work? 

Wrap-up:

Reflecting on our work, our strengths and weak points can be intimidating, but it’s the way we grow and become better. Using focal points like for example Would Heu-risk it, TestSphere, can help trigger new thoughts and discover new perspectives. Sharing and discussing in a group, hopefully diverse, is a great way of adding more angles and seeing things we were unaware of ourselves.

What you’ll learn
  • Uncover strengths and weak points (your own, your team, your application)
  • Use games or focal points to come up with new ideas
  • Reflect structurally to unblock yourself and grow new skills
  • Share in groups and add new perspectives

Prerequisites

This activity is best carried out as a group

Resources

RiskStorming image
An educational tool to explore Risk Analysis and Quality Strategy building with the whole team.
Explore MoT
Episode Seven: The community's guide to Continuous Quality image
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Cognitive Biases In Software Testing
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This Week in Testing
Debrief the week in Testing via a community radio show hosted by Simon Tomes and members of the community
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