The Tao of Testing

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Yin and Yang, the symbol of Taoism

For some time now I have had a constantly growing interest in Taoism. Don't get me wrong; I'm not in it for religious reasons. It's not about higher powers or entities that should be followed or even worshipped. It's just something that resonates with the values that I have and the way I see the world. In work, freetime, jujutsu, etc. I constantly see connections and analogies to Taoism.

How Taoism turns into testing is a fascinating mind game. Let's play some of that, shall we... ;)

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!

Exploratory Testing Hands-On - Part II

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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!