Testing is like connecting the dots

there is more to it, than just following a script.

Very much related

Black or white – it is the same box

Fell in the trap of total coverage

It’s a matter of finding the pieces that make the picture

Seriously joking or joking seriously

The 860 kcal bug

Simon 7yo made the sticks with space aliens.        The egg candy is flying saucers

One day I was typing in my personal measurements into my health tracker. I had to go do the weight and height and then I came back and entered them.  And I started running, burning 800+ kcal‘s every time. First thought, whatever – it’s probably right. But apparently it was awesome for running a few clicks in 20 minutes (said my wife). After some time I returned to the settings for a different reason and found:

Height	70 cm / 2.3 feet
Weight	180 kg / 374.8 lbs

No wonder I had burned some carb’s if I’d been running along with those numbers…. Bug / No bug ?

• Apparently 70 cm is a valid height – What would be an invalid interval? – What would be invalid input?
• Apparently 180 is a valid weight – What would be an invalid interval? – What would be invalid input?
• How many angry users will you get for hinting that their body details are invalid?
• Does it matter? – It didn’t matter to me (or I would have spotted it sooner, I guess)

Give me your testing worries

In testing we handle risks, concerns, challenges, worries – we put the sore spots in the spotlight….

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!“*

Have the courage to stand tall and be the beacon where worries go to

 

See also: Acceptance is more than what can be measured, Testing is your sensory nerves, Eating wicked problems for breakfast

FYI conference – workshop om ET

[ FYI IT QUALITY & TEST MANAGEMENT conference | 12.6.2013-13.6.2013 Hotel First Copenhagen ]

WORKSHOP: Sådan kommer du i gang med Exploratory Test – uden at miste overblikket!
Exploratory Test er på dansk også kendt som udforskende test. Man kan nemt forledes til at udføre den ustruktureret og uden overblik. Med få teknikker kanman dog lede en Exploratory Test, så indsatsen bliver en aktiv valgt tilgang med fokus på det, der giver ny viden. Nogle af de teknikker, der er vigtige at kende i regi af exploratory test er: mindmaps, heuristikker og session-based test management.
Workshoppen tagersigtemod at give dig nye ideer til, hvad der kunne være relevant at teste af det, du sidder med til dagligt. Ligeledes får du input til, hvordan du undgår at miste overblikket, når du konkret står overfor at skulle vælge, hvad det giver mest værdi at teste i en given situation.
Dette er en praktiskworkshop – såmedbring din laptop!

Om workshop underviseren:
Jesper Lindholt Ottosen har i 10 år arbejdet med struktureret test i Systematic, CSC og TDC. Han har siden 2009 haft interne og eksterne blogs om softwaretest og følger de seneste trends på den globale scene indenfor Exploratory Test og context-drevettest. Jesper harfokus på, at tests skal gøre en forskel ved at være værdi-drevet og finde information om projektets egenskaber.

Wither the test manager?

[ Paul Gerrard | Will The Test Leaders Stand Up | The Testing Planet issue 10, March 2013 , Paywall] paraphrased:

There are five broad choices for you to take if you are a test lead or test manager:

1. Provide advice to the business leaders, as an independent agent cajole project leadership and review performance
2. Take control of the knowledge required to define and build systems. Demand clarity and precision in requirements
3. Help agile projects to recognise and react to risks, coach and mentor and manage testing
4. Manage the information flow between the key groups and continuous integration system, control change and delivery
5. Manage outsourced and offshore teams, manage relationships

It’s probably 6) All of the above

 

3D model for testing contexts

If software testing is solely about finding bugs, I would do nothing else to hack, break and attack the solution. In one context the testers job is to “positively destroy” the solution. Taking this to the extreme – this contradicts with the shared purpose to deliver value to some one“. If the context require that the tester is not allowed to report errors (#bad, but it happens) – that contexts is also not good taking to the extreme. If the acceptance criteria is that X severity bugs can be released, gaming the play will leads us not to look for them.  Where does your team score on the Bug hunters dimension

Mission: Break the solution
Mission: Confirm solution

In a Rapid Software Testing situation, testing is on the spot, with the given information at hand within a short time frame. I could imagine that a lot of mobile app development projects have very few formal/informal tests besides: “Does it work – then ship it“. Enterprise settings and medical systems need a higher degree of conformity to contracts, standards, certifications and FDA approvals. Where does your context score on the Exercise dimension:

Mission: Skipping
Mission: Deep-dive

A lot of testing contexts have the job to verify the solution. Given so and so requirements, so and so predefined charters, testcases, scripts … verify that the thing works as predicted. To solve this problem brawn is usually enough, tasks are broken down and systematically applied (machine checking). On the other end of the scale is a more learning context, where sapient tests trigger exploration based on brains. Where does your context score on the Thinking dimension

Mission: Prepared
Mission: Explored

When you start considering these dimensions it’s easier for you to get to the what, the where, the whom and how much. In some contexts the sliders are not easily moved. But even so consider to apply a bit of the dimensions in the various phases of your software testing – scoot over the application in “gold master testing” and snow plow testing. Verify and learn, test and check, break and confirm.

[ Rob Lambert | Thanks for the information, I’ll make up my own mind though ]

As professional skeptics we need to make up our own minds and come to our own conclusions. That should be done using any supporting material we can, but ultimately from our own information, decisions and activities

Please make your own model – what 3 dimensions characterizes the testing in your context? 

See also:

• What if – and Does it Matter
• Testing can add business value to any project state
• Softwaretesting is only dead, if it stands still

• Black or white – it is the same box

In a star team – the team gets the stars

If praise, recognition, promotions always come to a few staff members – the usual suspects – you have a hero culture. You have a hero culture – even though you might think you have a team culture. You can call it a star team all you want, if not the team gets the stars but the heroes, you are not walking the talk. Would you build a software relying on only a few persons? “He got hit by a tram” – is a true story, and it is happening again in software projects.  If you only give credit to those that pull out the big fires, you will nurture big fires. You get what you reward….

Something silly

Sure, recognize the stars – but spread the goodwill. Even heroes needs help. Make every team member feel that they contributed. Try when you lead to reach out to everybody over the course of the project/months days. Recognize them all and say thank you.

Once I was a leader at a children summer camp. Every evening we would make a mentioning of the fun stories of the day. Obviously some of the kids where more “fun” than the others, but we kept a rooster to make sure all were mentioned – perhaps just with a little thing. It meant a lot to be mentioned, even for something silly…

Keith Klain put’s it this way in The Testing Planet 10 – Leadership issue: “Leadership in Testing – What really Matters”:  I want my team to take ALL the credit because they are the ones doing all the work!  I would rephrase this to: I want to praise the teams I help succeed, but I also need to know that I am part of the team that get’s the praise .  

Strip me of all my power, my titles, my roles – and hand them to those that need it to have the courage to stand up, or that needs it to grow. I know I stand on the shoulders of software testing giants (like Keith), I may not reach high compared to them – but I can still lift someone else up, so that we together reach even further. We all have to start somewhere…

more on http://www.lovisastahl.com/eng_con.html

People are people – despite their labels

I generally despise the “despite” in the following sentences

• Despite being black … he became a president
• Despite being a Dane … he described atomic theory
• Despite being a woman … she participated in tech conferences
• Despite being a mother .. she was astronomer
• Despite being asperger … he was a genius scientist
• Despite having ADHD … he became a an educational inspiration for kids (dk)
• Despite being autistic … she was expert in finding patterns (dk)
• Despite being autistic … they can play together (dk)
• Despite being autistic … he has complex emotions (dk)

I’d rather we use a child with autism, a child with ADHD, a person with asperger… A mother, a woman, a Dane, a black person – a person. Children with a diagnosis is so much more than the diagnosis – they are children. People are so much more that their labels, they are people first – labels second.

See also:

http://jlottosen.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/they-are-just-people/

http://jlottosen.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/har-du-set-en-med/

http://jlottosen.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/the-geeks-and-nerds-syndrome/