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How To Set Smart(ish) Goals For Testers Part 2

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Last week I appeared as part of the QA Touch Virtual Series. I spoke on the topic of goals and setting goals. I used the presentation to bring together a number of ideas of goals and goal setting, and this essay, in turn, is based on the presentation. This is Part 2 of a rough transcription of the webinar (note — I have moved several slides around as I have created this essay).

Read Part 1  

Part 2: 

Whether we are considering goals for groups of testers or teams that include testers, there is a natural tendency to set goals that are specific to a process. Examples of areas covered by specific process level goals include code coverage, test case automation, or (god forbid) the number of defects found or defect removal efficiency. While two of the four might be valuable focus areas, none of the examples are based on systems thinking view of the output delivered from a value chain therefore rarely impact the bottom line significantly. Other than a few specific scenarios, testing, is not the output of a value chain. In a software development organization, software products that people spent money on are an output. In an automobile manufacturer, cars are the output. Every team needs to have goals based on their contribution to the value stream. Four basic metric categories that need to be considered are:

ThroughputCycle TImeProductivityDelivered Defects

The four cover quite a bit of ground from how much is delivered (throughput), how long work takes to deliver (cycle time), financial efficiency (productivity), and the level of quality (delivered defects). The idea is to focus goals on what is important to the business rather than on lower level activities that often are important but rarely are strategic. Developing an understanding of the value chain provides scope and the products that testing or any other role needs to focus on impact when setting goals.

Individuals and teams need a north star which is something to aspire toward. What, however, is more likely is that goals will be set that provide incremental improvements but do not challenge the status quo. Enter the idea of a BHAG, which stands for big hairy audacious goal that by definition requires upsetting the apple cart. A BHAG goal is a long-term goal that, if attained, will fundamentally change the nature of an organization. While goals that fit the BHAG mold should be specific, measurable, and time-related, they may be less attainable or realistic than a SMART goal. A BHAG goal often provides an organization with the energy to break the inertia, rally the troops and to provide a direction for an individual, team, or organization. For example, reducing the wait time for patients would be a BHAG goal for my doctor. In order to attain that goal, he would have to fundamentally change how he practices, which might mean I might not like going to see him

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By: tcagley
Title: How To Set Smart(ish) Goals For Testers Part 2
Sourced From: tcagley.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/how-to-set-smartish-goals-for-testers-part-2/
Published Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2020 23:55:18 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://getinvestmentadvise.com/tech/amd-ryzen-9-3900xt-ryzen-7-3800xt-ryzen-5-3600xt-matisse-refresh-desktop-cpus-official-12-cores-at-4-7-ghz-for-499-8-cores-at-4-7-ghz-for-399-6-cores-at-4-5-ghz-for-249/

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NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Powered Massive Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Spotted in China, Over Hundreds of Ampere Laptops

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Last week, it was reported how cryptocurrency miners are rushing after NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops to earn that sweet digital currency profits. Well, now a video tour of one of the mining farms has surfaced showcasing several hundred gaming laptops being used to mine the cryptocurrencies.

Several Hundred NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Spotted In Chinese Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Video Tour

Earlier, we only got to see a glimpse of the cryptocurrency mining farm but a brand new video has surfaced which shows the complete scale of the setup. The setup is based in China but the user has not mentioned the location for obvious reasons. As you can tell, the mining farm is set up with and utilizes NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming laptops from the Chinese manufacturer, Hasse.

The Hasse laptop is based on the GeForce RTX 3060 mobility GPU. The GeForce RTX 3060 laptop solution is definitely not similar to the desktop variant which offers much better specifications and doesn’t come at a lower price either. According to NVIDIA themselves, the RTX 3060 laptops start at $999 US & the miners can save a penny by purchasing in bulk but they end up paying at least $600 US more for the laptop variant. Plus, they also end up with unnecessary hardware that the laptops feature. At the same time, the laptop variants do feature reduced TGPs which might save electricity costs & offer higher cryptocurrency mining rates.

pic.twitter.com/XJrfH9Fx7V

— 포시포시 (@harukaze5719) February 9, 2021

What’s interesting here is that the user has bought these laptops in a bulk order which means that either the retailer, distributor, or the manufacturer itself is openly supporting cryptocurrency miners over actual customers such as gamers which these laptops are primarily designed for. The selling party could be taking advantage of crypto miners by selling these at scalped prices to earn a profit.

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By: Hassan Mujtaba
Title: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Gaming Laptops Powered Massive Cryptocurrency Mining Farm Spotted in China, Over Hundreds of Ampere Laptops
Sourced From: wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-rtx-30-gaming-laptops-powered-massive-cryptocurrency-mining-farm-spotted-in-china-over-hundreds-of-ampere-laptops/
Published Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 04:17:52 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://getinvestmentadvise.com/tech/intel-3rd-gen-xeon-ice-lake-sp-cpu-rumors-10nm-with-up-to-40-cores-8-channel-ddr4-3200-64-pcie-gen-4-0-lanes-max-270w-tdp/

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Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Ice Lake-SP CPU Rumors – 10nm With Up To 40 Cores, 8-Channel DDR4-3200, 64 PCIe Gen 4.0 Lanes, Max 270W TDP

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A couple of rumors regarding Intel’s Ice Lake-SP Xeon server CPUs have surfaced over the web, mostly from known leaker, Momomo_US. The information consists of specifications, configs & power ratings of several SKUs that will be part of the 3rd Gen Xeon Scalable processor family.

Intel 3rd Gen Ice Lake-SP Xeon CPU Rumors Point Out Up To 40 Cores, 270W TDPs & Brand New Core Architecture

Starting off with the details, Intel’s 3rd Gen Ice Lake-SP Xeon CPUs will be based on the 10nm+ process node and utilize the Sunny Cove core architecture. The Intel Sunny Cove x86 architecture has been around since 2019 and was first featured on Intel’s 10th Gen Ice Lake processors for the notebook segment. Intel has since moved over to Tiger Lake which is based on the Willow Cove x86 architecture and makes use of the 10nm SuperFin process node.

Some of the major upgrades that Intel’s 10nm+ for Ice Lake-SP Xeon CPU will deliver include:

2.7x density scaling vs 14nmSelf-aligned Quad-PatterningContact Over Active GateCobalt

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By: Hassan Mujtaba
Title: Intel 3rd Gen Xeon Ice Lake-SP CPU Rumors – 10nm With Up To 40 Cores, 8-Channel DDR4-3200, 64 PCIe Gen 4.0 Lanes, Max 270W TDP
Sourced From: wccftech.com/intel-3rd-gen-xeon-ice-lake-sp-cpu-rumors-10nm-up-to-40-cores-270w-tdp/
Published Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 10:02:51 +0000

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https://getinvestmentadvise.com/tech/intels-raja-koduri-teases-xe-hpg-enthusiast-gaming-graphics-cards-in-action-within-3dmark-mesh-shader-test-launch-imminent/

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Intel’s Raja Koduri Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards In Action Within 3DMark Mesh Shader Test, Launch Imminent?

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Intel’s Senior Vice President, Raja Koduri, has been dropping some major bombs on his Twitter feed for a while now. The most recent one being the Xe HPC chip shot which is an engineering marvel but it looks like Raja has switched gears and now dropped a teaser of Intel’s first gaming discrete graphics cards, the Xe HPG.

Intel Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards, Running 3DMark’s Upcoming Mash Shader Feature

It’s been some time since we last heard about Intel’s Xe HPG (High-Performance Gaming) discrete GPUs or graphics cards. Intel’s main focus has been Xe-LP and they also dive in deeper within the tech that Xe HPC has to offer considering it’s their biggest chip design to date and the flagship Xe product. But the Xe HPG is where the gaming community is more focused at and we have got the first teaser of Intel’s discrete graphics cards based on the HPG GPUs running in action.

Xe HPG mesh shading in action, with the UL 3DMark Mesh Shader Feature test that is coming out soon pic.twitter.com/fnYeWoM08c

— Raja Koduri (@Rajaontheedge) February 10, 2021

The teaser from Raja shows an undisclosed Intel Xe HPG GPU based discrete graphics card running the UL 3DMark Mesh Shader Feature test. This test is coming out soon and will be integrated within the 3DMark test suite. Mesh Shader is one of the major features introduced within DirectX 12 Ultimate API back in 2020. The feature is supported by NVIDIA’s Turing, Ampere, and AMD’s RDNA 2 graphics architectures. Based on this tweet, Intel will also be adding Mesh Shaders support on its Xe-HPG class discrete GPUs.

The technology helps to dramatically improve performance and image quality when rendering a scene with a substantial number of very complex objects. Take for instance a very complex & triangle-heavy mesh and what Mesh Shaders would essentially do is segment it into smaller meshlets. Each meshlet ideally optimizes the vertex re-use within it. Using the new hardware stages and this segmentation scheme, devs can render more geometry

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By: Hassan Mujtaba
Title: Intel’s Raja Koduri Teases Xe HPG Enthusiast Gaming Graphics Cards In Action Within 3DMark Mesh Shader Test, Launch Imminent?
Sourced From: wccftech.com/intels-raja-koduri-teases-xe-hpg-enthusiast-gaming-graphics-cards-in-action-3dmark-mesh-shader-test/
Published Date: Wed, 10 Feb 2021 07:21:19 +0000

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