A mistake I see often is treating frameworks as answers.

Their real value is helping people think when the system is complex, and the path forward isn’t obvious.

“Shift left” keeps failing for a simple reason.

It’s treated as a slogan instead of a change in how teams learn, collaborate, and make decisions.

Conferences are great for inspiration.

But the real value comes afterwards, when you slow down and ask what actually changed your thinking and why.

One of the strongest signals this year wasn’t about tooling or AI.

It was role clarity.

People aren’t asking “what level am I?”
They’re asking, “What does good look like in practice?”

A pattern that keeps showing up: most problems with quality engineering don’t start with tools or skills.

They start with misconceptions.

If teams can’t agree on what quality engineering actually is, everything downstream becomes harder: roles, expectations, investment, and outcomes.

Linky #21 - How Quality Emerges On emergent quality, learning from mistakes, and why testers need to speak the language of decision makers.

Critical thinking is becoming a core skill

AI is amplifying the gap between people who think critically and people who don’t.
The tool is not the differentiator. The thinking is.

Quality engineering increasingly depends on this skill.

See Linky: qualityeng.substack.com/p/linky-no-21

Linky #21 - How Quality Emerges On emergent quality, learning from mistakes, and why testers need to speak the language of decision makers.

Errors of omission are invisible

Most organisations only track mistakes people make.
They rarely track the work that *never happened* but should have.

Yet errors of omission often do more damage to quality than the obvious failures.

See Linky: qualityeng.substack.com/p/linky-no-21

Linky #21 - How Quality Emerges On emergent quality, learning from mistakes, and why testers need to speak the language of decision makers.

Paper cuts matter

Most users will tolerate one rough edge. But ten small paper cuts feel like a broken product.

Quality often erodes quietly, long before anything “critical” breaks.

More in this week’s Linky: qualityeng.substack.com/p/linky-no-21

Linky #21 - How Quality Emerges On emergent quality, learning from mistakes, and why testers need to speak the language of decision makers.

Speed comes from certainty

Teams do not go faster by skipping testing.

They go faster because they are certain enough to change code without fear.

Quality is speed.

More in this week’s Linky: qualityeng.substack.com/p/linky-no-21

Linky #21 - How Quality Emerges On emergent quality, learning from mistakes, and why testers need to speak the language of decision makers.

Blame kills learning

Every time a post incident review stops at “human error”, the learning stops too.
The mistake is still waiting in the system.

Quality improves when we ask: what made this mistake possible?

More in this week’s Linky: qualityeng.substack.com/p/linky-no-21

Linky #21 - How Quality Emerges On emergent quality, learning from mistakes, and why testers need to speak the language of decision makers.

Quality is a side effect

Most of the quality we experience in software is a side effect of how our organisations think and learn.

Not tools. Not tests. Behaviour.

If you want better quality, change the conditions, not the checklist.

qualityeng.substack.com/p/linky-no-21

Hats random stuff you find in the office. I remember collecting these when I was a kid and cheated by buying a full set for 3quid 😆

Yeah, that is quite ambiguous.

In the North of England they also ask “You alright” They’re not actually asking if you are it’s a bit like hello. You just say it back, and maybe a bit of a nod

Drunk raccoon found passed out in liquor store after breaking in. #Raccoon #BBCNews YouTube video by BBC News

Well if you’re locked in what else you going to do? 😂 youtube.com/shorts/-DqNM...

One of the best parts of working in MediaCity is that I can walk to work on the canal

Tell you what really annoys me. When you go out for coffee, sit in and they give it you in a takeaway cup.

If I’d known that I would have gone somewhere else

And if you click through to the second day you can see pictures of me making weird facial expressions on stage 😂

a group of people are riding bikes and skateboards in front of a building with the letter h on the front ALT: a group of people are riding bikes and skateboards in front of a building with the letter h on the front

You told them the truth, right? Yes, yes, there were dinosaurs when you were younger

Denver the last dinosaur, wasn’t a story, it was fact

Guess there are some advantages to looking like Santa Claus in engineering teams (male, white, old and with a beard) 😆

You're automatically taken seriously and knowledgeable

Today is the last day to submit a session proposal for next year's Agile Manchester conference: agilemanchester.net/call-for-ses...

The event will take place from 13-14 May

Tickets now available. Discount for freelancers.

Really enjoyed listening to @jitgos.bsky.social talk about managing uncertainty in complex systems - and how to handle this.

@oredev.org

a bob 's burgers movie poster with a cartoon character ALT: a bob 's burgers movie poster with a cartoon character

I was just asked if I’m over 25, and I’m like, 'Get in!' But then I thought, hold on, there’s a trade-off to this. But I can’t think what

Any ideas?

Whether it’s team safety, neurodiversity, or delivery speed, the pattern is the same: the system sets the limits.

People do their best work when the environment makes good outcomes the most likely outcome.

Improving quality isn’t about finding better people; it’s about building better systems.

We often use metrics to prove progress, but they can just as easily hide the real story.
The best metrics act as signals. Clues about how healthy the system is, not scorecards to optimise.

The goal isn’t to “fix the number”, it’s to understand what the number is trying to tell you.

Some of these cats are interesting 😂 via Substack notes substack.com/@coolstories...

Donald Trump posts AI video mocking 'No Kings' protesters Millions of people have joined so-called 'No Kings' rallies across the US, to demonstrate against Donald Trump's policies.

Yep this happened 😆 via Benedict Evans newsletter:

Donald Trump posted an AI-generated video in which he flies in a jet over US cities and bombs anti-Trump protests with excrement. You get what you voted for - a shitposter-in-chief

news.sky.com/video/donald...

Linky #17 - Learning by Doing It’s conference season again, which means plenty of ideas, experiments, and conversations about how we build quality into our systems. This week’s picks explore how we learn best from hands-on…

The best teams don’t avoid failure, they learn from it.

They talk openly, analyse fairly, and improve deliberately.

Experience becomes knowledge.

Autowhisk Premium Tea & Modern Steepware. Certified organic teas made with only real ingredients. Sustainable packaging, sourcing, and shipping. 30-day money-back guarantee. Discover your go-to online tea shop.

I don’t usually get sucked in, but this site does it so well. By the time I’d scrolled to the end, I just wanted to know where I could get one from 😆
www.firebellytea.com/pages/autowh...

Don’t mess with this train 😆

but who is she!?!