Over the last few years, people have become increasingly enthusiastic about the idea of mind mapping to help them describe or illustrate or otherwise consider test coverage. For me, Darren McMillan was the one who really got the ball rolling here, here, and here. More recently there have been other examples to present coverage ideas. Colleague Adam Goucher has weighed in here. But there’s another thing you can do, something … Read more
Touring is one way of structuring exploratory testing, but exploratory testing is not necessarily touring, and touring is not necessarily exploratory. At one extreme, a tourist might parachute into a territory for which there is no detailed knowledge of the landscape, flora and fauna, or human culture, with the goal of identifying what’s there to be learned. Except in such cases, we wouldn’t call her a tourist; we’d call her … Read more
Several years ago, I worked for a few weeks as a tester on a big retail project. The project was spectacularly mismanaged, already a year behind schedule by the time I arrived. Just before I left, the oft-revised target date slipped by another three months. Three months later, the project was deployed, then pulled out of production for another six months to be fixed. Project managers and a CIO, among … Read more
In my recent blog post, Testing Problems Are Test Results, I noted a question that we might ask about people’s perceptions of testing itself: Does someone perceive testing to be difficult or time-consuming? Who? What’s the basis for that perception? What assumptions underlie it? The answer to that question may provide important clues to the way people think about testing, which in turn influences the cost and value of testing. … Read more
I often do an exercise in the Rapid Software Testing class in which I ask people to catalog things that, for them, make testing harder or slower. Their lists fit a pattern I hear over and over from testers (you can see an example of the pattern in this recent question on Stack Exchange). Typical points include: I’m a tester working alone with several programmers (or one of a handful … Read more
A while ago, James Bach and I did a transpection session. The object of the conversation was to think critically about the common trope that every test consists of at least an input and an expected result. We wanted to go deeper than that, and in the process we discovered a number of useful ideas. A test can be informed by an expectation, but oracles can also be developed on … Read more
Cem Kaner recently wrote a reply to my blog post Of Testing Tours and Dashboards. One way to address the best practice issue is to go back to the metaphor and ask “What would be the best tour of London?” That question should give rise to plenty of other questions. Are you touring for your own purposes, or in support of someone else’s interests? To what degree are other people … Read more
Note: This post contains plagiarism: I’ve stolen some content from an earlier blog post, and from my comments on another. I beg the forgiveness of faithful and diligent readers. Recently I’ve had to deal with some complaints from people on Twitter who seem to have misinterpreted certain analogies. Worse than that, sometimes it seems as though they don’t understand why and how we use analogies at all. Here are some … Read more
Damn that James Bach, for publishing his ideas before I had a chance to publish his ideas! Now I’ll have to do even more work! A couple of weeks back, James introduced a few ideas to me about things that testers find in addition to bugs. He enumerated issues, artifacts, and curios. The other day I was delighted to find an elaboration of these ideas (to which he added risks … Read more
Not too long ago, I updated my copy of Quicken. I hesitate to say upgrade. I’ve been using Quicken for years, despite the fact that the user interface has never been wonderful and has consistently declined a little in each version. One of these days, I’ll do a 90-minute session and record some observations about the product. But for now, here’s one. The default sort order for transactions in an … Read more