Friday 27 August 2010

S/W Has Got Talent, and the x-Factor!


I forgot about this cartoon but was reminded by a news item on the BBC web site: "Success for 'China's Got Talent' amputee pianist"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11106935

I goot a good feeling the testing industry are going to love today's cartoon x x x

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Become an Exploratory Tester for only $100


Actually, it may not be that hard to become an Exploratory Tester. Check out James Bach’s short but to the point blog post about exploratory practitioners

Wednesday 18 August 2010

Long Test Strategies and Test Plans

A few years ago I had the pleasure of writing a Test Strategy for my test group. By the time I finished it, the document was around 30 pages long, with lots of detail and in depth explanations of our approach to testing. I was very proud of it! There was only one problem, nobody read it. It was way too long, the table of contents was enough to put people off. Looking back, it was generally a waist of time for me and for the two people who had the misery of reviewing it. Since then, I've heard about other testers who have written large/huge test documents which were then ignored.


But the other day I was inspired. An artist has created cool posters/paintings using famous literary classics, postertext. He has copied all the text from a book, pasted it into the painting and removed some of the text to create an image. I thought I could do the same with my Test Strategy (only it isn't a classic).

Once again, I can be proud of my very own Test Strategy document. What do you reckon? I can now print it out and pin it on desk... although I probably won't do that...

 Or


TWITTERS: A special mention to people who follow me on twitter: I apologise if I sent you loads of DMs. What can I say? I feel ashamed. My only consolation is that I wasn't the only one to fall into the spammer's devilish trap. Until the next time, be assured it won't happen again.

Tuesday 17 August 2010

Thursday 5 August 2010

Light Bulb


When I approach a new testing project, I can be all the people from this cartoon. Sometimes I worry that I haven't got the right skills/training for the project. Sometimes I think the project isn’t exciting enough so I don't put my all into it. I might worry that I'll make a huge mistake (like not find obvious bugs) and get the blame, or even the sack! On occasions, I ask all the right questions but then don't follow-up on the responses. Metrics can sometimes drive my work rather than highlight how the project is progressing. While in a project, I can be very good at covering my own backside!

Where am I going with this? I guess it's important to know how you approach testing projects. If you know you have areas you can develop on, you can tackle them as you start your next project. A good way to help you with this is to share your experiences in testing forums/communities.
Plus, in Matt Heusser's latest blog post, you can definitely fine tune your skills in approaching testing projects. This is a great opportunity to compare your skills with an expert!