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Exploratory Testing

2020: The year of dumping old heuristics

2020: The year of dumping old heuristics

When software testing, it’s handy to use mnemonics/heuristics to refer to. They can be useful as generators of test ideas, or reminders to test in a particular way, or to consider some aspect. What’s a heuristic? Think of a heuristic as a rule of thumb that helps

Indulge the Hunch

Indulge the Hunch

Have you ever been in a new city or town and been tempted to take a shortcut that you don’t know will actually be short? A hunch tells you it will be quicker. What do you do? Will you take the risk and go with your gut? Or, will

Lethal Weapon

Lethal Weapon

I’ve spent a day testing a scheduler using a semi-automated technique. It’s a task that is cognitively demanding. It requires creating sophisticated test data, loading it into a scheduler, then identifying if the output is as anticipated. Sound’s interesting right? It is. There are lots of different

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

Ever been on a long car journey packed with young kids? I remember these eight-hour drives with six kids crammed into a car driving to our holiday destination. My younger brother, in particular, was annoying, constantly asking questions and irritating his sisters. By far the most irritating question (especially to

Courage in Exploratory Testing

Courage in Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing takes software testing skill. It also requires the tester be courageous. Let me explain. Exploratory testing is an approach, not a technique. Exploratory Testing is simultaneous learning, design and execution. What information we learn about a product, helps dictate our tests providing us with information that we can

Speed Kills

Speed Kills

Some of my testers have become embedded on a newly formed agile team. Its been a roller coaster ride for sure. Lots of fun, thrills and a few scary points in time where I thought for certain we were not going to make it, or we were heading in the

Crossing the bridge over no-man's land

Crossing the bridge over no-man's land

Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom has a “moment of indecision” when halfway across a bridge he realises he’s been cornered by Mola Ram(the baddy) and his henchmen. He looks back and there’s a hoard of lusty savages baying for his blood, no luck there. He