A Taste of Exploratory Testing

A TASTE OF EXPLORATORY TESTING

Anne-Marie Charrett@charrett

Skype: Charretts Blog: Mavericktester.com

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license,

visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/.

IRISH CREDENTIALS

• Born in St Michaels Dun Laoghaire

• Lived in Dublin and Leixlip (officially Co.Kildare)

• Studied at Kevin Street, DIT

•Worked for EOLAS, Government Standards Body

• Holidays, in County Kerry.

UNPREDICTABLE CLIMATE

• “When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.” Alice Hoffman

CONCLUSION

IRISH MAKE THE BEST TESTERS

A TASTE OF EXPLORATORY TESTING

Anne-Marie Charrett

TEST COIN FLIP FREE

Any questions?

DISCUSSION

•What bugs did you find?

•What do you do ?

WHAT DID YOU DO?

• Played around

• Tried out different things

• Figured out how it worked

• Saw something unusual - looked more

• Read up the information (on Website)

• Compared your findings

SCRIPTED TESTING

Requires a tester to be able to:

Often has formalised methodology based on IEEE829

Design Test Scripts upfront against Requirements

Requires Experienced Test Analyst Vs Tester

Indicate Expected Result upfront

Complete when 100% Test Executed

Aims to be repeatable

Agile - > automated checking

Test Strategy Test Spec Test Execution

Analysis

Documents

Design Testing

Activities

SCRIPTED TESTING

Test Report

Strategy

Modelling

Decision Making

ModellingConfiguration

OperationObservationEvaluation

Configuration

Reporting

“Exploratory testing is an approach to software testing that is concisely described as simultaneous learning, test design and

test execution.” Cem Kaner

“The plainest definition of exploratory testing is test design and test execution at the same time.” J. Bach

SIMULTANEOUS

Learning

Design

Execution

Activities

EXPLORATORY TESTING

Modelling

Decision Making

Configuration

Operation

Observation

Evaluation

Learning

Testing

Design

Strategy

TESTER CENTRIC

DesignTesting

Learning

AutodidacticSelf Awareness

AutonomyResponsibility

Courage

MYTH #1

Exploratory Testing is unstructured

PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES

• Explicit

• Repeatable

• Context less important

• Knowledge but not skill

ALGORITHMS

Heuristics

A heuristic is a fallible method of solving a problem or making a decision.

• Requires Skill

• Context Dependent

• Less Visible

PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES

The essence of heuristics: http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/462

EXPLORATORY TESTING HEURISTICS

• FEW HICCUPS (Ways to Recognise Bugs) - Michael Bolton

• SFDIPOT (Ways to Model and generate test ideas) - James Bach

• Heuristic Test Strategy Model - James Bach

• http://www.qualityperspectives.ca/resources_mnemonics.html

MYTH #2

You can’t use documents in Exploratory Testing

IS DOCUMENT A DIRTY WORD IN EXPLORATORY

TESTING?

Documents are great for?

Reflective Tool

Keeping Track of what we do

Sharing Information with Others

REPORTING

• Bug Reports

• Test Reports

• Mind Maps

• Wiki

• Conversations

• MiPs

• Charters and SBTM

J Bach

• Session is the basic testing work unit

• Each session is chartered

• ~ 90 minutes

• Debrief

Read about it here: http://www.satisfice.com/sbtm/

SESSION SHEET FORMAT• Session charter (includes a mission statement, and

areas to be tested)

• Tester name(s)

• Date and time started

• Task breakdown

• Data files

• Test notes

• Issues

What value

am I offering by

documenting this?

• Challenge Documentation

•On the Light side

• Begin by Thinking, then read

•Where possible, speak

• End by date ? (best before date)

• Byproducts not end results (its not an end its a means)

COBWEB

QUESTIONS?

THANK YOU!

amcharrett@testingtimes.com.au@charrett

Skype: charretts

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