Michael Bolton In 1996, I was working as a program manager for Quarterdeck, which at the time produced some of the best-selling utility software on the market. I took a three-day in-house training class that quite literally changed the course of my life. That class was the Black Box Software Testing course, by Cem Kaner. Unlike anyone else that I was aware of at the time, Cem was writing and talking about … Read more
In response to my post, Testers: Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business, my colleague Adam White writes, I want ask for your experience when you’ve your first 3 points for managers: Provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions, and then let them make the decisions. Remain fully aware that they’re making business decisions, not just technical ones. Know that the product doesn’t necessarily have to … Read more
The other day on Twitter, Cory Foy tweeted a challenge: “Having a QA department is a sign of incompetency in your Development department. Discuss.” Here’s what I think: I’m a tester, and it’s time for our craft to grow up. Whatever the organizational structure of our development shops, it’s time for us testers to get out of the Quality Assurance business. In the fall of 2008, I was at the … Read more
Last night I booked a hotel room using a Web-based discount travel service. The service’s particular shtick is that, in exchange for a heavy discount, you don’t get to know the name of the airline, hotel, or car company until you pay for the reservation. (Apparently the vendors are loath to admit that they’re offering these huge discounts—until they’ve received the cash; then they’re okay with the secret getting out.) … Read more
Here’s Part 2 of my notes on the CodingQA podcast, in which Matthew Osborn and Federico Silva Armas chat with James Bach about the exploratory testing and session-based test management. Skills of Exploratory Testing If you want to develop a list of testing skills, you might find it helpful to start with the Exploratory Skills and Dynamics sheet, by James Bach, Jon Bach, and Michael Bolton. One of the core … Read more
I was interviewed on April 19, 2010 by Gil Broza, an expert Agile coach who is a colleague and friend here in Toronto. Gil’s request for an interview reminded me of an experience I had a few beforehand. I received an email from a couple of researchers in Sweden who are studying exploratory testing. I was honoured to be asked for my point of view on the subject. However, I … Read more
In the interview with the Coding QA guys that was the subject of my last post, James Bach refers exploratory testing as parallel learning test design, test execution and learning, and said that exploratory approaches are epitomized by loops. Where do loops happen in exploratory testing? In fact, exploratory testing includes both looping and branching. When we’re testing in an exploratory way, we may branch away from the current path … Read more
Several months back, James Bach did an interview with the CodingQA guys, Matthew Osborn and Federico Silva Armas. In the interview, James talks about the skills of exploratory testing, sex education (now do I have your attention?) and how to use session-based test management with minimal overhead and maximum credibility. I’m surprised at how few people have heard about the podcast, so I’m drawing attention to it here. It runs … Read more
Phil came into my office, and flopped down into the comfortable chair across from my desk. He looked depressed and worried. “Hey, Phil,” I asked him tentatively. “You look like something’s bothering you. What’s up?” His brow furrowed. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Sometimes I feel like people think of me as nothing more than a literary device.” I usually don’t like fiction writing in the form of … Read more
For the last few weeks, I’ve been updating my blog and my Web site. This was inspired largely by Blogger’s decision to drop support for blog publishing via FTP. That would mean moving the blog to a .blogspot.com site, or to a custom domain that wouldn’t be developsense.com or a subdomain of it (later: not a subdomain, but a subfolder of http://www.developsense.com). Ugh. Many of my colleagues have taken to … Read more