A tester recently asked about creating an in-house testing process, wanting to know how to start writing test cases so that testing effort could be estimated. My reply—which could just as easily apply to a developer or business analysts in a testing role—went something like this: Test cases are not testing! While that’s true, just saying so probably won’t help you very much, so let me offer an alternative to thinking … Read more
Not too long ago, I had a conversation with Joe Colantonio. Joe asks questions that prompt answers about the nature of testing, accountability, and telling the testing story. Enjoy!
Testers ask: “I’m often given a product to test, but not enough time to test it. How am I supposed to sign off on the release when I haven’t tested enough?” My reply goes like this: If you’re a tester, it seems profoundly odd to me that you are responsible for signing off on a release. The decision to release a product is a business decision, not a technical one. … Read more
To a naïve manager who doesn’t understand testing very well, the visible manifestation of testing is a tester, sitting in front of a computer, banging on keys to operate a product, comparing output with a predicted result, and marking “pass” or “fail” on a spreadsheet. Therefore, thinks the manager: one way to make testing dramatically more efficient and effective is to automate the testing. Substitute the human tester for a … Read more
Testers: when we speak of “manual testing”, we help to damage the craft. That’s a strong statement, but it comes from years of experience in observing people thinking and speaking carelessly about testing. Damage arises when some people who don’t specialize in testing (and even some who do) become confused by the idea that some testing is “manual” and some testing is “automated”. They don’t realize that software development and … Read more
Over the last few months, we’ve been inviting people from the Rapid Software Testing class to a Slack channel. We’re now opening it up to RST alumni. If you’ve taken RST in the past, you’re welcome to join. Click here (or email me at slack@developsense.com), let me know where and when you took the class, and with which instructor. I’ll reply with an invitation.
A while ago, someone pointed out that Development and Operations should work together in order to fulfill the needs and goals of the business, and lo, the DevOps movement was born. On the face of it, that sounds pretty good… except when I wonder: how screwed up must things have got for that to sound like a radical, novel, innovative idea? Once or twice, I’ve noticed people referring to DevTestOps, … Read more
Some testers tell me that they are overwhelmed at the end of “Agile” sprints. That’s a test result—a symptom of unsustainable pace. I’ve written about that in a post called “Testing Problems are Test Results“. In Rapid Software Testing, we say that testing is evaluating a product by learning about it through exploration and experimentation, which includes to some degree: questioning, study, modeling, observation, inference, and plenty of other stuff—perhaps … Read more
A test case is not a test. A recipe is not cooking. An itinerary is not a trip. A score is not a musical performance, and a file of PowerPoint slides is not a conference talk. All of the former things are artifacts; explicit representations. The latter things are human performances. When the former things are used without tacit knowledge and skill, the performance is unlikely to go well. And … Read more
A New Agile Testing Ecosystem – EuroSTAR – Michael Bolton
Over the last several years, a set of ideas and activities have been dumped into a steamer trunk called Agile software development. Agile development has hit mainstream recognition, even though there is often uncertainty and turmoil around what “Agile development” means, in theory and in practice—and that uncertainty and turmoil affects Agile projects and the people in them.