Fortune cookie about test cases

Heyhey!

In my desperate quest for releasing blog content I came up with this idea; Fortune cookies that tell words of wisdom, vague prophecies, mystic "truths" and even best practices to those who don't know better.

An omen

The reason why I'm not putting these solely on Twitter is because I want to ponder the meaning of these fortunes, with only just few phrases to keep the mystic vibe on. And of course I want to provoke discussion. Twitter is wonderful medium for releasing fortunes themselves, but for ponderment, discussion and other lenghty activities it's just too limited.

So get your zen and milk ready! It's fortune cookie time!

Mging ET w/ QC, LOL!!1

Heyhey!

Ok, tons of thoughts and ideas swimming in my head again. I've written lengthy texts about building trust, product risk analysis, cool heuristics like FPS Nausea, test cases, how to gain by losing, gaming testers, etc. All at alpha level still. All complete s**t still. The highest priority is however the recap about my experiences at recent Rapid Testing Intensive / Critical Thinking courses, held none other than the almighty James Bach himself.

Well, the highest priority was that. Namely somehow my approach on managing exploratory testing with QC has gotten some attention lately. Perhaps it's because I'm actually training it now, finally. Perhaps it's because I've ranted about it more in Twitter and other mediums. Or perhaps it's because factory schoolers have grown tired of me ranting about borderline philosophical things about testing and thinking like a tester, and are finally demanding something tangible to mimic.

I don't know.

The actual reason I'm writing this is firstly the interest of some of the testers I greatly respect namely Maaret Pyhäjärvi, Aleksis Tulonen, Huib Schoots and Paul Carvalho. I've managed ET and teams doing ET with QC for some time now, but I've never actually gotten any peer reviews of my actions. I've roamed relatively blindly and I hope this blog post cures that.

But secondly and no less importantly I'm hoping others will get ideas how to manage ET either with QC or with other tools as well. The idea is basically the same with every tool.

So let's get crackin'!

Note: I made a summary paragraph and it can be found at the very end of this post. So if you're a member of the sales division or otherwise suffer from attention deficiencies, you can skip right into it... ;)

It's judgment time!

Heyhey!

I came to wonder about oracles in testing. Or more likely got bewildered. You see, I read Cem Kaner's article about this subject and was totally lost when I hit the paragraph "Oracles are Heuristics".

Oracles and heuristics started to blur! I started this post as an attempt to cure my bewilderment via deeper analysis about the article and the thinking behind it, but then shifted to my focus on something much more interesting, namely passing judgment on people.

It's a dangerous path to take, but I took it. Let's see how it went...

Managing Expectations

Heyhey!

I've started several posts, six to be exact, one being a follow-up to my first episode of Building A Tester series, but I cannot complete any of them. My Achilles' Heel.

So I started a new one! :D

It's about an epiphany of what Jon Bach tweeted about the deeper meaning of Pass/Fail testing and how it's tied to one of the three phrases a Sogeti consultant should always remember. It's about promises, wishes and fulfillment their of. It's about managing expectations.

Learning About English and Using Condoms aka Building a Tester Via Video Games - part I

Heyhey!

I've ranted a lot about how I feel about the world of testing today, foamed about exploratory testing, defamed bad practises, pissed people off, hopefully helped some too. All has revolved around recent happenings, fresh phenomenas, hip and cool, but nothing about the past. Nothing about the reasons why I'm here, doing the things I do as a tester. It's about time to change that.

I've decided to start a series about building a tester. Something about what makes a person to become a tester, what ignites the passion towards it, what drives this passion onwards and how it's fueled by the very basics of a human nature.

This is a story of how I was built to be a tester.

NTD2012 roundup - day 2

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Day 2 round up of one of the warmest and friendliest conferences I've ever been in. Nordic Testing Days 2012, baby!

As I stated in my previous post, I missed the beginning of the day 2. Good company and alcoholic beverages are just something that makes me want to press snooze button few more times than usual in the next morning. Plus that breakfast was something else! Kudos, Meriton Grand Hotel!

Mr. Nice Guy in action ;)

Ok, I missed "only" the keynote of Rex Black, but as we seem to believe in different things professionally, I guess it's ok... ;) I had a chance to talk with Rex off-duty and it seems that he's a really nice guy with fashinating stories about his career and personal life. We chatted about testing, economics and even jujutsu. I'm quite bewildered that he travels that much; Over 250 000 miles per year!! What?! On top of everything else, he oozes character. I bet if he chooses to say I'm a girl, I will belive him. I quess you kinda have to have character if you're selling ISTQB... :D

But let's get cracking. Time dig into the presentations/workshops I eventually did participate. Same rules as before; Lightning style, headlines hold the slides, stories are my thoughts about the subject, etc.

Go!

NTD2012 roundup - day 1

Heyhey!

It's been awhile. Again. Even though I'm working on three assignments and haven't got the time to write down all the ideas that are swarming in my mind, things are pretty awsome right now. Namely all of these assignments offer intellectual challenges I've been yearning for so long now; Quality management with some of the most brilliant developers I've ever worked with, testing center of excellence handyman activities in super friendly and responsive environment and a pretty sweet exploratory testing gig for even sweeter product...

Plus I'm getting married soon! Exciting times! \o/

But enough about the hype. Topic of today is Nordic Testing Days 2012 roundup, which unfortunately has been delayed due to the before mentioned reasons. I'm tackling these lightning style i.e. a very short summary about the subjects that touched my heart and mind, divided in two days as the conference itself. This lightning style is of course because of the latency, which have made me to forget things. Very familiar situation in software testing too... ;)

So, time to get tackling (click the headlines for presentation material)!

Never stop exploring

Heyhey,

Went hiking today. 10km of ramming through thigh-high snow might not be the ultimate hiking experience for many, but I loved it. Took some photos too. Tried to find something to shoot, tried to get interested, but nothing really caught my eye. Had a pause, took my shoes off and... bingo!

I didn't remember my hiking shoes had this vital piece of motivational text written on them; Never stop exploring! That pretty much culminates the whole idea of what we should do when testing. Wonderful!! \o/

That's all for now. :)

Yours truly,

Sami "I Should Get Myself Some Snowshoes" Söderblom

Tester 3.0

Heyhey,

Just recently my colleagues presented this idea about Tester 2.0. Tapani Aaltio even gave an interview about the subject in EuroStar TV. Go Tapsa!

In short Tester 2.0 integrates itself more deeply into the SDLC, understands it better and creates more value this way while Tester 1.0 just does it's job, doesn't collaborate, pretty much stays put and tests. On this level I'm all for Tester 2.0, but what worries me the most is that in the dark side of all this lies the will to make us all developers...

So let's talk about Tester 3.0.

Exploratory Testing Hands-On - Part III

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In my previous post about Exploratory Testing Hands-On I even more deepened the thought process around ET and introduced some ways of testing that go very well with ET. And now it's time to get down to brass tacks, namely introduce the actual way I manage ET with the help of management tools.

It's quite irrelevant which tools to use, but in almost every assignment I've been in HP Quality Center has been the tool of choice for the organization, and this of course has an influence on my output. In my first post of this series I stated that that many consider QC be the worst thing ever happened to a field of software testing. Of course it's extremely bloated, heavy and cumbersome to use, but even it can be used in lightweight fashion that suits ET. Those complaining that QC cannot be used in ET, don't know how to use it. Period.

Ok, time to stand behind my words then.

Exploratory Testing Hands-On - Part II

Heyhey!

In my previous post about Exploratory Testing Hands-On I wrote about thinking and how I set myself into a certain mental state which helps me to do ET. It grew some discussion and even a vision for business. Nice!

And now it's time to go deeper, namely contemplate some of the actual methods and tricks that are often used when doing ET, even by me. Please however note that - as Cem Kaner and James Bach have said - exploratory testing is more a mindset or a way of thinking about testing than a methodology. So session based testing, pair wise testing, Whittaker's touring analogy, etc. aren't ET per se, but just means that are often useful when doing ET.

So let's get at them then!