exploratory testing myths romanian testing conference 2014

Exploratory Testing myths

luis.fraile@vsanywhere.com

CTO / Co-founder

@lfraile - @vs_anywhere

www.lfraile.net

http://geeks.ms/blogs/lfraile/

Luis Fraile

16/05/2014

Exploratory testing?

16/05/2014

Keys tosuccess

Inspect and adapt

Be creative! Take

advantage of your team´s

skillset

Additional to other Testing

Quickly find defects

Add value to your

customer

TEST EARLY,

TEST OFTEN !!!

Some myths…

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Myth 1: Same as Ad-hoc testing

Must be planned and documented

You must know

What has been tested

When was it tested

What defectswhere logged

Some ideas

Testing tours from

James Whittaker

Context-based testing

Session-based from James Bach

Your own method

Ad-hoc testing is a commonly used term for software testing performed without planning and documentation

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Myth 2: Can´t be measured

Multiple measurement techniques

• Session-Based Test Management SBTM

• Amount of logged defects

• Defects vs. user story complexity

You must be creative

Warning… Warning!

• Don´t be fooled by metrics

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Myth 3: Endless

Difficult to focus on long tasks (> 25 min)

Endless == useless

Must focus on specifics

•Requirements

•Problems

•Complex parts

Stay focused for burst periods (25 min)

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Myth 4: Can´t reproduce defects

How do you reproduce a defect?

Be a Explorer

Like David Livingstone

Toolset

Record video / audio

Screen captureAnalog

recording (i.e. Pen and paper)

Empower developers

…adopt a developer

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Adopt a developer

Myth 5: Only for Agile teams

Inspect and adapt

Insanity: doing the same thing over and

over again and expecting different

results.

Look for new ways of testing

Empower your team by allowing creativity…

... Do you trust your team?

… or not? …

Myth 6: Not documented

What we think of documentation?

But there are:

• Video

• Screenshots

• Audio

• Bugs

• New test plans …

Did we change your mind?

As soon as possible

Defects can appear in any

phase

... Pretotyping

http://www.pretotyping.org/the-pretotyping-manifesto-1

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When to start

What to expect

• … one more time

Defects

• Key areas

• Increased knowledgeTest plan

Tools

Very Important Rol

Should help you to

•Manage testing effort

•Manage test executions

•Manage defects

•Metrics to measure progress

Experience and experimentMOST IMPORTANT THING !!!!!

References

● Agile Testing from Lisa Crispin y Janet Gregory

● Anutthara Baradwaj (Microsoft) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/anutthara

● James Bach http://www.satisfice.com/blog/

● James Whittaker (Google Microsoft) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/● Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, Tricks, Tours, and Techniques to

Guide Test Design

● http://thecodinglove.com/

Thanks for your timeLuis Fraile // luis.fraile@vsanywhere.com // @lfraile // @vs_anywhere

16/05/2014