the myths of exploratory testing

Myths of exploratory testing

Luis Fraile // Co-Founder, CTO // VS AnywhereJose Aracil // Operations Manager // Globe Testing

luis.fraile@vsanywhere.com

@lfraile - @vs_anywhere

www.lfraile.net

http://geeks.ms/blogs/lfraile/

Luis Fraile

jose.aracil@globetesting.com

@pep0- @globetesting

www.josearacil.com

José Aracil

04/11/2013

Exploratory testing?

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Keys tosuccess

Inspect and adapt

Be creative! Take

advantage of your team´s

skillset

Additional to other Testing

Quickly find defects

Add value to your

customer

TEST EARLY,

TEST OFTEN !!!

Some myths…

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04/11/2013Confidencial y propietario // Todos los derechos reservados // Globe Testing

Myth 1: Same as Ad-hoc testing

Must be planned and documented

You must know

What has been tested

When was it tested

What defectswhere logged

Some ideas

Testing tours from

James Whittaker

Session-based from James Bach

Your own method

Ad-hoc testing is a commonly used term for software testing performed without planning and documentation

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04-Nov-13Confidencial y propietario // Todos los derechos reservados // Globe Testing

Myth 2: Can´t be measured

Multiple measurement techniques

• Session-Based Test Management SBTM

• Amount of logged defects

• Defects vs. user story complexity

You must be creative

Warning… Warning!

• Don´t be fooled by metrics

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Myth 3: Endless

Difficult to focus on long tasks (> 25 min)

Endless == useless

Must focus on specifics

•Requirements

•Problems

•Complex parts

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Myth 3: Endless

Difficult to focus on long tasks (> 25 min)

Endless == useless

Must focus on specifics

• Requirements

• Problems

• Complex parts

Stay focused for burst periods (25 min)

Pomodoro testing - Berlin QA – 27 Nov.

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Myth 4: Can´t reproduce defects

How do you reproduce a defect?

Be a Explorer

Like David Livingstone

Myth 4: Can´t reproduce defects

How do you reproduce a defect?

Be a Explorer

Like David Livingstone

Toolset

Record video / audio

Screen captureAnalog

recording (i.e. Pen and paper)

Empower developers

…adopt a developer

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Addopt a developer

Myth 5: Only for Agile teams

Inspect and adapt

Insanity: doing the same thing over and

over again and expecting different

results.

Look for new ways of testing

Empower your team by allowing creativity…

... Do you trust your team?

… or not? …

Myth 6: Not documented

Tester “Lonely Planet”

• User manual

• Online help (the F1 tour)

• Help from third parties

Alternative Tester

• Goes outside the tour (cancelling processes halfway, using “undo”, doing things twice…)

• Uses uncommonly used functionality or processes

• Always with an objective in mind

Second visit

• You need pictures / notes (screenshots, videos, defects…)

Did we change your mind?

As soon as possible

Defects can appear in any

phase

... Pretotyping

http://www.pretotyping.org/the-pretotyping-manifesto-1

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When to start

What to expect

• … one more time

Defects

• Key areas

• Increased knowledgeTest plan

Tools

Very Important Rol

Should help you to

•Manage testing effort

•Manage test executions

•Manage defects

•Metrics to measure progress

Experience and experimentMOST IMPORTANT THING !!!!!

Visual Studio 2012 Exploratory Testing

Microsoft Test Manager 2012

Reviewing what we have done

Defect and test case creation

From the tool

With all the session info

Used for:

• Enriched bugs

• New Test Cases

References

● Agile Testing from Lisa Crispin y Janet Gregory

● Anutthara Baradwaj (Microsoft) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/anutthara

● James Bach http://www.satisfice.com/blog/

● James Whittaker (Google Microsoft) http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/● Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, Tricks, Tours, and Techniques to

Guide Test Design

● http://thecodinglove.com/

Thanks for your timeJose Aracil // jose.aracil@globetesting.com // @pep0 // @globetestingLuis Fraile // luis.fraile@vsanywhere.com // @lfraile // @vs_anywhere

04/11/2013Confidencial y propietario // Todos los derechos reservados // Globe Testing