Exploratory testing is an approach to testing that emphasizes the freedom and responsibility of testers to continually optimize the value of their work. Exploratory testing is the process of three mutually supportive activities—learning, test design, and test execution—done in parallel. With skill and practice, exploratory testers typically uncover an order of magnitude more problems than when the same amount of effort is spent on procedurally-scripted testing. All testers conduct exploratory testing in one way or another, but few know how to do it systematically to obtain the greatest benefits. Even fewer can articulate the process. Paul Holland shares specific heuristics and techniques of exploratory testing that will help you get the most from this highly productive approach. Paul focuses on the skills and dynamics of exploratory testing, and how it can be combined with scripted approaches.
Paul Holland
Paul Holland is the Managing Director, Head of the Testing Practice at Doran Jones. He has twenty years of hands-on testing and test management experience, primarily at Alcatel-Lucent where he led a transformation of the testing approach for two product divisions, making them more efficient and effective. As a test manager and tester, Paul focused on exploratory testing, test automation, and improving testing techniques. For the past five years, he has been consulting and delivering training to companies such as Intel, Intuit, Progressive Insurance, HP, Raymond James, and General Dynamics. Paul is one of three teachers of the Rapid Software Testing course. Twitter: @PaulHolland_TWN
You have just been assigned to a new testing project. So, where do you start? How do you develop a plan and begin testing? How will you report on your progress? In this hands-on session, Paul Holland shares test project approaches based on the Heuristic Software Test Model from Rapid Software Testing. Learn and practice new ways to plan, execute, and report on testing activities. You’ll be given a product to test and start by creating three raw lists—Product Coverage Outline, Potential Risks, and Test Ideas—that help ensure comprehensive testing. Use these lists to create an initial set of test charters. Employing “advanced” test management tools—Excel and whiteboards with Sticky Notes—you’ll create clear and concise test reports without using “bad metrics” (counts of pass/fail test cases, percent of test cases executed vs. plan). Look forward to your next testing project—or improve your current one—with new ideas and your new and improved planning, testing, and reporting skills.
The nature of exploration, coupled with the ability of testers to rapidly apply their skills and experience, make exploratory testing a widely used test approach—especially when time is short. Unfortunately, exploratory testing often is dismissed by project managers who assume that it is not reproducible, measurable, or accountable. If you have these concerns, you may find a solution in a technique called session-based test management (SBTM), developed by brothers Jon and James Bach to specifically address these issues. In SBTM, testers are assigned areas of a product to explore, and testing is time boxed in “sessions” that have mission statements called “charters” to create a meaningful and countable unit of work. Paul Holland discusses—and you practice—the skills of exploration using the SBTM approach. Paul demonstrates a freely available, open source tool to help manage your exploration, and prepares you to implement SBTM in your test organization.