For almost as long as I’ve been a tester, with occasional lapses into process enthusiasm, I’ve been questioning the value of test automation as a presumed good, especially when the automation is deployed against the highest levels of the application. Automation is a tool, and there is great value in tools. But with that value comes risk. The Agile Manifesto, properly in my view, emphasizes individuals and interactions over processes … Read more
If you don’t read the forums on the Software Testing Club, I’d recommend that you consider it. In my view, the STC is one of the more thoughtful venues for conversation about testing. (I’d recommend subscribing to the Software Testing mailing list, too.) A correspondent recently posted a request for help in recommending an automation approach. I answered something like what follows: Need to get a code coverage of at … Read more
I’ll be in London (the U.K., not London Ontario), June 17 2009, to present a keynote, “Two Futures of Software Testing” to the British Computer Society (BCS) Specialist Group in Software Testing (SIGIST; they must have bought a vowel). In the talk, I project a dark future for testing, in which the goal is Making Sure That Tests Pass, and in which processes and tools rule the roost—chillingly reminiscent of … Read more
I don’t know how this slipped in under my radar, but it did until a couple of days ago. Sharath Byregowda is a software tester in Bangalore, and he provides a marvelous experience report here. As I read the report, I’m delighted on a number of levels. First, it’s India! India tends to be a very conservative place when it comes to testing, with many test organizations preferring scripted, document-heavy, … Read more
I was at STAR East this past week, giving a tutorial, a track session, and a keynote. I dropped in on a few of the other sessions, but at breaks I kept finding myself engaged in conversation with individuals and small groups, such that I often didn’t make it to the next session. At STAR, like many conferences, the track presentations tend to be focused on someone’s proposed solution to … Read more
At the QUEST conference in Chicago, April 22 2009, I gave a presentation on recording and reporting for exploratory testers. You can find the presentation notes here. You can also read a more formal paper on the subject, prepared for the 2007 Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, here. Both documents include material on notebooks and on Session-Based Test Management, and a bunch of other stuff besides.
I’ll be at STAR East Monday, May 4 through May 7 2009. Lots of other colleagues will be there too, including James Bach, Jonathan Kohl, Rob Sabourin, Karen Johnson, and James Lyndsay. I’ll be presenting a keynote talk, “What Haven’t You Noticed Lately: Building Awareness in Testers” (the title there was cheerfully lifted by me from Mark Federman, who cheerfully lifted it from Terence Gordon, who either lifted or channeled … Read more
“Nice.. so Michael want us to buy his book .. maybe that why he have his web adress in his comments 🙂 Michael we did talk to the Ladies, and if you did the same you would know it’s fixed. Yes there was a mistake, but it’s fixed. If you want adverts for you book pls go to the papers or google adwords. There will come names, faces ect. We … Read more
A few blog posts back, I tried to emphasize the relative importance of skilled people over documentation by remarking that commercial airlines “tend to have a captain and a first officer in the cockpit, rather than a pilot and a book on how to fly an aircraft”. “Tend to” was intended to understate the case; as Rob remarks below, you’ll see single pilots only on very small planes (like the … Read more
This post is here only as a matter of historical record. Eventually, the bad guys go away. Related to my post about the World Agile Testing Qualifications Board, on March 31, I posted the following discussion on the WAQB LinkedIn list: Linkedin Groups March 31, 2009 World Agile Qualifications Board – WAQB Today’s Activity: 1 discussion Discussions (1) Does anyone /know/ anything about the World Agile Qualifications Board? 1 comment … Read more