In the Rapid Software Testing class, we focus on ways of doing the fastest, least expensive testing that still completely fulfills the mission. That involves doing some things more quickly, and it also involves doing other things less, or less wastefully. One of the prime candidates for radical waste reduction is documentation that’s incongruent with the testing mission. Medical device projects typically present a high degree of risk. Excellent testing … Read more
If you spend any time in forums in which new testers can be found, it won’t be long before someone asks “”What is the difference between smoke testing and sanity testing?” “What is the difference between smoke testing and sanity testing?” is a unicorn question. That is, it’s a question that shouldn’t be answered except perhaps by questioning the question: Why does it matter to you? Who’s asking you? What … 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
There is a common claim, especially in the Agile community, that suggests that all testers should be able to write programs. I don’t think that’s the case. In the Rapid Software Testing class, James Bach and I say that testing is “questioning a product in order to evaluate it”. That’s the short form of my personal definition of testing, “investigation of people, software, computers, and related goods and services, and … 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
A friend told me about a payment system he worked on once. In the system models (and in the source code), the person sending notification of a pending payment was the payer. The person who got that notice was called the payee. That person could designate somone else—the recipient—to pick up the money. The transfer agent would credit the account of the recipient, and debit the account of the person … Read more
I regularly converse with people who say they want to introduce exploratory testing in their organization. They say that up until now, they’ve only used a scripted approach. I reply that exploratory testing is already going on all the time at your organization. It’s just that no one notices, perhaps because they call it “review”, or “designing scripts”, or “getting ready to test”, or “investigating a bug”, or “working around … Read more
In the last post, my LinkedIn correspondent provided a couple of reasons why she liked writing test cases, and why she thought it necessary to write them down in the early stages of the project. Then she gave a third reason: When I’m on a project and I am the only one who knows how to test something, then I can’t move on to something new. I’d still be testing … Read more
Over the years, LinkedIn seems to have replaced comp.software.testing as the prime repository for wooly thinking and poorly conceived questions about testing. Recently I was involved in a conversation with someone who, at least, seemed to be more articulate than most of the people on LinkedIn. Alas, I’ve since lost the thread, and after some searching I’ve been unable to find it. No matter: the points of the discussion are, … Read more