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Tester’s Mindset

Breaking the Test Case Addiction (Part 3)

In the previous post, “Frieda”, my coaching client, asked about producing test cases for auditors or regulators. In Rapid Software Testing (RST), we find it helpful to frame that in terms of formal testing. Testing is formal to the degree that it must be done in a specific way, or to verify specific facts. Formal testing typically has the goal of confirming or demonstrating something in particular about the product. There’s a continuum to … Read more

Breaking the Test Case Addiction (Part 2)

Last time out, I was responding to a coaching client, a tester who was working in an organization fixated on test cases. Here, I’ll call her Frieda. She had some more questions about how to respond to her managers. What if they want another tester to do your tests if you are not available? “‘Your tests’, or ‘your testing’?”, I asked. From what I’ve heard, your tests. I don’t agree … Read more

Breaking the Test Case Addiction (Part 1)

Recently, during a coaching session, a tester was wrestling with something that was a mystery to her. She asked: Why do some tech leaders (for example, CTOs, development managers, test managers, and test leads) jump straight to test cases when they want to provide traceability, share testing efforts with stakeholders, and share feature knowledge with testers? I’m not sure. I fear that most of the time, fixation on test cases … Read more

Michael Bolton, Software Testing Coach, about “must-have” skills for a good Test Engineer

Sigma Software
Michael Bolton, Software Testing Coach, author of Rapid Software Testing, consultant and influencer talks about Ukrainian QA specialists and their expertise and shares his ideas on “must-have” knowledge and skills for a good Test Engineer. The interview was taken during his three-day training organized by QA Fest and hosted by Sigma Software in Kiev.

Exploratory Testing on an API? (Part 2)

Summary:  Loops of exploration, experimentation, studying, modeling, and learning are the essence of testing, not an add-on to it. The intersection of activity and models (such as the Heuristic Test Strategy Model) help us to perform testing while continuously developing, refining, and reviewing it. Testing is much more than writing a bunch of automated checks to confirm that the product can do something; it’s an ongoing investigation in which we … Read more

Four (and More) Questions for Testers to Ask

Testers investigate problems and risk. Other people manage the project, design the product, and write the code. As testers, we participate in that process, but in a special way and from a special perspective: it’s our primary job to anticipate, seek, and discover problems. We testers don’t prevent problems in the product; we don’t design, build, fix, or manage the product. We’re evaluating things that other people are bringing to … Read more

Finding the Happy Path

In response to yesterday’s post on The Happy Path colleague and friend Albert Gareev raises an important issue: Until we sufficiently learned about the users, the product, and the environment, we have no idea what usage pattern is a “happy path” and what would be the “edge cases”. I agree with Albert. (See more of what he has to say here.) This points to a kind of paradox in testing … Read more

How is the testing going?

Last week on Twitter, I posted this: “The testing is going well.” Does this mean the product is in good shape, or that we’re obtaining good coverage, or finding lots of bugs? “The testing is going badly.” The product is in good shape? Testing is blocked? We’re noting lots of bugs erroneously? — Michael Bolton (@michaelbolton) January 31, 2018 “The testing is going well.” Does this mean the product is … Read more