thoughts from the test eye

For the first 10 years of my testing career I wrote lousy test strategies. I believe the actual test strategies, what we tested and how, were adequate, but the way it was communicated, as part of test plans, was not good. As many strategies, they more or less just stated different functionalities, and that they […]

Introduction James Bach has written about Sweden and its testers like this: “In my world, ‘Swedish tester’ is becoming a stock phrase, like ‘French chef’ or ‘Swiss banker’ or ‘Antarean starship captain’ (You want your hyperdrive fixed right? Go see an Antarean). I’m not entirely sure why this is, but part of it is their […]

To our delight,, Software Quality Characteristics have been translated to five languages. Not only have these people created more words describing aspects of quality, they have also developed their own understanding. Dutch – Software Kwaliteits Kenmerken (Huib Schoots, Ruud Cox, Ray Oei, Zeger van Hese, Jean-Paul Varwijk, Jeanne Hofmans) Polish – Charakterystyki jakości oprogramowania (Radosław […]

Planning a test lab takes a lot more time than you think. You prepare a lot of things and try to make the event great. Here are a few things that I considered … What applications/systems to test? how many would be enough? what type of system? how big or complex? are they fun to […]

Harry Collins’ Tacit and Explicit Knowledge is a book about scripted and exploratory testing. Explicit knowledge is what can be told and is able to transfer knowledge. Tacit knowledge is what can’t be told (yet), knowledge transferred in other ways than reading/listening. There is nothing strange or mystical about this, “experience goes along with having […]

* Take any product, or a part of it. * Choose one category of the quality characteristics. * Go through each sub-category and consider if it is relevant. * For these, write a quality objective anchored in the product, that is useful to many roles. * Design and execute tests that challenge these objectives. * […]

Hi Thanks for your request of a high level summary of software testing. You would get different answers from each tester, and here’s what I think you should know. 1. Purpose of software Software is made to help people with something. If people don’t have use of it, the product doesn’t work. This is complex, […]

I have heard and seen the difference between Black Box Software Testing and White Box Software Testing being described as “whether or not you have knowledge about the code”; and that Gray Box Software Testing is a mix of the two. But is it really about how much of the code you see? I rather […]

I guess some of you are writing, or thinking about writing, abstracts for EuroSTAR 2013, deadline is at 13 February. You should do this, not just because Alan said so. You should do it because you want to tell stories, enhance your own understanding of something that is important to you. This is my process […]

I have experienced that many test leads, managers and project managers are worried about something called double testing. In short, it is the idea that some tester is testing the same thing as another tester. The term double testing might be a local term, but then you know it by another name with same properties […]