what is this exploratory testing thing

What Is This

Exploratory Testing

Thing?Tony Bruce

It’s all about me!

Tony Bruce Consulting Ltd

tony.bruce@tonybruceconsulting.co.uk

dancedwiththetester.blogspot.co.uk

@tonybruce77

Associate with

tbruce@equalexperts.com

Big bit of self promotion

January 2015 Workshop

Perception of?

Perception of?

● Doing random stuff to see

what happens

● Impromptu bug searching

● Undisciplined

● Undocumented

● Quick

● Untooled

● Unestimateable

● Unmanageable

What is it?

The plainest definition of exploratory testing is test design

and test execution at the same time.- James Bach - http://www.satisfice.com/articles/what_is_et.shtml

Simultaneously designing and executing tests to learn about

the system, using your insights from the last experiment to

inform the next- Elisabeth Hendrickson - Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory

Testing

What is it?

http://swtester.blogspot.ca/2012/05/what-is-exploratory-testing.html

What is it?

Leaders

hip

Under

Pre

ssure

: T

actics fro

m the F

ront Lin

e -

Bob S

tew

art

What can it involve?

Scientific MethodQuestion

Hypothesis

Strategy

Experiment

Data

Analysis

Conclusion

What can it involve?

What can it include?

…...when a programmer is creating unit tests to drive the

development (Q1), they are thinking about the feature and

design and making choices about what to automate. There is

a lot of learning going on in this process and I would very

much consider this discovery process as "exploratory"......

…...executing these checks that were created in an

exploratory way is no longer an exploratory testing

activity…….

http://swtester.blogspot.ca/2012/05/what-is-exploratory-testing.html

Example

What can it include? - People/Pairs

Example

● Locked down Jira

● Group of Product Owners

● Exploring

● What worked for them

● What didn’t work for them

Report & Manage

Session Based Test Management

Session Based

Exp

lora

tory

Te

stin

g in

Ag

ile C

on

text -

Elis

ab

eth

Hen

dric

kso

n

Session Based

Date/Time:

Mission:

Task:

Setup:

Data:

Notes:

Issues:

Thoughts:

The entire session report consists of

these sections:

• 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

• Bugs

http://www.satisfice.com/articles/sbtm.pdf

Session

Example Session Sheet

CHARTER

-----------------------------------------------

Analyze MapMaker’s View menu functionality and

report on

areas of potential risk.

#AREAS

OS | Windows 2000

Menu | View

Strategy | Function Testing

Strategy | Functional Analysis

START

-----------------------------------------------

5/30/00 03:20 pm

TESTER

-----------------------------------------------

Jonathan Bach

TASK BREAKDOWN

-----------------------------------------------

TEST NOTES

-----------------------------------------------

I touched each of the menu items, below, but focused

mostly on zooming behavior with various

combinations of map elements displayed.

View: Welcome Screen

Navigator

Locator Map

Legend

Map Elements

Highway Levels

Street Levels

Airport Diagrams

BUGS

-----------------------------------------------

#BUG 1321

Zooming in makes you put in the CD 2 when you get

to a certain level of granularity (the street names level)

--

http

://ww

w.s

atis

fice

.com

/artic

les/s

btm

.pd

f

Manage

Discipline Structure

FocusManageable

Planning

RepeatableEstimatable Time-box

Tools

Tools

Browser

- Add-ons

- Extensions

- Developer tools

Others

- Accessibility

- Security

- Debugging

- Automation

- Ide

- Infrastructure

What is in it for you?

How does the team

benefit?● Learn

● Information

● Intelligence

Information Flow

Information Flow

Information

- Session reports

- Documents

- Coverage

- Unknowns - Knowns

- Augment automation

- Visual

- Charters/Missions

- Pair

Challenges

What stops people being as productive as they

could be with Exploratory Testing?

Challenges

How can we talk about the differences between

Scripted and Exploratory?

Challenges

What are yours?

Thank you

Tony Bruce Consulting Ltd

tony.bruce@tonybruceconsulting.co.uk

dancedwiththetester.blogspot.co.uk

@tonybruce77

Associate with

tbruce@equalexperts.com