thoughts from the test eye

Here are some small, free, nifty tools I use now and then: FreeMind – to model and communicate WinMerge – to diff or merge files or folders Process Hacker – to monitor resource usage Process Monitor – to monitor registry and disk activities InCtrl5 – for installation testing (what happended to Install Analyzer??) Fiddler/Wireshark – to see […]

Sometimes when I read status reports or hear project managers talk about testing, I hear that “testing is blocked”. What do they mean by that? When I delve deeper in what they are talking about I sometimes see that the progress on workpackages for the testing team or testers in a team have been combined with […]

I have been using the Scripted – Exploratory Testing Continuum (For one source of this, see page 56 in http://www.ryber.se/wp-content/EssentialTestDesign.pdf ) in classes to explain how scripted testing and exploratory testing intertwines; and to explain that most of our testing is somewhere in the middle of the continuum. But I have also had some issues with this […]

When I explain pair testing I usually say that you pair up two persons. One drives the testing while the other documents, comes with suggestions and asks for clarifications. In this context, if we consider the use of testing and checking. What if the person driving focus on testing (that is usually the case) and the […]

Introduction In 2009 Michael Bolton had a talk at Agile 2009 from which he later on wrote about a distinction between testing and checking [1]. He has since then elaborated more in the area and digged deeper into it [2], and continue to do so [3]. By clarifying what we are doing at a certain […]

I see humility as a very good virtue. It is something I have failed miserably at, partly because it is easy to think something is bad just because there are many problems. I think it’s a common fallacy for many ambitious testers – you are last in line, maybe with lower status, you want to […]

Status reporting of testing activities is extremely project-dependent. The needs of when and how and what will differ every time. Maybe that’s why there’s so little good writing about status communication; you have to make it up every time. Templates are out of the question, and I believe examples will mislead you as well. You’re […]

Generic test report:  DateTime ID Author Time for writing report Time maintaining scripts for generating report Application Under Test Areas tested For each area: Blockers Testers Tester mood Tests planned Tests executed Tests passed Tests failed Tests remaining (untested+fail) Bugs found, per priority Old bugs status (priority, severity, tester, assignee, days active) Bug resolution aggregation […]

– I saw you tested “42”. How come you didn’t try “43”? – That’s obvious. It would be the same. No need to test something that would give the same result. – OK, so I guess you are familiar with equivalence partitioning? – Beg your pardon? It is quite often said that testers don’t know […]

I spent this weekend in nice, dark, foggy Ringsjöstrand for the third Swedish Workshop on Exploratory Testing. Johan Jonasson, Ola Hyltén, Anders Claesson, Oscar Cosmo, Petter Mattsson, Rikard Edgren, Henrik Andersson, Robert Bergqvist, Maria Kedemo, Sigge Birgisson, Simon Morley. The format is LAWST-style, which means a presentation is followed by a facilitated discussion, that goes […]