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CSTE Exam

My experiences with CSTE

I decided to appear for CSTE in the month of Apr 2010. The reasons for appearing this exam were

1. To improve career prospects
2. To improve the Testing knowledge

The first step was to take a decision whether to appear for ISTQB or CSTE or anything else ?

There are two reasons for selecting CSTE over any other exams:

Since most of the clients I have worked for are from USA, I thought CSTE would be a better option, as CSTE is renowned in USA whereas ISTQB is renowned in Europe.

Other reason being, CSTE is a single and somewhat difficult exam. Whereas ISTQB is divided in basic + advanced level and comparatively easy.

The second step was to search some material [read mock tests] on internet to gauge the toughness of the exam.

Next step was to consult some people who have already given this and other exams for some guidance. Acquired some material from friends for further reading.

Once I was confident about the syllabus, timelines, study schedules etc, decided to register for CSTE in the month of May 2010. I scheduled the CSTE Exam on 18th of Sept 2010. The center taken was Pune.

Downloaded the CBOK for CSTE from the official website. Studied the course material whenever I used to get time. Also made it a habbit to take notes of whatever I have read on that day. It used to happen that after some days or weeks, you forgot what you have studied earlier. At such times, the notes helped me to do a quick revision.

With the end of July month, tension started to pile up for completing the syllabus as early as possible. Also started solving Objective Mock Tests. Analysing the wrongly answered questions is also important, apart from just solving the papers. Also tried to solve the subjective questions.

Office front: I was lucky enough to have less work pressure in the months of July-August-September. This made me concentrate properly on my exams, as I never had to work overtime or on week-ends in this time period.

In the month of August-Sept, I started to plan for the D-Day. Some guys told me that they had severe neck pain, as the exam duration is more than 4 hours. We have lost the habbit of writing for such a looong time with neck down. After all, there is a great difference between writing & typing ! So I made it a point to do some neck streching exercises daily for a week before exam. Also decided to carry a paper-board with me for the exam. This helped me a lot, as I answered both the objective exams using the paper on the board, instead of table.

Also the entire exam has to be answered by pencil. Yes, objective as well as subjective, need to be written by pencil. Some guys told me to carry as much pencils as possible, but I managed to complete the exam with one or two pencils only. But you need to sharpen the pencil in between for sharp tip & better writing.

Exam Day:

Then came the exam day !

There seems to be only one center in Pune or it seems that all the exam center cities in India have one center each. So do not expect mutiple centers even in Mumbai. Also, the center in each city remains same, they may not be changing the center as far as possible, it seems. The center for Pune is Indira College on Mumbai-Pune Expressway, near Hinjewadi / Wakad.

Now here starts the adventure !

There are multiple buildings of Indira group of institutes on both sides of the highway. And the security guards at the gate of each college do not have any idea about this exam. So they may [unknowingly] misguide you to other building, which may not have the exam center :) On the top of it, assume that you have been told to go to other building which is on the opposite side of the express highway, either you have to cross the road manually, risking your life & ofcourse your valuable time before the exam. Or drive to other building taking a u-turn from a loong distance, as there are road dividers in between. Anyway, after doing some circus, found the right building & gave the exam.

The exam experience was good. They provide tea after each exam, and snacks + tea after the completion of half of the exam. So do not worry about eating & fasting. And dont forget to take the sharpner, eraser, ruler. these things help a lot.

Amazon.com's Two-Pizza Team Rule

Amazon.com's Two-Pizza Team Rule

"If a project team can eat more than two pizzas, it's too large."

Around half a decade back, Amazon came with a team management approach called "Two Pizza Team"
The rule simply means that the size of the team should not be more than a handful of guys !

But today, in 2010, the approach vanished with time. The reasons are several, but major ones are:

More smaller teams mean more leads, it means more managerial staff & less technical staff, well... sort of !

This means that you have to shell more bucks for controling people, rather than getting the thing done.

Other reason may be, you have to unnecessarily divide the team, even if it works fine with the big team.
some managers may have good team bonding capabilities to lead a team of couple of dozen people.

What to do ?

Testing Experts and there publications

1. Cem Kaner:

http://www.kaner.com/

Visit the "Publications" section. Cem had published many papers and articles on Testing.

2. James Bach:

http://www.satisfice.com/

Visit "Testing" and "Publications" section.

3. Bret Pettichord:

http://www.pettichord.com/

Visit "Popular writings" section. He is expert in Agile Testing and also a key person in development of 'WATIR'; an open source tool for ST.

Hello World

Hello World !

Like any other software language, the basic programme is to run "Hello World" message code.

So here comes my first blog, atleast on this site with -->

Hello World