Paul Holland is Now Teaching Rapid Software Testing
Sunday, April 22, 2012 19:19 PM
For the first time in a long time, I am prepared to endorse a new trainer of the Rapid Software Testing class: Paul Holland. Paul has been a tester and test manager at Alcatel/Lucent for something like 17 years. In recent years he has been using and teaching Rapid Software Testing methodology within Alcatel. His [...]
Bharani Asks About Daily Practice
Saturday, April 21, 2012 06:54 AM
Bharani from India is a novice tester who appears to have a lot of energy. She recently emailed me this: Sir, I need one small tips. As a, new tester how should they improve to became sharp and clever in the testing field. I mean that, What is their homework. what they should do daily…without [...]
Rob Sabourin at the Rapid Testing Intensive
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 18:42 PM
I’m delighted that Rob Sabourin, creator of the Just-In-Time Testing class, will be with us during the Rapid Testing Intensive, in July. He’s coming as a student, but you know, we’re ALL students of the craft, so I’m going to put him to work. Big time. We will also have Ajay Balamurugadas onsite. He’s among [...]
Mechanical or Magical? Noah Says “Neither.”
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 20:50 PM
As I was having dinner with Noah Höjeberg tonight, he said an interesting thing. “Some people think testing is mechanical, and that’s bad enough. But a lot of people seem to think the alternative to mechanical is magical.” (Noah is the new test strategist at Scila AB, in Stockholm. Interesting guy. I’ve played a lot [...]
How I Invented Sympathetic Testing
Saturday, March 17, 2012 20:29 PM
I did not invent sympathetic testing. Anyone who says I claim to have invented it will have only read the title of this post, but nothing further. Now you know. I may have been the first in my circle to recognize one specific benefit of sympathetic testing. But if so, that is a minor technical [...]
Ilari Aegerter and How I Love Switzerland
Friday, March 16, 2012 21:12 PM
I’ve wrapped up my first visit to Switzerland! I came to speak at the Swiss Testing Day, which attracted a lot of testers. 800 of them, I’m told. It was a very professional operation. For me the highlight of the visit was trading puzzles and working through Socratic examinations with various Swiss testers, principally Ilari [...]
What We Read
Tuesday, March 06, 2012 13:05 PM
I staggered out of the Cambridge Press bookstore a bit dazed, today, having gorged on 21 books. [Addendum: I mean by this that I browsed them, purchased them, and had them shipped home.] If you want to know what a Context-Driven tester reads, here it is: A First Course in Statistical Programming with R Wisdom: [...]
Context-Driven Testing at a Crossroads
Thursday, March 01, 2012 04:51 AM
Cem Kaner, who controls www.context-driven-testing.com, has announced an interesting change in his view of the Context-Driven School. He says he prefers to think of it in terms of the Context-Driven approach, not a school of thought. This is a significant change from his original view, which was that CDT is a different paradigm. That means [...]
We’ve Hired My Sister– Website Will Improve Soon!
Monday, January 30, 2012 09:59 AM
Satisfice, Inc. welcomes my sister Erika Good to our company. She’s our new Director of Marketing and Communication. Erika is two years older than me. When I first got kicked out of my home, in 1981, I was a freshman in high school. Erika and I would meet each morning (on the mornings I didn’t [...]
A Consulting Session With an Unfortunate Victim
Saturday, January 28, 2012 03:50 AM
This poor girl from Ghana inherited many kilograms of gold and can’t get at it because she can’t pay the back due rent on the gold storage unit. She has reached out to me, a total stranger, for help. I use my testing skills to help her understand that she’s being scammed. But you know, [...]
Rapid Testing Intensive
Wednesday, January 25, 2012 02:03 AM
Announcing the Rapid Testing Intensive seminar. This is something new. From July 24 to 28, my brother and I are going to run a short, extreme testing project over five days. We have a nice big space, good Internet, and we’ll be cut off from all distractions. The most interesting element, from my point of [...]
Public Class in England March 7-9
Monday, January 09, 2012 10:42 AM
Hey, I’ll be doing a public class in England, once again. This time in Cambridge. See the details, here. This year I also have public classes in Estonia, Romania, Australia, and New Zealand.
Willful Ignorance on Parade
Thursday, December 22, 2011 06:00 AM
Michael Bolton is accused of hand-waving in this thread on LinkedIn. (See the comment by Peter). Michael and I talk a lot about cognition and exploration. We speak in tropes that come from philosophy and various branches of science. Once in a while, some fellow who understands little of what we say assumes that we [...]
What Exploratory Testing is Not
Thursday, December 22, 2011 04:43 AM
Michael Bolton has gone off like a volcano in Iceland, writing a series about what exploratory testing isn’t: http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-1-touring http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-2-after-everything-else-testing http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-3-tool-free-testing http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-4-quick-tests http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-isnt-part-5-undocumented-testing Another thing I would add to this: Exploratory testing is not defined by any specific example of exploratory testing. Just as tap dancing does not characterize ballroom dancing, you can’t take any [...]
Why Scripted Testing is Not for Novices
Thursday, December 15, 2011 21:31 PM
…Unless you want bad testing. Claire Moss writes: I am surprised that you say that scripted testing is harder for novice testers. I would have expected that having so much structure around the tests would make getting into testing easier for someone with less experience and that the scripted instructions would make up for a [...]
