AmiBug.Com, Inc. © Robert Sabourin, 2009October 11, 2015Slide 1 Happily Ever After Robert Sabourin...

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 1

Happily Ever After

Robert Sabourin

President & Principal consultant

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

Montreal, Canada

rsabourin@amibug.com

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 2

Happily Ever After

Testing Lessons from Classic Fairy Tales Robert Sabourin, AmiBug.com

Once upon a time, in testing conferences not so long ago, Rob Sabourin presented useful testing lessons from the most unlikely sources: the Looney Tunes gang, the Great Detectives, Dr. Seuss, Hollywood movies, the game of baseball, Monty Python, labor and delivery nursing, and the Simpsons. Now he turns his attention to lessons from classic fairy tales, those timeless fables designed to entertain and teach simple moral truths to children that also have important lessons for testers. What can the Three Pigs teach us about contingency planning? Can Mother Goose teach us to be great test leads? Can testers get the message across without crying wolf and live to tell the tale? What does Red Riding Hood teach us about critical thinking? Can we learn fundamental test design approaches from Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Were Hansel and Gretel test driven developers? Rob takes us through the realm of fairy tales, discovering wonderful, practical, and simple testing lessons that you can apply right away.

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 3

• Overview– Learning and metaphors– Happily ever after– Cry Wolf– Three Pigs– Goldilocks– Hansel and Gretel– Pied Piper– Red Riding Hood– Rip Van Winkle– Ugly Duckling– Mother Goose– A Testers Tale

Happily Ever After

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 4

Learning and Metaphors

• Teaching

• Learning

• Retaining

• Applying knowledge

• Share experiences

• Don’t get carried away …

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 5

Happily Ever After

• Fables

• Stories

• Morales

• Parables

• Simple Truths

• Cultural Context

• Don’t get carried away …

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 6

Cry Wolf

• Aesop

• “Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth.”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 7

Cry Wolf

• Attention grabbing

• Abuse responsibility

• Exaggeration

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 8

Cry Wolf

• Right time, place

• Consistency

• Credibility

• Build trust

• Earn respect

• Report effectively

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 9

Three Pigs

• James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps

• 1843

• “Benefit of hard work and planning”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 10

Three Pigs

• Straw

• Wood

• Brick

• Huff and Puff

• Blow House Down

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 11

Three Pigs

• Good Enough

• Failure Modes

• Risks

• Contingency Plan

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 12

Goldilocks

• Robert Southey

• 1843

• “cautionary tale … imparts a lesson about the hazards of wandering off and exploring unknown territory”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 13

Goldilocks

• Too Hot

• Too Cold

• Just Right

• Everything from food to matresses

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 14

Goldilocks

• Focus The Testing• Domain Analysis• Equivalence

Classes• Any variable can

be partitioned into different classes

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 15

Hansel and Gretel

• Brothers Grimm

• “Be careful accepting the seeming generosity of strangers as opposed to the harder to hear message of parents”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 16

Hansel and Gretel

• Retrace

• Candy House

• Evil Witch

• Disguise

• No way back

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 17

Which Path to Take

• Risk

• Coverage

• Completeness

• Recover

• Deception

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 18

Pied Piper

• Brothers Grimm

• “One must face the inevitable consequences of one's actions”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 19

Pied Piper

• Major problem

• Drastic solution

• Take for granted

• Cost benefit

• Pay the piper

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 20

Pied Piper

• Risks– Follow the leader– Technical debt– Downstream costs– Overkill

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 21

Red Riding Hood

• Brothers Grimm

• “Warns not to enter forests where wolves were known to live, and to be on the lookout for such”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 22

Red Riding Hood

• Personas

• Good enough

• Attributes

• Picnic baskets

• Hoodwinked

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 23

Red Riding Hood

• Observation– Same– Different– Missing– Unexpected– Emergent– Behavior

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 24

Rip Van Winkle

• Washington Irving

• 1819

• “To awake suddenly to profound changes in one's surroundings”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 25

Rip Van Winkle

• Sleep through life

• To suddenly awaken to profound changes

• Miss important issues

• Life passes you by

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 26

Rip Van Winkle

• Context listening

• Actively look for change

• Drivers– Business– Technology– Organizational

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 27

Ugly Duckling

• Hans Christian Andersen

• 1843

• “Take pride in yourself, don't let anyone criticize or reduce our value”

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 28

Ugly Duckling

• Born different

• Outcaste

• Unaccepted

• Ugly

• Transforms

• Look beyond the surface

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 29

Ugly Duckling

• Personal

• Transformation

• For the

• Better

• Look beyond the surface

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 30

Mother Goose

• Sharing

• Extract Lessons

• Camp fire

• Retrospective

• Remember

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 31

Mother Goose

• Tells the story

• Advocates the bugs

• Influences change

• Seeks out lessons

• Morales

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 32

A Testers Tale

• Once upon a time …• In a land far far away …• There lived a very busy, busy tester …• And the busy tester found many bugs …• Testing day in testing day out always

testing …• Bug counters loved the busy tester …

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 33

A Testers Tale

• But then suddenly one day the busy tester thought that there must be more to testing then finding lot’s of bugs …

• Something more fulfilling …

• Something more important …

• Something that made a difference …

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 34

A Testers Tale

• First, a tool vendor invited the busy tester to a user group forum. The vendor promised to show how tools could help make testing much much more than just finding bugs …

• But the tester soon realized that the vendor was mostly interested in selling tools and services

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 35

A Testers Tale

• Then, the busy tester met with a whole bunch of test certifiers. The certifiers promised that if the busy tester passed a special exam then the busy tester would be more valuable to more people, and be set apart from all the others

• But the busy tester soon found that certification was just a pretty sticker.

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 36

A Testers Tale

• And then one day the busy tester learned about peer conferences

• At peer conferences the busy tester met with many other testers in other companies using other technologies but all with the same quest sharing insights and finding important new ways to offer value

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 37

A Testers Tale

• The busy tester became part of a professional community

• Sharing methods, techniques & approaches

• Providing value to Stakeholders• Using test findings, offering information

& insights to guide stakeholders in making important decisions

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 38

A Testers Tale

• The busy tester became a trusted adviser to stakeholders, realizing that testing was all about people, and the occasional bug!

AmiBug.Com, Inc.

© Robert Sabourin, 2009April 21, 2023 Slide 39

Thank You

Questions?