During the last week, there was a Behavior Driven Development (BDD) related question on one of my mailing lists. For me it expressed a large misconception about BDD that is so widespread, and so common. Let’s see what it is, and what to do about it.
Continue reading How to write good scenariosCategory Archives: Agile Testing
Testing inside agile development cycles
Software Tester – from new to good to great
Software testing has come a long way. We have more than thirty years of experience with software testing. The world turned around in that time period. Depending on who you listen to, there are various opinions on what to learn about testing. Thinking about testing and learning, I am aware that there are different learning methodologies, and preferences. Nonetheless, I think the topic of testing can be split up on three general skill-levels that have brought me value: beginners, practitioners, and journeymen. Let’s see what’s in for you on each of these.
Continue reading Software Tester – from new to good to greatThanks!
As all these years, I went to the Agile Testing Days in Potsdam, Germany. On Tuesday evening I received an award for being the “Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person” 2013. Since this is an award based upon votes on the internet, I want to say thank you for voting for me.
I had prepared a speech, but didn’t deliver it fully. Here is the full thing that I prepared.
Continue reading Thanks!Automated vs. exploratory – we got it wrong!
There is a misconception floating around that Agile Testing is mostly about automated checking. On the other way the whole testing community fights since decades about the value of test automation vs. the value of exploratory testing. I find these two different extreme position unhelpful to do any constructive testing. Most recently I ended up with a model that explains the underlying dynamics quite well, to testers, to programmers, and to their managers. Here’s the model.
Continue reading Automated vs. exploratory – we got it wrong!Software Testing is not a commodity!
Stick in software testing long enough, and you will see enough ideas come and go to be able to sort out the ones that look promising to work, and the ones that you just hope will go away soon enough so that no manager will pay any of her attention to it. There have been quite a few in the history of software testing, and from my experience the worst things started to happen every time when someone tried to replace a skilled tester with some piece of automation – whether that particular automation was a tool-based approach or some sort of scripted testing approach. A while ago, Jerry Weinberg described the problem in the following way:
When managers don’t understand the work, they tend to reward the appearance of work. (long hours, piles of paper, …)
The tragic thing is when this also holds true for the art of discovering the information about how usable a given piece of software is.
Continue reading Software Testing is not a commodity!The Three Ages in Testing
On my way back from the Agile Practitioners Conference 2013 in Tel Aviv, Isreal I digest lots of information and bar discussion content. After attending Dan North‘s tutorial on Tuesday, I have six sheets of paper on notes with me, that will probably fill my writing buffer for the next half year. Time to get started. Here I connect Dan’s model of the Three Ages to Software Testing.
Continue reading The Three Ages in TestingWhat’s next in FitNesse?
The other day I was going through the first few drafts of the German translation of ATDD by Example – A practical guide to Acceptance Test-driven Development. Since some days I had been watching the list of issues that Dan Woodward and Arjan Molenaar were heavily working on some updated to the UI system, and FitNesse in general. Then Mike Scott told me that he just did a presentation at the Agile Testing Days, and used the recent version of FitNesse from the CI-server – and it looked awesome. Putting all together I decided to use new screenshots from FitNesse in the German translation. Until I get to update the English version of the book, here are some screenshots for the next version, which should be officially announced within the next week or so.
Continue reading What’s next in FitNesse?Zero-order measurements – a primer
On my last blog entry I introduced some zero-order measurements for agile software teams which I use quite often. One reader asked for an explanation:
Could you elaborate more about zero-order measurements? What does it mean?
Here is the primer.
Continue reading Zero-order measurements – a primer7 Zero-order measurements for agile projects
About two years ago I read Quality Software Management Volume 2 – First-order measurement from Jerry Weinberg. In it, he explains the differences between first-order and second-order measurements. The latter is a replacement measurement. Instead of measuring the thing, we measure something that we substitute for the thing that we are measuring. For example, measuring code coverage usually is a second-order measurement for test quality. It does not really measure the quality of the underlying tests, since you don’t know how many assertions lie behind the covered lines of code. In the same book, Weinberg also provides the concept of zero-order measurements for projects. A few months ago I was surprised that these seem to be focused on traditional projects, rather than agile ones. Since then I decided to come up with zero-order measurements for agile projects. So, here are some of the things I look for when entering a new client or company.
Continue reading 7 Zero-order measurements for agile projectsTesting Tools Mash-Ups
One of the three things that bring innovations, is copulation. That’s basically two already good ideas having sex with each other. I learned this from Jerry Weinberg’s Becoming a technical leader. The longer I stay in test automation and agile, though, I think this does not hold for combinations of testing tools, like a testing framework, and a UI-driver.
Continue reading Testing Tools Mash-Ups