I’ve just gone through a three day course in Rapid Software Testing (RST) run by James Bach. This is the first time I’ve seen him in person. I’ve previously seen his responses and discussion from the yahoo group software-testing. I’ve seen the presentation on RST by Michael Bolton and I think either of them would do this well.

I thought he would be a lot more aggressive in person, but he was just inquisitive and straight-forward. It was very nice to hear him talk about ideas and war-stories that are similar to my own experience, but things that I might have not been able to think through. It is obvious that he has a vast experience in testing from many different situations. He talked many times about his integrity in testing (though phrasing it differently), that he has quit projects or jobs when he could not accept the “evil bureaucracy” or managerial demands that was outrageous.

The course itself focused heavily around how to do rapid testing and the concepts around exploratory testing. He had many exercises that were all of them thought through and challenging. I got lots of new ideas for testing, test managing, test theorizing and test planning. As always you were able to get a look at new tools that can be used in testing as well as books that you must add to the bookshelf.

I can recommend doing this course if you want to dwell deeper into the concepts of exploratory testing and rapid testing. I would have enjoyed working with him seeing that many of his ideas are great and along my own ideals.