Exploratory Testing in Practice

Many traditional test teams are augmenting their documented test plans and test cases with a structured, exploratory approach. Teams adopting agile methods are replacing ad-hoc testing with exploratory techniques, allowing all development team members to effectively participate in product testing. Exploratory testing is all about simultaneously learning about the software you are testing while you are designing and executing the tests. It is used by developers for unit testing, independent testing teams for integration or system testing, and by customers implementing acceptance testing of developed or commercial off-the-shelf software packages. In this interactive tutorial, students learn about and practice session-based exploratory testing, a framework to organize testing into a series of time boxed missions or “charters.” In fulfilling a test charter, you use your skills and experience to adapt your testing actions as you learn what the application does. Through this process, one discovery leads to another and another as you explore the software under test. Exploratory testers add permanent value to projects by constructing practical notes, which provide short valuable logs that record what was discovered during each testing session.