I stopped myself in the hallway just to ask a few quick questions: Why do you like software testing? – That’s not a short question! But it involves a lot of creativity, subjectivity, serendipity, critical and holistic thinking. What’s your motivation for writing on a blog? – I don’t know, I just can’t stop myself. […]
If you just do what’s on the list of things to do, I think you can accomplish decent things, but nothing great. I don’t dare saying this is a general truth for everybody creating something new, so let’s focus on software development. There are many management models, and many of them boils down to something […]
Usability is an important part of any product (if it’s too difficult to use, it doesn’t matter how great the functionality is) and thereby an important characteristic for the testing team. But when reading about usability testing, it often involves an outside person trying to use a feature for the first time. Now this is […]
It’s a truth that we can’t find all bugs, but is it really a truth that we can’t find all important bugs? And it’s a cliche when used as answer to the (sincere) “why didn’t you find that bug?” question. Testers are paid to find important information about what they are testing, and included are […]
It has been said by many, but I heard it from Fiona Charles: “don’t ever fall in love with your model”, and this is a warning I want to elaborate. A model is a powerful way to understand how the system works, and thereby also how it can fail. But a model can also narrow […]
One of Cem Kaner’s many classic writings is “What is a Good Test Case?” It is a very good article, well-spent time for anyone involved in software testing. But when writing about test ideas, I started to realize that the list of properties for good test cases isn’t perfect, for me. So it’s time for […]
“Testing can’t be complete” might be the only statement all testers would agree upon. This means that we only will run a few of all possible tests, and this is in many fields called sampling. There isn’t too much said about qualitative sampling in software testing, so let’s look at what Grounded Theory says about […]
I have become allergic to models that are brought from other industries, and put on software testing as a best practice, or something really good. Software testing is unique, and you might violate important aspects when applying a template that doesn’t match. It is a big difference between producing 100,000 cars a year, and one piece […]
Testers are often in a unique position because we know a lot about the system as a whole, but also a lot about the details of the operating software. There are interesting dynamics between the small and the large, and with a human mind in between, a lot of important information will emerge. “The distinction […]
There are many names for software testing strategies/activities/ approaches/processes; they can be risk-based, coverage-focused, exploratory, requirements-based, Super-TPI, TMM 5 et.al. The names generally come from how the testing is performed or initiated, so I thought we should look at it from another angle, from the end of testing, from the results that we might know […]