I thought of this the other day when rethinking a situation that was described in the experience report from Petter Mattson on “Swedish Workshop on Exploratory Testing” (SWET1). Let’s say that you have 100 Paper Airplane builders in your team. They all follow scripted instructions on how to fold a paper in order to create […]
When testing software, the very best inspiration and reality check comes from the software itself. It helps you test beyond requirements, and investigate what the software really is capable, and incapable, of. These are my best practices for exploratory testing. 1. understand what’s important – we can’t test everything, and we can’t find all bugs. […]
Let me begin by a quote from T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. One of the most important things with Exploratory Testing is that it allows for you to learn something […]
Well, to many people this is nothing new. But still, there are a lot of testers, and indeed test leads, that still think that Exploratory Testing is a technique that can be used in testing. To some extent, it has to do with that both Cem Kaner and James Bach have used this term amongst […]
Exploratory Testing is not as widely used as it could be, because management doesn’t want it. Stated reasons for this could be unaccountable, unstructured, sloppy, non-scientific etc, reasons that can be refuted by communication. But I think the real reason is something Exploratory Testing can’t have: a controlled process. Management/Companies want to have a plan […]
Let us assume you are a test lead and you have a group of testers. Some are totally new to the profession and some are old and experienced. In the scripted test environment you might setup a test matrix, plan test cases and allocate them among the testers. Some of the testers might have been […]
If you haven’t read the excellent articles by Michael Bolton regarding Testing vs. Checking yet, now is a good time to do it: http://www.developsense.com/blog/2009/08/testing-vs-checking/ http://www.developsense.com/blog/2009/09/transpection-and-three-elements-of/ http://www.developsense.com/blog/2009/09/pass-vs-fail-vs-is-there-problem-here/ Done? One thing that struck me with this is that the more testing you do will result in less testing and more checking. I.e., the more you test, the more […]
When looking for personel in general it is common that we want passionate people who love their work. Most passionate testers that I read about are usually part of the context-driven movement. Can there be testers out there that are really passionate about how they work in the heavy scripted test environment, where someone else […]
In many organisations it is hard to change how you are working. You might be bound to certain CM tools, how things are expected to be planned, documentation systems, management expectations, project management expectations and so on. In many of these traditional environments you might also use the regular test plans, test matrices, test specifications, […]
Exploratory Testing in its purest form is an approach that focus on learning, evolution and freedom. Cem Kaner’s definition is to the point: “Exploratory software testing is a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the value of her work by treating test-related learning, […]