Daily Archives: 5. September 2011

General

New blog – this time in German

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In the past week I started a new blog – this time in German. I will keep both my English and my German one, but might write less here in the near future. If you’re interested why I started a German blog, I left some reasons on first post. In case you’re unfamiliar with German, you might want to read on.

I dropped out of English classes in the 11th grade. Yeah, I did that. Skip forward 15 years, and I find myself having written several articles in English, contributed a chapter to a book, and eventually wrote one in English on my own. How did I do that? I think that an English blog made a contribution to that.

Now, as I want to know whether I am capable of publishing even more in German. I see some demand for that, and I see a difference between my English-speaking audience and the problems in Germany I face. The second and third entry on my German blog for example describe the issue of congruent communication as well as how to define a problem, and that not the problem is the problem, but our inability to cope with the problem.

That said, I will keep both blogs, and will deal with different topics on the different blogs. I won’t translate between the two most of the time – but leave myself the option open. So, if I raised your attention, you wouldn’t be the first to use an online translation on my blog, I think. :)

Agile Testing, Context-driven Testing, Exploratory Testing, Testing

GATE-Workshop attendees

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Today, I published the first set of attendees for the GATE Workshop on 1st of October in Hamburg, Germany. By name, these are

  • Maik Nogens, Meike Mertsch, Eusebiu Blindu, Sven Finsterwalder so far.

    As we have received fewer submissions so far than we hoped, I think I need to write something about my expectations as I consider myself the content-owner of the German Agile Testing and Exploratory Workshop. What strikes me when I visit teams claiming to do Agile, I often find their teams doing either of the following:

    • Exploratory Testing – applied bad, without debriefings, charters, and without the collaboration that would make it more structured, and provide product owners and managers with the information they are asking for
    • Test Automation – mostly done by programmers or testers who have a strong background in programming, sometimes not even beyond unit tests on an integration level between multiple classes

    As I see immense drawbacks focussing on one or the other of the two approaches, I am convinced that Agile teams can do better by using a combination of both worlds. Exploratory Testing alone might leave an Agile team with the problem, that exercising all the tests becomes a burden over time – especially when programmers lack proper unit tests. Test Automation – even with ATDD – alone ends with the drawback that for human obvious holes are left in the software.

    That said, I am interested in good applications of Exploratory Testing on Agile teams, what helped them succeed, and what could help them manage their Exploratory Testing. I am also interested in Test Automation topics, how they helped Exploratory Testing gain momentum. Finally, I am also interested in talks about how to prepare the tester’s mind, and where the connection between traditional testing techniques and Agile testing techniques might be.

    So far, there is a strong balance towards Exploratory Testing in the schedule. I like this to some extent, but I would also see more attendees on Test Automation, ATDD, BDD, you name it. So, if you think you have something to contribute, drop Maik or myself a line, and we may have a discussion about that. IF you’re unsure what GATE will be, read my initial blog entry on it.