Gerald M. Weinberg Quotes

There are many technical workers who enjoy wandering so much that, like Alice in Wonderland, they don't much care where they go, so long as they get somewhere.

When is the 'look out the windshield phase' of driving? Pretty much all driving is looking out the windshield! It's not a phase. Saying 'testing takes too long' is a bit like saying 'safe driving takes too long.

One of the hardest choices for technical stars who become leaders is losing touch with the latest in technology.

Or, suppose you want to motivate your managers to ship products on time, so you conspicuously promote each manager whose product goes out the door on schedule. All goes as planned until the situation arises in which one of your managers has a project where the testers are reporting numerous problems. Because managers who have shipped products on time have been promoted, this manager thinks, I want that promotion so I need to ship this on time, but those bug reports are getting in the way. I know what I'll do! I'll put the testers on another project until the developers have a chance to catch up.

If you are a leader, the people are your work. There is no other work worth doing.* One

Within IBM at that time, growing a beard without getting fired was an indisputable mark of technical genius. In

If your whole team consists of novice programmers, your expertise will give you considerable power; but if the other team members are also experts, they will attach less importance to your technical expertise. In that case, they'll pay more attention to organizational power, like the power to acquire extra hardware, to extend the schedule, or to capture a more interesting assignment.

Problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there's always a better way.

Testing gathers information about a product; it does not fix things it finds that are wrong.

What you don't know may not hurt you, but what you don't remember always does.

Words are easy to change, but don't accomplish much.

People don't become leaders because they never fail. They become leaders because of the way they respond to failure.

In fact, the average programming manager would prefer that a project be estimated at twelve months and take twelve than that the same project be estimated at six months and take nine. This is an area where some psychological study could be rewarding, but there are indications from other situations that it is not the mean length of estimated time that annoys people but, rather, the standard deviation in the actual time taken. Thus, most people would prefer to wait a fixed ten minutes for the bus each morning than to wait one minute on four days and twenty-six minutes once a week-. Even though the average wait is six minutes in the second case, the derangement caused by one long and unexpected delay more than compensates for this disadvantage. If

If you don't have questions about a product's risks, then there's no reason to test. If you have at least one such question, then ask: Will these tests cost more to execute than their answers will be worth?

PREFACE PROBLEM: Nobody reads prefaces.
SOLUTION: Call the preface Chapter 1.
NEW PROBLEM CREATED BY SOLUTION: Chapter 1 is boring.
RESOLUTION: Throw away Chapter 1 and call Chapter 2 Chapter 1.

Jane easily shifts among activities - testing for discovery, pinpointing, locating, determining significance, repairing, troubleshooting, and testing to learn. As long as she continues to serve her customers, it doesn't really matter which task she performs at any given time.

Admiring remarks of my team as I track down the latest obscure but in the Project Mercury Monitor System.

Books are no substitute for experience working with people, so now that you've read this book on leadership, go out and interact with people before you read any more.

If you are a good leader, Who talks little, They will say, When your work is done, And your aim fulfilled, "We did it ourselves." - Lao Tse

Denise: "So your present project is ready to pass to the testing people?" Ralph: "Absolutely." Denise: "Okay, since you're so sure it's adequately tested, I'm going to make you the following generous offer: If fewer than three bugs turn up in your component during testing, I will give you a raise. But if three or more bugs turn up during testing, you won't earn a raise this year." Ralph: "Um . . ." Denise: "Um what?" "Could I just have the component back for a few little tests I want to do?

In the popular image, a problem-solving leader is a solitary genius, but the true leader prefers to produce a success.