The Testing Planet Issue 2

An Introduction to
Test Automation Design
By Lisa Crispin examples of desired software be-
havior. Now they’re between a rock
and a hard place: regression testing
manually takes too long, and so does
keeping the automated tests up to
date as the production code changes.
In my experience, this quandary
is usually the result of poor automat-
ed test design. Automated test code
is, well, code. It requires the same
thoughtful design as production
code. By applying coding principles
such as “Don’t Repeat Yourself”,
anytime we need to update a test
to accommodate production code
changes, we only have to change
one module, class, include or macro,
perhaps only a variable value.
Unfortunately, test automation
is often done by testers who don’t
have much, if any, programming
experience. They may be capable
of capturing scripts with a tool and
replaying them, but this is only a
way to learn a tool, not a way to
design real tests. The programmers
on their projects may feel their job
is to write production code, not help
with functional or GUI test automa-
tion. So, the testers do their best, and
There’s no shortage of excel-
lent test automation tools available
today. Many are open source, so the
up-front cost is low. Some come
with script capture tools or mini-
IDEs that speed the learning curve.
Many have excellent user guides,
tutorials and screencasts avail-
able to help testers and teams learn
them.
The Problem
One would think that with all
this tools and help available, test
automation efforts would be more
likely to succeed than in years past.
However, what I see all too often
are teams who had no trouble creat-
ing thousands of automated regres-
sion tests – the problem comes a
few months down the road, when
they spend most of their time main-
taining the automated tests. These
testers are left with very little time
with critical testing activities such
as exploratory testing or collaborat-
ing with customers up-front to get
Unfortunately, test automation is often done by testers
who don’t have much, if any, programming experience.
Weekend Testing fun
Weekend Testing provides the
opportunity to learn new testing
approaches in a safe environment
away from daily work, project
schedule pressures and software
being thrown over the wall.
Continued Page 13
Yes, It's Personal
“I don't want your testers in
meetings with my team members.
They will be disruptive and then
use information they hear to make
us look bad. Keep them away from
us.”
Continued Page 10
Context Driven Jumping
Once upon a time, a herd of sheep
were grazing in green fields in the
countryside. There was a fence
along the field’s border to restrict
the sheep from crossing over to the
other side.
Continued Page 20
Testing & Creativity
The creativity is needed both when
generating test ideas outside
explicit
requirements, and when finding the
effective methods for running
important tests.
Continued Page 17
Daily Testing Tips
Tuesday has become one of my
favourite days of the week because
it’s when testers from around the
globe start posting their valuable
and insightful software testing tips
on twitter.
Continued Page 6
IN THE NEWS
THE TESTING PLANET
July 2010 www.softwaretestingclub.com No: 2 £5
Yes, It’s Personal
How to build healthy relationships with different job functions and team members pages 10-11

July 2010 www.softwaretestingclub.com Use #testingclub hashtag2
end up with half a million lines
of captured scripts (yes, I know
of more than one example) that
are impossible to maintain.
Even if teams use a frame-
work that allows non-program-
ming members to write tests in
plain English, a spreadsheet or
some other non-programming
language, the test cases still need
proper design. I personally have
made a terrible mess automating
dozens of FitNesse tests where
I repeated the same steps over
and over, because I didn’t know
at the time about the !include
feature of FitNesse.
with object-oriented programming. If you’re experi-
enced with these tools, you may find lots of faults with
my test code. But I wanted to demonstrate that these
design principles work even when you’re unfamiliar
with your tool or scripting language.
If you want to play with similar examples, you can
download the following:
Information and downloads to install Robot Frame-
work:
http://code.google.com/p/Robot Framework/wiki/
Installation
Robot Framework Selenium Library downloads,
including the demo: http://code.google.com/p/Robot
Framework-seleniumlibrary/
Look up Selenium commands here:
http://code.google.com/p/Robot Framework-seleni-
umlibrary/wiki/LibraryDocumentation
Run tests with” ./rundemo.py <test file name>”
To start the server for the app under test manually,
type “python httpserver.py start”
Example One
We’re testing account validation on a web app login
page. Our first test will open a browser, go to the main
page, and check the title. Then it will type in a correct
username and password, click login, verify that the title
is “Welcome Page”, and that the page contains the text
“Login succeeded”. (Note: I’d start even more simply
in real life – just open the browser for starters. But I
have to try to keep this article a manageable length.)
The following is from my test, which is in a .txt file
in real life (Robot Framework tests can be plain text or
HTML). The asterisks on the section names must start
in column 1. There are two spaces between the Seleni-
um keywords such as ‘input text’, and the data or argu-
ments used such as the field name ‘username_field’ and
the value ‘demo’. The “Test Cases” section includes all
our test cases. The “Settings” section allows the test to
access the correct libraries, and does tidying up.
*** Test Cases ***
Test Login
open browser http://127.0.0.1:7272 firefox
title should be Login Page
input text username_field demo
input text password_field mode
Click Button login_button
Title should be Welcome Page
Page should contain Login succeeded
*** Settings ***
Library SeleniumLibrary
Test Teardown close browser
Possible Solutions
A simple solution is for experienced programmers to
pair with testers to automate tests. At minimum, teams
need to hire testers with solid code design skills to help
the non-programmer testers. Testers need training in basic
design principles and patterns.
There are lots of resources to learn how to do a particu-
lar type of automation, such as GUI test automation. My
personal mission is to find ways to help educate testers in
designing maintainable tests. As a start, I’d like to illus-
trate some basic design principles using examples written
in Robot Framework with Selenium driving GUI tests. I
had not used either Robot Framework or Selenium before
when I sat down to create these examples. And while I’ve
been automating tests for a long time, I’m not too good
AUTOMATION
Blog post: New to Testing? : http://bit.ly/cL7P4E

3Follow us at www.twitter.com/testingclub
Example Two
Cool, we tested that a valid username and password can log in. But we
have lots of test cases to cover. Valid and invalid combinations of user-
names and passwords, empty ones, special characters, too-long and too-
short ones, and more. Repeating the test above over and over with hard-
coded values would get out of control pretty quickly. Plus, we want to test
in multiple browsers and possibly test multiple servers.
When we see duplication, we always want to extract it out. Good test
tools give you a way to do this. Robot Framework provides the concept
of “keywords”. For example, we can use a keyword that navigates to the
login page, a keyword to type in the username, and so on.
Here’s a first step towards extracting out duplication in our simple test.
We have two test cases: “invalid account”, which tests an invalid user-
name and password and verifies the error message, and “valid account”,
which logs in with a valid username/password combination and verifies
the landing page. We’ve put the values for browser and server into vari-
ables. We’ve defined keywords for actions such as typing in the username
and password, clicking the submit button, and verifying the messages.
*** Test Cases ***
invalid account
navigate to the login page
type in username invalid
type in password xxx
click submit
verify the invalid account message
valid account
type in username demo
type in password mode
click submit
verify the valid account message
click logout
*** Keywords ***
type in username [Arguments] ${username}
input text username_field ${username}
type in password [Arguments] ${password}
input text password_field ${password}
log hello, world!
open browser ${LOGIN PAGE} ${BROWSER}
click submit
click logout
Click Link logout
verify the invalid account message
Title should be Error Page
Page should contain Invalid user name and/or password
verify the valid account message
Title should be Welcome Page
Page should contain Login succeeded
*** Settings ***
*** Variable ***
${LOGIN PAGE} http://localhost:7272
${BROWSER} firefox
This test is still sort of end-to-end-y, in that it first does the invalid
case, then the valid one, then logs out. It’s a step in the right direction. If
the name of the password field in the HTML changes, we only have to
change it in one place. Same thing if the text of the invalid login error
message changes.
Example Three
It’d be nicer if we could just run the test with whatever username and
password that we want to try, and check for the appropriate error message.
One way to do this is by passing in variable values with command line
arguments. We’ve refactored the test to expect variables to be passed in.
We also separated out verifying the title and verifying the message,
*** Test Cases ***
login account
type in username ${username}
type in password ${password}
click submit
verify the title
verify the message
*** Keywords ***
${title} = Get Title
should start with ${title} Login
type in username [Arguments] ${username}
input text username_field ${username}
type in password [Arguments] ${password}
input text password_field ${password}
click submit
click logout
Click Link logout
verify the title
Title should be ${title}
verify the message
Page should contain ${message}
A passing automated test does not always mean the underlying code is working. #dttip by @cowboytesting

Timebox the search for bugs or replicating bugs. Use heuristics to help. We can prove the existence of bugs but not their absence.
#dttip by @ThomasPonnet
*** Settings ***
*** Variable ***
${LOGIN PAGE} http://localhost:7272
${BROWSER} firefox
We can supply the variable values from the command line:
./runDemo.py --variable username:demo --variable password:mode
--variable message:‘Login Succeeded’ --variable title:’Welcome Page’
demo_test2.txt
I can easily visualize cranking a lot of username, password and mes-
sage value combinations through this script. I could write a script to do
this so I don’t have to type them myself. My team uses a similar technique
to test many combinations of data values with our Watir scripts. Different
tool, same concept.
It turns out that in Robot Framework, running the test multiple times by
passing in variables from the command line would be inefficient, because
Selenium would start the browser up new each time. But this can be a
good approach with other tools, and works well in Robot Framework for
running the same test with different browsers (see http://robotframework-
seleniumlibrary.googlecode.com/hg/demo/login_tests/invalid_login.txt for
an example of this). Also, passing variables from the command line can be
a powerful way to leverage automated tests to set up scenarios for manual
exploratory testing.
Notice that I also split out the ‘verify title’ and ‘verify message’ test
cases. That’s a personal preference; I find that if my tests are more granu-
lar, it’s easier to debug problems with the test itself. I didn’t pass in the
login page or browser values, but I could.
Example Four
There’s still a lot going on in one test file. It would be nice if each of
our keywords could be in its own little file. Good test tools allow this, and
Robot Framework’s implementation is called a ‘resource’.
For example, we could take “Navigate to login page” and put it in a
separate text file called “navigate_to_login.txt”
*** Keywords ***
${title} = Get Title
should start with ${title} Login
Now we can simply refer to this file whenever we want to navigate to
the login page in a test. In Robot Framework, we do this in the “Settings”
section. Notice I also added some Documentation there.
*** Settings ***
Documentation Test account validation
Resource navigate_to_login.txt
*** Test Cases ***
login account
type in username ${username}
type in password ${password}
click submit
verify the title
verify the message
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Tuesday has become one of my
favourite days of the week because
it’s when testers from around the
globe start posting their valuable
and insightful software testing tips
on twitter. I’m truly astounded by
the depth and quality of these tips.
Daily Testing Tip came about
last year as an extension to the
Quick Testing Tips website which I
had been contributing weekly posts
to. I thought that this idea would
work well with twitter too, and so
Daily Testing Tips was born. I now
have over 500 followers and that
number grows daily.
About Author
Co-author with Janet Gregory,
_Agile Testing: A Practical Guide
for Testers and Agile Teams_
(Addison-Wesley 2009)
Contributor to _Beautiful Test-
ing_ (O’Reilly 2009)
http://lisacrispin.com
@lisacrispin on Twitter
I soon discovered that it’s quite
a challenge to write a daily tip in
less than 140 characters and so I put
a call out from volunteers. Those
who heard the early call were Ajay
Balamurugadas, Matt Heusser, Rob
Lambert and Trish Khoo.
Many other testers offered to
contribute too, so to make it fair, 4
testers now contribute once a week
for six weeks.
At the moment I have the fabulous
Selena Delesie, Ajay Balamuruga-
das, Catalin Anastasoaie and Joel
Montvelisky contributing a tip once a
week. A big thanks to these testers as
I know it can be hard work to think
up a tip, even if its once a week.
Getting a daily dose of
Testing Tips
By Anne-Marie Charrett
The Keywords section looks the same as before, except with the ‘navi-
gate to the login page’ keyword removed.
If we’re testing a web application, we’re bound to have lots of tests that
need to navigate to the login page. Now this functionality is encapsulated
into one little file. Whenever something about navigating to the login page
is changed, we only need to update one file, and all the tests that use it will
still be able to do the navigation. We’d want to do something similar with
the login account, so that our many GUI tests can simply include the login
file in their Resource sections.
Design For Maintainability
I’ve only scratched the surface of test automation design principles.
I didn’t even get into patterns, such as “Build-Operate-Check”, where
we build our test data, operate on it, verify the results, and then clean up
the data so the test can be rerun. But I hope I’m getting across my point:
successful test automation requires good design skills, and they can be
learned without too much pain.
I’m no expert at object-oriented design. My programming experience
is in structured and interpreted languages, and with proprietary C-like test
automation tool languages. The only OO scripting I’ve done is with Ruby,
but I was able to succeed because my fellow tester was a Perl programmer
and all my programmer teammates are willing to help too.
I’ve shown you some simplistic examples of how I personally would
start extracting duplication out of a test script and start forming a library
of basic test modules, like navigating to the login page and login. We
could have modules for verifying HTML page titles, text, messages and
elements, using variables for the names and values.
These concepts aren’t easy to learn, but the investment pays off. My
team and I have spent lots of time over the years refactoring the early tests
I wrote in FitNesse and Canoo WebTest, because I made design mistakes
or was ignorant of the tools’ helpful features (and I had been automating
tests reasonably successfully for at least a decade prior!) As a result of
constantly learning, refactoring and improving, we’re able to automate
100% of our regression testing without a heavy maintenance burden, and
our tests have a high return on investment. When they fail, it’s usually
because there’s a regression bug.
If you’ve read this far, you must be eager to learn more about test auto-
mation design. Ask a programmer on your team to pair with you to automate
some tests, so you can learn some new techniques.
Work through a good book such as Everyday Scripting with Ruby by
Brian Marick.
Search Out Blog Posts And Articles.
Dale Emery has an excellent paper on Writing Maintainable Automated
Acceptance Tests at http://dhemery.com/pdf/writing_maintainable_auto-
mated_acceptance_tests.pdf.
Your team can successfully automate regression tests. You’ll need to
invest some time and effort to experiment and learn the best approach. It’s
a journey, but an enjoyable one. Once you get on the right road, you’ll have
time for the other essential testing tasks you need to create a product your
customers love.
Blog post: Anatomy of a Good Test : http://bit.ly/dAvuhX

willingness of the software testing
community to help each other out.
I’m proud to be part of that.
Also, the beauty of #dttip is that
your tip can really help out a tester
anywhere in the world. An encour-
aging tip can help a tester refocus
or validate their own thoughts in a
very practical way.
I’ve collated a list of tips that for
me stand out (they are in no partic-
ular order), I’m sure you have your
own favourites.
If you want to post a tip on Tag
Tuesday, you will need a twitter
account. When you write a tweet,
just add #dttip to it anywhere in
the message. If you want to follow
all the tips, you can either do so at
http://dailytestingtip.com or use
the feed http://search.twitter.com/
search?q=%23dttip
Again, thanks to everyone who
contributes to making Tag Tuesdays
so much fun.
and summed up by Markus Gärtner
in a tip the next day:
“I think tester’s blew the weekly
testing tip in a collaborative load
testing session on this #dttip hashtag.
All after just 3 weeks :)”
Tester had fun voting for their
favourite tip in a poll I had on the
daily testing tip website but when
the tips started getting too many I
had to stop that.
I think the success of #dttip is a
demonstration of the strength and
It’s a great experience to post a
daily testing tip to the community
and all testers are welcome to do
so.
So if there are any testers out
there who want to try their hand out
at writing a daily testing tip for six
weeks, send me an email at daily-
testingtip@gmail.com with a short
bio indicating why you want to
contribute. It’s that easy!
Tag Tuesday and
#dttip on Twitter was an
idea from the wonderful
Rosie Sherry.
She thought it might be fun to
have a day where anyone could
share a tip on Twitter using the
hashtag of #dttip.
The record so far was 117 tips in
one day which was truly amazing
You know the movie Zombieland? There is a rule: Double Tap! Works for testing perfectly... by @Skarlso
About Author
Anne-Marie Charrett is a
professional software tester and
runs her own company,Testing
Times [http://www.testingtimes.
ie/]. An electronic engineer by
trade, software testing chose her
when in 1990 she started confor-
mance testing against European
standards. She was hooked and
has been testing since then. She
enjoys working with innovative
and creative people, which has
led her to specialise working for
start-ups and incubators. She’s a
keen blogger and hosts her own
blog, called Maverick Tester.
[ http://mavericktester.com/]
Testing Tips
"Think of your testing notes as a
flight data recorder. We crack them
open if something goes wrong."
@jbtestpilot #testing #qa #dttip
One thing that science has
taught us some bugs are hard
to find but perseverance pays off
in the end. donʼt give up. #dttip by
@mpkhosla (Mohinder Khosla)
Whole team, not only testers,
needs to take resp. for quality,
testing. "it takes a village".
#dttip by @lisacrispin
(@lisacrispin)
Learn to be diplomatic, you
want the bug to be resolved,
not to prove you are right.
#dttip by @gunjans
It's not about the test, it's about
the result - seek and provide
actionable, referenceable
information. #dttip by
@bradjohnsonsv (Brad Johnson)
Instead of talking about costs in
testing, start think about
investments, donʼt translate
value in cost, was it worth
investing #dttip by @JeroenRo
(Jeroen Rosink)
Testing ideas may come to you
at the weirdiest times, keep a
notebook handy to write them
down & use them later. #dttip
by @joelmonte (Joel Montvelisky)
Automated tests should never
be used as a show off to
managers. They might think it's
easy and useful to automate
everything. #dttip by @knorrium
(Felipe Knorr Kuhn)
'Ever tried, Ever failed, No matter.
Try again, Fail again, Fail Better'
Samuel Beckett - thought testers
might like it #dttip by @esconfs
(EuroSTAR Conferences)
Use typewith.me to collaborate with
other testers while pair testing or
even with programmers, #dttip
by @sdhanasekar (Dhanasekar S)
Just because you've counted all the
trees doesn't mean you've seen the
forest #dttip by @TestSideStory
(Zeger Van Hese)
Find all users in a system, not
only the ones that people want
to know about. That includes
disgruntled employee and
hacker. #dttip by @Thomas
Ponnet (Thomas Ponnet)
Assume nothing. Question
everything. Trust no one #dttip by
@cartoontester
if you want to study the "effect"
of something, try removing it and
see how the system behaves
#dttip by @shrinik (Shrini Kulkarni)
If you test on Windows Vista or
7 be sure to turn on the 'All
CPU Meter' windows gadget.
#dttip by @can_test
(Paul Carvalho)
draw pictures of the software you
are planning to test; the pictures
will help you think about it
differently than the designer
did #dttip by @AlanMyrvold
(Alan Myrvold)
Hold your test and automation
code to the same standards as
you hold the product code. It is
your product. #dttip by
@cowboytesting
(Curtis Stuehrenberg)
#dttip the sheer repetition of
automated test steps makes subtle
errors more visible e.g. when the
system counts complex actions
incorrectly by @chris_mcmahon
(Chris McMahon)
As lastactivity for today,
start with a short preparation
for the next day #dttip by
@JeroenRo (Jeroen Rosink)
Sometimes you have to
poke the code with a sharp
stick to find out where it bleeds.
#dttip by @artofsqa (Troy
Hoffman)

The Managing Tester
Parimala Shankaraiah
Once upon a time, there was
a man called Mr. Smitten who
was smitten by testing. His daily
struggle to be a better tester kept
him alive and kicking with enthusi-
asm. Whenever he learnt something
new and implemented it he would
discover that there is still something
else to learn. He understood that
“Learning is an Ocean” and started
savoring it drop by drop even if it
would take a lifetime. He seemed to
be content with his learning strat-
egy.
One fine Monday morning, Mr.
Smitten woke up to pouring rain
and set off to go to work. He got
ready, beat the morning traffic and
They were smart this time around
though. They did not ask Smitten
about the new role. They dumped
that role on him instead. Mr. Smit-
ten did not get a chance to say
“No” as he was never asked in the
first place.
Mr. Smitten was anointed as the
new lead for the test team and took
over the remnants left over by the
highly talented outgoing manager.
Initially he only concerned himself
with filling the gaps left over by the
previous manager. He had enough
challenges already to learn and try
new ideas in testing.
However he now had to attend
lots of tiresome meetings, interact
with other managers and prepare
reports as and when upper man-
agement told him to do so. Why?
Because he was now a manager!
Smitten thought he was helpless.
Week 1 - 20 hours spent in meet-
reached the office. Unlike other
days, there was a flurry of activity
in the office. Several managers were
running around conference rooms
with ”long” faces.
The first thought that struck Smit-
ten was “Is another wicket* down?”,
“Oh No! Not again”.
He then got wind that the test
manager had resigned for better
prospects elsewhere. The test team
felt as if it was orphaned forever.
Here was a test manager who really
cared and fought for the team. He
supported and protected the team
through thick and thin and now he
had quit. It was a big jolt, especially
given the series of resignations by
managers in recent history.
The senior management of the
organization where Mr. Smit-
ten worked was business savvy.
They decided not to hire another
manager. Their question was “Do
we really need a test manager?”
Mr. Smitten wondered why this
question never came up when the
previous manager was doing an
outstanding job. The plan was to
assign Mr. Clever as the team lead
as he was the next most senior
person.
They thought that in addition to
testing, Mr. Clever would lead the
team for no extra cost. So he would
work 150% instead of 100%. Sadly,
Clever being very clever rejected
the offer outright saying he did
not like people management. They
were disappointed with Mr. Clever
and decided not to promote him to
the next level and now placed their
hope on Mr. Smitten who had great
people and communication skills.
29 November - 02 December 2010
COPENHAGEN
20102010 DENMARK
18th Annual European Software Testing Conference
• 5 Keynotes
• 12 Tutorials
• 46 Track Sessions
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• Workshops
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Keynote Speakers
Putting Tradition to the Test: The Evolving Role of the Tester
Antony Marcano, RiverGlide, UK

Monty Python’s Flying Test Lab
Rob Sabourin, AmiBug.com, Canada

When Passion Obscures The Facts: The Case for Evidence-Based Testing
Stuart Reid, Testing Solutions Group, UK

For The Love Of The Game
Dino Patti, PLAYDEAD ApS, Denmark

Moving Beyond The Status Quo – Differentiating Ourselves and
Demonstrating Value
Bob Galen, iContact, USA
EuroSTAR Online Community - Access the Webinar Archive, Past Conference Materials, Testing
Forum, Articles, Newsletter Archive & more... Interact, engage & learn from the test community.
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Improvement – LEADERSHIP &
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A developer should never test their own software." http://bit.ly/acwzK1 #SoftwareTesting by @teknologika

ings, 10 hrs for reporting and 10
hrs for testing. There was a major
release, so he ended up stretching
on weekdays and over-stretched on
weekends.
Week 2 – 15 hrs meetings, 5 hrs
reporting, 40 hrs testing (stretch-
ing).
Week 3 – 15 hrs meetings, 5
hrs reporting, 20 hrs testing (No
stretching). After all, no one can
stretch forever.
Mr. Smitten saw his manag-
ing job eating up his testing time
which could severely impact the
upcoming release. When he raised
a red flag, the powers that be asked
him why he was not delegating his
testing work. Smitten loved to test,
not to manage or delegate. He was
asked to manage fulltime which
he did not enjoy. He understood
that management was a new arena
for him to learn and experience,
but that is not where Mr. Smitten’s
passion was. His heart belonged to
testing. He did not love manage-
ment as much as testing.
Over a period of time, Mr. Smit-
ten became unhappy. Though he
learned to balance management
and testing, it was hard for him to
personal level from each individual,
their freedom is constricted due
to organizational hierarchies and
infrastructure. This in turn will
have profound impact on people’s
motivation.
Passionate testers may reject
managerial roles not because they
lack people skills, but because
they don’t want
to be a manager.
Instead of penal-
izing them for
lack of managerial
skills, it would be
good to motivate
them to work on
their technical and testing skills. In
fact, it’s a great investment strat-
egy to encourage passionate testers
because there are very few really
great testers. We need more of
them.
How many testers have you met
who say they have ~20 plus years
of experience in testing alone. One,
two, three, ten? Just a handful. Let
testers grow in numbers. Let testers
grow in expertise. Let’s hope for a
better testing world. Let’s encour-
age passionate testers.
Don’t sulk as a managing tester.
Rejoice as a testing Tester!
References
Wicket is an Indian word used by
cricket fans to refer to someone
quitting the organization.
devote more time to his learning
related tasks. He was expected to
know everything about anything that
every team member did. He had cur-
sory knowledge of most things, but
no deeper technical details. He did
not have time to get to the technical
level.
He stopped reading technical
stuff. He stopped reading testing
websites and blogs. He stopped
writing about testing. He stopped
exploring. He stopped fighting back.
He became disillusioned. He was
no longer the same man smitten by
testing. He started getting a feeling
that he was neither a good tester nor
a good team lead. His motivation
started to sink.
What did Mr. Smitten do? He
spoke to his manager the very next
day saying he couldn’t work this
way anymore. He was not inter-
ested in a management role. He was
interested in testing which he was
now unable to do. He felt that he
was becoming a failure figure in the
team. He poured his heart out. He
spoke the truth.
His manager took a while to think
about what has happened. Did they
do Mr. Smitten a favor promoting
him? Or make him a scapegoat like
he thought they had?
Would he be forced to remain in
the same role, go back to his previ-
ous tester role or laid off for not
towing the company line?
Did Mr. Smitten do the right
thing? Of course he did. No matter
the outcome he knew inside that he
had stood up
for his pas-
sion. He had
spoken out. He
had spoken the
truth.
Vipul
Kocher (Co
President , PureTesting) once said
“If you scare a crawling baby by
yelling ‘walk’, ‘walk’, ‘walk’, the
baby will stop crawling - forget
about walking”. This sounds so true
for testers.
If there are many passionate tes-
ters in the team who opt to test ver-
sus managing teams, it’s not right
to force them into managerial roles
as a need arises. At the same time,
if people are interested in manage-
ment, but forced to test, they may
not do a good job either. Though
such decisions have to come at a
Don't 'spy' on your testers. Monitor their work to learn how YOU can help them perform better. by @testuff
Passionate testers may reject
managerial roles not because
they lack people skills, but
because they don’t want to
be a manager.
About Author
Parimala Shankaraiah is one
of the co-founders of Weekend
Testing and works at Consona,
Bangalore as a senior tester in the
weekdays. She handles Public
Relations at Weekend testing. She
also co-facilitates testing ses-
sions for Bangalore chapter. She
authors a blog http://curioustester.
blogspot.com/ where she writes
about her testing experiences.
She can be contacted atparimala.
shankaraiah@gmail.com.

Beware the phrase "no user would ever do that". you might be missing the connection, & malicious users do strange things
on purpose. by @shadowspar
Software Test Professional
I am the very model of a software Test Professional,
I've information computational, logical, informational,
I know the current thinking, and I type in codes commercial,
From COBAL to Javascript, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with problems mathematical,
I boundary test equations, using latest testing oracles,
About probability distributions I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful tests for the square of the hypotenuse.
I'm very good at identifying behaviour anomalous;
My defects address issues, the sublime and the ridiculous:
In short, in testing behavioral, functional and structural,
I am the very model of a Software Test Professional,
I execute my tests, both the structured and the complete ad hoc's;
My regression is useful, I've no time for silly paradox,
I promote a mantra of stability, usability, reliability,
I know all the programs as-designed peculiarities;
I can tell minor typos from nasty bugs and show-stoppers,
I know the various moods of all of the developers!
I know all the testing tools from Quality Centre to Selenium,
The in-house, the free, the cheap and the premium.
I have worked in Agile and other testing methodologies,
And have ranted on blogs - please accept my apologies:
In short, in testing behavioural, functional and structural,
I am the very model of a Software Test Professional,
- Robert Healy

The relaxed and fun nature of the
images reminded me of The Soft-
ware Testing Club monster style im-
ages that we produce. I could sense
some strong similarities between
Red Gate’s and STC’s ethos coming
along.
It was during our lunch break that
I discovered that each of the cartoon
characters was actually a Red Gate
employee. I wondered if they had a
gorilla working for them, but alas,
no. Just someone who occasionally
dresses up as one!
I was at Red Gate to have a bit
of a nose about and get a feel for
who the people behind the scenes
were. I had kept seeing Red Gate
appear in my interweb life. My first
recollection was by ‘friending’ and
chatting about software testing with
David Atkinson - this was over
three years ago. I then came across
The Business of Software - started
by the joint CEO. I’ve been yearn-
ing yearning, but unable to go to
this one. My strong interest in col-
laboration and coworking also made
me aware of Red Gate’s Startup
Incubator. And then of course, Red
sucked into their book policy. I love
books! This is where anyone can
order books up to the value of £100
and claim the money back through
RedGate.
Yes, I admit to being tempted to
work for them.
I’m sure there are other compa-
nies who adopt similar work ethos.
Google springs to mind, though
they are obviously on a much bigger
scale. To me it seems an obvious
and logical work ethos to have. To
talk about it is one thing, putting it
into action deserves credit.
If you are in or near Cambridge
and like what we do at STC, then
you’ll find a similar professional and
work ethos to Red Gate. Do check
them out.
There was something that made
me smile when I walked into Red
Gate’s offices last week. Whilst
waiting in the reception area I no-
ticed a great Red Gate recruitment
poster. It was the cartoon style
characters that seemed to catch my
eye. The one in the Gorilla suit
made me smile.
Gate have been advertising testing
jobs on STC with free iPads up for
grabs for anyone who gets an in-
terview. Unfortunately they’ve run
out of iPads now but they’re still
looking for 4-5 new Test Engineers.
Here’s the advert on their website
and here’s a page they’ve written
about what it’s like to be a Tester
at Red Gate.
All these reminders of Red
Gate’s existence had me thinking
that it must be a great company to
work for. And I admit it. Whilst
being shown around Red Gate, ca-
sually meeting the joint CEO Neil
Davidson, drooling at the employee
benefits, having lunch with other
Red Gate-rs, viewing how testing is
engrained into their agile approach
to development and their very open,
trusting and collaborative approach
to working with people. I even got
Rosie has a look inside Red
Gate Software
BY ROSIE SHERRY
We're Hiring
Test Engineers
redgate
We're Hiring
Test Engineers
Blog post: Vuvuzela Testing : http://bit.ly/dhPaBk

Listen
It is easy to respond with anger
when in a situation where you are
intentionally kept out of the loop
or unfairly blamed. Anger tends to
make situations worse though, and
causes problems that need to be
dealt with later on.
A better approach? Take a deep
breath, calm down, and listen.
Understanding the other person’s
perspective is an important first step
in arriving at a mutually agreeable
resolution. Allow them to share their
frustration then ask them some ques-
tions to learn more. Probe gently so
you don’t come across aggressively.
For Example
• Learn more about their experiences
by using ‘what, when, where, how,’
questions. This helps people open
up to a conversation.
• What expectations do they have of
the test group?
• What value do they see in the test
group?
• How could the test group change to
provide more value?
• What do they need from the test
group to succeed?
I asked questions like these in my
situation, which showed Fred that I
not being seen as ‘just another pro-
grammer’... Now he was a distinct
person.
Foster Open
Communication
People don’t usually want to work
with someone they believe to be
deceitful. It is easy to be hostile with
someone who hordes information,
is not open to receiving feedback,
or even lies. This does not support
the creation of an open environment
where people converse and collabo-
rate freely, but encourages a lacklus-
tre environment of negativity.
Creating an environment of open
communication is challenging, espe-
cially when others behave adversely,
but someone needs to take the first
steps and lead by example. Why not
you? It may take time for your ac-
tions to rub off on other people, but
they will in time. Some techniques
include:
• Speak openly and respectfully
about what is on your mind. Share
your thoughts with others to help
them see that you are not hiding
things from them (and you shouldn’t
be!).
• Focus conversations about prob-
lems on processes and projects.
While many problems relate to the
people involved, a focus on ‘fixing’
them comes across as an attack. The
goal is to engage others, not stop
communication.
• Ask for feedback and sugges-
tions from other people then follow
through on some that make sense to
implement. Others will see that you
respect their opinions and trust their
judgment.
• When problems arise, ask others
if they are open to hear suggestions
you have. If they are, share your
ideas and suggest a trial run in im-
plementing one. If it does not work
out it can easily be re-evaluated or
stopped. With this approach you are
asking for permission to offer advice
and proceed with a solution, rather
than forcing one upon them.
My situation required that I first
listen to Fred to learn about why he
felt the way he did. As Fred became
more open during the course of our
conversation, I asked if he would
“I don’t want your testers in
meetings with my team members.
They will be disruptive and then
use information they hear to make
us look bad. Keep them away from
us.”
Fred said this to me a week after
we started working together. We
had both just joined the company,
he as a programming manager,
and myself as the test manager. I
thought our interactions had been
positive, so wondered why Fred felt
this way.
Not wanting to make assump-
tions, I inquired, “Fred, I’m curious
to hear about some of your experi-
ences. Have you ever been in a situ-
ation like the one you just referred
to?”
Looking surprised, Fred replied,
“Um, yes. Why do you ask?”
... Does this situation sound
familiar to you? Have you had
difficulty gaining support from
programmers to actively participate
in the same meetings and regularly
collaborate together?
Building healthy relationships is
critical in producing great products.
If relationships between different
job functions and team members
are less than stellar, don’t despair.
There are techniques to transform
hostile organizations into healthy
ones, with no management support
required.
was interested in him, his experi-
ences, and his perspectives. This
helped Fred be more at ease, as I
was not attacking him or defending
my position. I was just curious to
learn more about him.
Be Personable
It is difficult to maintain a hos-
tile relationship with someone who
is friendly and sincerely interested
in you as a person. Building posi-
tive relationships with colleagues
makes work more enjoyable and
more successful. This works only
if you are genuine in your interac-
tions, as people will sense if you
are being deceitful.
It takes time to grow a positive
relationship from a hostile one, but
stick with it. Working together will
get easier, and you may even gain a
respected colleague in the process.
Some approaches include:
• Smile in greeting. Say ‘Hello’,
‘Good Morning’, and ‘Good
Night’. People appreciate the ges-
ture, and often can’t help but smile
in return.
• Use your manners. ‘Please’, and
‘Thank You’ can make a world of
difference when used genuinely.
Let them know when you appreci-
ate work they have done. Your co-
worker will be encouraged to work
with you, rather than against you.
• Ask about their day or their
weekend. Show interest in their life
outside of work to start creating a
relationship that can be built upon.
• Take them out for coffee or lunch.
Spend time together outside of the
office to strengthen the foundation
for a relationship. At this point you
may be seeing each other as real
people, not just the annoying per-
son you work with!
• When ready, ask basic questions
about their family and experiences.
Most people will respond in kind.
At this stage you may be building a
casual friendship.
In my situation with Fred, I
made an effort to stop by and chat
with him for a few minutes every
day. While he was initially suspi-
cious about my intentions, Fred
soon realized that I was genuinely
interested in talking with him. He
liked being treated respectfully, and
Yes, It’s Personal
Selena Delesie
Need help testing? Check out The Crowd : http://thecrowd.softwaretestingclub.com

eryone time and reduces frustration
later on.
• Work through problems as a team,
without placing blame. Focus on
finding solutions together in order to
move forward.
• Do whatever it takes as a team to
get it done, regardless of job title or
documented responsibilities. Team
work is an important part of the job.
•Be appreciative and thankful for the
work that your teammates are doing.
In working with Fred, I addi-
tionally made a concerted effort to
change the language I used when
discussing the project and problems.
The term ‘We’ was particularly ef-
fective as problems that arose were
taken on collectively by the entire
team, so no one was put on the spot.
Subsequently, whoever contributed
to a problem owned up to their mis-
takes and worked with the rest of the
team to resolve it.
Build Trust
The most important factor in
transforming a hostile environment
into a healthy environment is trust.
Trust is the one thing that makes
or breaks relationships or change
initiatives. It is difficult to acquire
and quite fragile. Some key factors
to consider in building trust with any
colleague:
• Do what you say you will do. It is
difficult to trust someone who does
not follow through on work they
have committed to.
• Build relationships. People are
inclined to trust people they know
as a colleague, and particularly as a
friend. Keeping a distance from oth-
ers will impede your ability to create
a positive work environment.
• Keep private conversations private.
outlined in this paper. These are a
good starting point though, and will
make a positive impact.
Remember To:
• Listen
• Be Personable
• Foster Open Communication
• Employ a Whole Team Approach,
and
• Build Trust.
Working in a positive and healthy
environment with those around you
is not impossible. While being an
agent of change can be scary, each
of us has the power to create such an
environment. It can be achieved with
diligence, awareness of self and oth-
ers, and a positive outlook.
Best of luck in creating your own
success story!
be open to hearing some options.
When he agreed I suggested that
the testers and programmers at-
tend the same meetings, but that we
would discuss and evaluate prog-
ress each week. Fred agreed as he
was comfortable that we would stop
if he was not satisfied. In the end it
proved to not be an issue after all,
so the joint meetings and collabora-
tions became a regular occurrence.
The Whole Team
Approach
Sometimes people forget that
each person working on a project
is working on the same team. It
is easy to niche one another into
‘’programmers’, ‘testers’, ‘project
managers’, etc. When that happens,
blaming other groups for problems
can quickly become the norm.
Regardless of job title though,
each person working on a project is
part of a larger team with the same
end goal in mind: Release a quality
product within budget that meets
or exceeds customer expectations.
A shift in mindset is often needed
to work together to accomplish the
end goal using a ‘whole team ap-
proach’. This includes:
• Recognize and communicate that
you are in this together – no matter
what!
• The ‘We’ mentality – using ‘We’
instead of ‘Me’ or ‘You’. It is a
helpful shift in communication, and
people will stop feeling blamed and
acting defensively.
• Understand that project and
company success is dependent on
successful completion and delivery
by everyone.
• Communicate and collaborate
early and often, which saves ev-
Do not become known as a gos-
sip or as someone who cannot be
trusted to keep confidential infor-
mation to themselves. This is one of
the easiest ways to lose trust.
• Show competence and intelli-
gence. Unfairly or not, people trust
others who show they know what
they are talking about in relation
to their job. If people believe you
don’t have the knowledge required
to do your job, you will be dis-
missed and overlooked.
• Follow through in good faith on
other techniques described.
In my situation as a new test
manager I purposefully continued
improving my interactions with
Fred and other colleagues. The sit-
uation improved dramatically since
that first interaction in the weeks
following. Co-workers saw that I
could be trusted to follow through
on commitments, was trustworthy
in keeping confidential information
to myself, and proved to understand
the technology and processes I was
working with.
Fred quickly became support-
ive of my department and I. He
and his programmers were soon
interacting frequently with us for
advice on software design, trouble-
shooting issues, and processes.
Fred also became an advocate for
early involvement of the test group
in projects, and in needing to hire
additional testers to keep up with
the heavy workload. I was pleased
to have not only gained a positive
and healthier work environment,
but also a respected colleague and
friend.
Conclusion
Regardless of the situation you
find yourself in, approach it congru-
ently. There may be something go-
ing on for the other person that has
nothing to do with you. Learn what
you can by asking questions so you
don’t make assumptions about in-
tentions or reasoning. Do your best
to speak openly and honestly with
others, regardless of how distress-
ing it may seem.
There are many more tech-
niques for creating an environment
where testers and programmers (or
any other groups) collaborate and
support one another than the ones
About Author
Selena Delesie is a consulting
software tester and agile coach
who runs her own company, De-
lesie Solutions. She has more than
10 years of experience testing,
managing, and coaching in soft-
ware, testing, and agile practices
for leading-edge technologies. She
facilitates the evolution of good
teams and organizations into great
ones using individualized and
team-based coaching and interac-
tive training experiences. Selena
is co-founder and host for the
Waterloo Workshops on Software
Testing, and an active speaker,
participant, and leader in numerous
industry-related conferences and
associations. She frequently blogs
at www.SelenaDelesie.com.
Tool to remember: RT @cgoldberg: Convert Web Page to PDF: http://bit.ly/RC6Fm @Oliver_NZ

tester challenges to weekend testing.
Tester Challenges are a great
way to exercise some key think-
ing and analysis skills for testers. If
you can’t get weekend testing then
having a go at a testers challenge is
always worthwhile. If you haven’t
seen them then it’s worth looking at
these challenges, there’s something
to learn in all of them.
Pradeep Soundararajan made
a write-up of his “Finding Nemo”
challenge; http://bit.ly/9OTpLf
Markus Gärtner used both smurfs;
http://bit.ly/abxs9P and a maths
proof as subjects for challenges;
http://bit.ly/clL1B7
Lynn McKee has produced a
range of puzzles from different
sources; http://bit.ly/9YOHX1
Lannette Creamer used Star Trek
as a base for the challenge and write-
up.
A challenge in a bookshop? Pari-
mala Shankaraiah wrote about it, and
lessons for testing;
http://bit.ly/d6fKOZ
The #parkcalc topic generated a
lot of interest in the twitterverse as
well as blogosphere. Matt Heusser
wrote a review of the challenge and
reaction; http://bit.ly/9v73SN
Weekend Testing continued its
march round the world by starting an
ANZ grouping/chapter. Could it be
Africa next? http://bit.ly/aIL4qf
Smorgåsbord
A whole range of other testing
topics were up for discussion.
A desire that testers shouldn’t be
sheep was put forward by Rob Lam-
bert, http://bit.ly/cSDw8e
Ever wondered what Black-Viper
Testing is? Then check out Pradeep
Soundararajan’s post.
http://bit.ly/aM3kbN
Leftfield
Analogy is ever-popular amongst
testing bloggers. It’s helps to clarify
(sometimes) and contrast.
Babies and Software Testing was
the subject of Elizabeth Fiennes’
writing, http://bit.ly/9DSUcv
When was the last time someone
called you a muppet (in a nice way?)
No? Well, Jared Quinert provides
a guide on muppet related testers,
http://bit.ly/aQKLs1
Other groupings of testers were
given the Animal Kingdom slant by
Simon Morley. http://bit.ly/bAuSyr
The near-obligatory Monty Py-
thon reference (by Phil Kirkham) is
a good way to round off this look
back over the last few months.
http://bit.ly/9RIfqQ
Spring - a time of renewal, re-
birth and other re- words... Well,
spring 2010 (in the northern hemi-
sphere) has been eventful, diverse
and - in the words of Steve ‘Inter-
esting’ Davis - interesting!
Let’s have a look at some of the
topics that have been discussed in
the last 4 months.
Hot Topics
Spring being a time when things
warm up... Let’s look at some
“warm” topics...
Volcanos
On the lava end of the scale...
The general disruption caused by
the unpronounceable volcano doing
unpredictable things to an unpre-
pared European airspace was a
“warm” topic in April. It triggered
some systems thinking from Zeger
Van Hese: http://bit.ly/awLJRJ,
re-arranged schedules for Lisa
Crispin: http://bit.ly/9a59Lm and
the opportunity for Rob Lambert
http://bit.ly/d9RoJs to attend the
hastily arranged OpenVolcano
event.
Certification
This topic got warm in May.
A range of views and discussion
was represented on a number of
sites. The discussion-and-comment
“warm” posts were by James Bach;
http://bit.ly/cYojkN Simon Morley;
http://bit.ly/cYojkN Nathalie de Vr-
ies; http://bit.ly/cPDWTG and Dave
Whalen; http://bit.ly/chtOcB
Popular
Some topics have been fun &
popular during this period - from
Different aspects and angles
around QA were written about but
Michael Bolton’s post was the most
comprehensive.
http://bit.ly/cpLeO2
Toyota’s brake-related problems
were put into a software testing
context by James Bach, here.
http://bit.ly/bgYfWP
Reviewing Cem Kaner’s de-
scription of a good test case was a
subject of one of Rikard Edgren’s
posts. http://bit.ly/bvbmTU
New Pens
New bloggers appeared in the
past few months. Here’s a selection.
January saw Thomas Ponnet
start some intelligent blogging.
http://bit.ly/5XE5Zr
Another January new pen was
Markus Deibel, with some good
reports on his weekend testing in-
volvement. http://bit.ly/5A1cVM
Selenium was the trigger for
Felipe Knorr Kuhn to start his blog
in May. http://bit.ly/bDIx4d
The analytic approach shines
through in James Christie’s
blog which started in March.
http://bit.ly/bdmXJJ
March and April also saw Ann
Flismark, http://bit.ly/ap5b19
Tim Riley http://bit.ly/cXLShz
& Kenneth Hastings dipping
their toes in the blogging water.
http://bit.ly/aVC7QM
STC Carnival of Testers
June 2010
tester’s activity from
the blogosphere
by simon morley
Set measurable/achievable goals around reducing test creation time and increasing test execution time @bradjohnsonsv
About Author
Simon Morley posts the Carnival
Of Testers on his blog here:
http://bit.ly/96ww51
www.softwaretestingclub.com

The answers came from adopting
a more holistic approach to the over-
all software development process
that starts to blur the lines between
what a developer and a tester con-
tribute to a team.
Practices such as test-driven
development and unit testing put
more testing responsibility into the
hands of developers. Expectations
from testers on an agile team include
working closely with individuals
representing the business and with
developers to formulate test cases,
either manual or automated, which
often requires a more in-depth tech-
nical knowledge compared to what
may have been expected from these
same testers in the past.
Clearly the role of the software
tester is changing rapidly. As teams
adopt more agile processes, as auto-
mation plays a greater role in testing,
and as flexibility and adaptability
are ever more important the expecta-
tion of the software tester has shifted
from a functional expert who is good
at “breaking stuff” to a seasoned
technical professional who can pro-
vide a myriad of services on a cross
functional team to ensure a more
consistent and high quality output.
Possible missions include finding
bugs, evaluating a new test tool, as
well as generating test ideas around
a given application. Testers often
begin by testing the mission itself,
by asking questions regarding the
mission to narrow it down, or to
re-phrase the mission completely -
they’re wise to do so, as sometimes
the mission may contain traps for the
unwary and unquestioning.
The session format is a text chat,
though participants who’ve decided
to pair up to attack the mission often
choose to collaborate, and may use
voice chat on a back channel for this.
Weekend Testing participants may
partition the work among the whole
group, or pair with other partici-
pants. Being able to test with other
people is fun, especially for testers
who are the sole tester in their team
or company.
The overall session is divided
into two major parts. While the first
part is spent on testing the product
according to the provided mission,
in the second half of the session
participants share their experiences
with their individual testing in a full
hour of discussion. Beneath testing
traps and bugs, the discussion on
individual learning experiences, test-
ing approaches and mistakes as well
as tools and techniques are revealed
and discussed. Each participant
is asked to reflect over the course
of their testing. The professional
exchange during this part is one of
When my organization rolled out
an agile approach across the whole
company, we wanted to embrace
all the agile best practices, includ-
ing having each agile team “own”
all operations related to completing
what they planned for each itera-
tion (including all the testing tasks).
For many of the staff, this was the
first time that developers and testers
were on the same functional team.
It became apparent that at least in
some of the teams the old distinc-
tions and attitudes between separat-
ing between these two roles were
still in place.
Given that developers outnum-
bered testers on the teams, it was
often the scenario that stories that
were development-complete and
waiting for verification would
pile up in an iteration, leaving the
testers scrambling in the final days
of the iteration to verify and get
each story to a “done” status. It
was suggested by agile coaches
that in these cases the entire team
should commit to getting stories to
done status, and therefore any team
member should help get the stories
completed, meaning that sometimes
developers could test stories (as
long as it wasn’t one that they had
developed).
This is where previously held
attitudes about the distinction
between developers and testers
kicked-in. Was it “beneath” a de-
veloper to do testing tasks? Was it
a good use of his/her time?
Weekend Testing provides the
opportunity to learn new testing
approaches in a safe environment
away from daily work, project
schedule pressures and software
being thrown over the wall. Since
participation is on a volunteer
basis, people feel highly-motivated
and eager to learn something new.
This article introduces the concept
around Weekend Testing, accompa-
nied with comments from the first
Weekend Testing sessions.
What Is Weekend Testing?
People might argue ”weekends,
isn’t that supposed to be quality
time away from work?” – I admit
that this thought crossed my mind
too. I now realize that this *is*
quality time, and far away from
work as well. Quality learning time.
- Zeger van Hese
Weekend Testing is a time-
boxed, collaborative testing session
over the Internet following a pro-
vided mission. Sounds very easy.
Well, it is easy. The session facilita-
tor leads the session and provides
the product and the mission. The
participants then start to test the
product according to the mission
and report their findings back into a
public bug tracking system.
Test Engineers and
Development Engineers
on the Same Agile Team
Over the Weekend
Testing became fun
again
by Liz Robertson
BY Anna Baik and Markus
Gärtner
About Author
Liz Robertson is a Quality Engi-
neering Manager for Orbitz World-
wide based in Chicago, IL. Her cur-
rent focus is on test automation and
performance testing, and has been
involved with agile development and
testing teams for the last 5 years.
"Rotate" testers to different projects/products once in a while. It refresh theirs perspective and that of the whole team.
@joelmonte
Brief
HistorY
OF
Time
a
French
Edition

FCC CUTS VIDS[1].
What To Test
So I am totally sold on the Week-
end Testing concept. Great way to
try out and learn new approaches [...]
and great discussions with fellow
testers - Phil Kirkham
Collaboratively testing on the
weekend over the Internet leaves
little room regarding the products
to test. So far, we have tested web
applications, which are accessible
to everyone around the globe, and
open-source applications which may
be used on different platforms. Fre-
eMind, Google Calendar, bingMaps,
TinyUrl, and WikiOnAStick are just
some of the example applications
we examined. The session and bug
reports from individual testers are
publicly accessible, so the product
owners can take great value from the
tested applications as well.
chat window popping up each time
a participant raises a question in the
group chat. Conversely, some fall for
the trap of ignoring the discussion
and questions asked by other session
members, thus missing out on useful
information. Another trap may be
that testers decide to work alone in-
stead of pairing up with other testers.
This list may sound familiar.
Indeed, these traps are very common
for software testers. In our compa-
nies we get testing missions like
“test this” and while we feel under
pressure we jump straight in without
stopping to question further how
the reporting of the test results will
take place or what the main focus of
the testing activities will be. Testers
who have participated in Weekend
Testing are building an awareness of
such traps and often take this back to
their workplace.
Interestingly, most of the time
testers create these traps for them-
selves and fall diligently into them.
So, participating in a Weekend Test-
ing session may help overcome your
own self-blindness to these traps.
Discussion
I liked this a lot, as normally I
work alone, so I guess this is the
closest I get to working in a team
environment. - Anne-Marie Charrett
During the discussion and debrief
part of the session, each participant
takes turns to answer questions on
their experiences while testing the
product. The facilitator will ask the
testers questions to enable self-
reflection. While this may sound
odd, the debrief of the session is the
most valuable part of the overall
two hours. During this part partici-
pants share their experiences, what
problems they run into, reflect over
the traps they fell for, and exchange
thoughts and solutions collabora-
tively. Often, each tester may have
come up with an entirely different
approach to everyone else. This can
help other testers to learn about new
ways and ideas for their daily work.
In such a deliberate learning envi-
ronment each participant gets a lot of
practical knowledge. While working
on the weekends may sound odd,
testers are challenged to learn about
new domains, new testing approach-
es and to share and reflect their
experiences with other testers around
the biggest benefits for each tester
participating. Each participant takes
away great lessons from the inter-
national mix of testers involved.
Testing The Product
... I will say it’s the perfect anti-
dote to 6+ months of project death
march. Testing is fun again! - Anna
Baik
When participants start testing,
some may choose to keep a watch
on the discussion to see clarify-
ing questions asked to the session
facilitators, or to ask them on their
own. On occasion, the product
developers or representatives may
be available in the chat to answer
questions about the product, and
what information they’d like to
know about it. Most of the time, the
participants remain silent indicat-
ing they’re busy testing. Over the
course of the first few sessions
there have been missions as vague
as “test this” up to following a
particular set of test heuristics like
Watch Out For Traps
...it was simply a lot of fun to
be interacting with other testers
and finding out how they had
approached the tasks and their
thoughts on it afterwards. - Phil
Kirkham
Think about the last trap you
fell into at work - wouldn’t it have
been better to find that trap when
your boss wasn’t looking at you?
Weekend Testing sessions can make
you aware of traps, so that you can
avoid them gracefully at work.
Over the course of the first half
of the session participants fall into
many traps - just as in their day-
to-day work. Some fall for the trap
of starting testing before the mis-
sion was clarified or refined. Some
give in to the pressure of the single
hour they have for testing - thereby
short-cutting either the mission
or even the result reporting in the
end. Some fall for the trap of the
constant distractions caused by the
I learned LOADS from a DB walk through session the other day by the devs. Why not organize something similar with your team?
@Rob_Lambert

were like meeting the elves and fair-
ies responsible for keeping the world
spinning. There’s something enrich-
ing and soulful watching testers
practicing testcraft while testers in
US time zones are asleep. The testers
I had the pleasure of interacting with
in these sessions were indeed magi-
cal in terms of their enthusiasm and
energy for a profession focused on
critique.
Anne-Marie Charrett
If you want a taste at test manage-
ment, or you want to improve your
management skills, I would recom-
mend anyone volunteering to facili-
tate a weekend testers session. You
learn a lot about yourself & testing
when you attend a weekend session,
but when you facilitate a test session
you get to work on those manage-
ment and soft skills that every test
manager needs. Some of the chal-
lenges include, creating an idea for
a session, sourcing software for the
session, planning the scope and the
purpose of the session. On the day,
you get to practice your communica-
tion and leaderships skills. So, if you
want to improve your skills fur-
ther, why not take the next step and
volunteer to run a weekend tester
session?
Thomas Ponnet
Making time for testing at the
weekend is not always easy to do.
When my wife asked me “Why are
you so keen to test again this Satur-
day?” I actually had to think about
that. I knew deep down that it was
the right thing to do. What I said,
after some consideration, is that
many testers in their day jobs have
less than ideal environments when it
comes to learning their craft. They
might read or hear about something
but can’t try it as it might endanger
their project, or so people believe.
The Weekend Testing group is a
safe environment where testers can
try out new ideas, talk about testing
with peers and like minded people at
their level of experience. This is very
important as often that is not pos-
sible in their day jobs.
I feel that I re-discover my en-
thusiasm for testing whenever I’m
talking with peers, be it at confer-
the globe. Testers get to try new ap-
proaches that they don’t work with
in their daily work. In fact, Week-
end Testing provides self-education
for testers far beyond classroom-
based certification courses.
Global Exchange
I also look at all the participants
here and think ‘I’m not worthy!
These people are all so accom-
plished!’ Then I think ‘great, what
good company to learn a lot in’. -
Anna Baik
Though the sessions are run by
local chapters - as of this writing
we have Mumbai, Europe, Ban-
galore, Australia/NZ, Hyderabad,
and Chennai - testers globally
are invited to participate in every
Weekend Testing session around
the globe. Every tester participating
thereby has the opportunity to learn
from basically everyone. Since in
the second hour experiences are
shared in the discussion, Weekend
Testing provides a learning envi-
ronment beyond traditional class-
room courses. A typical Weekend
Testing session lasts just two hours,
while providing the benefit of glob-
ally exchanging thoughts with some
really great testers.
Guest Facilitators On
Weekend Testing
Over the course of the last year,
Weekend Testing has gained the
attention of some great testers and
test consultants all over the planet.
We were happy to bring in guest
facilitators into the sessions. Here
are some of the experiences with
Weekend Testing they made.
Jon Bach
I was invited to be part of two
WT sessions (sessions 32 and 33)
recently via Skype -- each starting
at 2:30 AM Seattle time. With the
house dark and quiet, the glow from
my laptop was like a cup of ruve-
nating coffee for me. It was a warm
window into what I found to be a
collaborative, professional and wel-
coming enclave of testers. The folks
who volunteer their time to hunt for
problems and share testing tricks
ences, tester groups or [European
Weekend Testers] EWT. In my
book it’s an important part of why
I do my job, to learn, confirm as-
sumptions and things we believe to
be true. Another important point for
EWT is that at the weekend ses-
sions people may make mistakes.
The only thing that happens when
they do is to learn from it and get
encouragement from the group as
many people will have done the
same ones themselves.
When I started with EWT I
participated only. I’m now mod-
erating as well which has its own
challenges and learning curves. It’s
fantastic to observe, from a test
managers perspective, what works
in a group and what doesn’t. EWT
is not only great if you want to
learn about software testing but also
how to teach effectively, how to
steer a discussion and much more.
Some great people gave up their
spare time to help me in the past
so it feels good to give something
back now. I might not be there
every week as my son wants a part
of me as well. But I’ll make sure
to participate and teach and learn
whenever I can.
References
[1] FCC CUTS VIDS heuristic
http://bit.ly/9ezwWZ
About Author
Markus Gärtner is a software
tester since 4 years from Germany
Personally committed to Agile
methods, he believes in continuous
improvement in software testing
through skills. Markus presents
at Agile and testing conferences,
blogs at http://blog.shino.de and
is a black-belt in the Miagi-Do
school of software testing, and a
co-founder of the European chapter
of Weekend Testing.
About Author
Before testing, Anna Baik
taught telepathy to telephonists,
teaching people how to figure out
how to ask their customers the
right questions, and how to re-
ally listen to what they said - and
didn’t say. She then got a job
in application support, and was
drafted into testing from there.
When she realised testing was
about asking the right questions,
and seeing what isn’t there, she
was hooked. She blogs occasion-
ally at the Software Testing Club,
and tweets as TesterAB. She and
Markus co-founded the Europe
chapter of Weekend Testing.
Better QA Management
Free 30-Day Trial
PractiTest
www.practitest.com
Your brain also requires a reboot every now and then. Don't take long testing runs without a rest or they won't be so productive.
@knorrium

Actors
Who gets involved in static analy-
sis? Usually architects and program-
mers are the drivers for getting a
static analysis tool. They realize
that finding problems while they are
coding is the least expensive way to
improve quality and security. In an
organization large enough to have
a tools team, it may end up owning
the implementation and maintenance
of the tool. Other groups like central
security or governance may play a
role. Testing should play a pivotal
role but usually does not.
Why Testers Need To Care
Testers should be involved in
and help to drive quality and secu-
rity throughout the entire software
development lifecycle. Gone are the
days where the tester’s sole role is to
do the last minute testing just before
release.
Testers serve as a strong coun-
terpoint to programmers, creating a
healthy dynamic towards improving
quality and security. As the part of
the organization focused primarily
on software quality, testing’s role is
to ensure that quality standards, and
not merely the smooth running of the
tool, are actually achieved.
One of the most important roles
in any static analysis initiative is
finding the person or department that
actually cares that the right defects
are getting fixed. Quite frequently,
without the right processes and
advocacy, the tool becomes limited
in its use. For instance, develop-
ers who are in charge of prioritizing
their own defects may incorrectly
mark genuine bugs as false positives.
Programmers have a lot on their
plates and taking the time to review
the problems accurately naturally
becomes de-prioritized. Checks and
balances are needed.
Testers can play an important
forbidding programmers to mark de-
fects as false positives, or forbidding
(or even delaying) configuration
changes to eliminate them, will bring
the static analysis tool into disrepute.
It can even make the code worse, by
forcing an inexperienced program-
mer to change code in a hurry mere-
ly to silence the tool. Any genuine
solution will require judgment and
prioritization of individual defects,
which is a matter for testing to drive
to resolution. It may not be neces-
sary for testers to review all alleged
false positives, but at a minimum,
the definition of what is acceptable
and how it will be assured must be
made.
Improving software development
quality early in the process means
that testers are testing better soft-
ware. Fixing the problems sooner
helps testers focus on more func-
tional testing, where they can add
significantly more value.
How Can Testers
Get Involved?
Test teams now require more
skills — they need skills in security
processes, automation, and even in
programming. Testers should under-
stand static analysis technology and
the benefits it can provide. With this
knowledge, testers can work with
other stakeholders to obtain buy-in
that it will benefit a larger quality
Static source code analysis
(“static analysis” for short) tools
have been around for a long time.
Nearly everyone has heard of Lint,
a program from the 1970’s, which
flags potential problems in source
code, along with a large number
of non-problems. Static analysis
tools advanced far beyond Lint in
the past decade. Modern day static
analysis tools perform sophisticated
data and path analysis across func-
tions and can detect problems with
far more accuracy and depth than
traditional tools.
Organizations intent on improv-
ing their software have embraced
static analysis as an important part
of the software development pro-
cess. Spurred on by the increase in
popularity of Agile Development,
the increasingly visible costs of
software failure, and other trends,
software development organizations
are automating their testing pro-
cesses and finding and fixing errors
and security violations earlier.
Static analysis finds defects by
analyzing source code without run-
ning it. No test cases are required
and a good static analysis tool like
Klocwork or Coverity can analyze
large numbers of logical paths in
the code to find plenty of serious
bugs. Static analysis tools don’t
even need fully working software
to operate, allowing programmers
to use it from the early stages of
coding. Feedback is quick and
errors are reported pointing to the
specific line of code where the
potential bug is, making it easier
for programmers to fix. If a bug is
found by static analysis rather than
testing, it saves almost all of the
programmer’s time in isolating and
diagnosing the problem, and all of
the tester’s time in reproducing and
reporting it, increasing the produc-
tivity of both.
role: defining and helping to en-
force the goals for static analysis.
Must all static analysis defects be
fixed before release? Should “no
new defects” be the goal? What
are the priorities for each defect
category — should all crashing
bugs, overflows, memory leaks, and
uninitialized data be fixed but other,
lower priority, categories like dead
code be handled later?
In an organization large enough
to have a software engineering or
tools development group, one or
the other will generally be in charge
of deploying and running static
analysis tools. This is natural for
the deployment phase for the tool;
but once the tool is successfully
deployed, the goal changes, and
testers need to play a larger role.
The software engineering group is
primarily interested in developing
code, and the tools group in having
the tool run smoothly in accordance
with a clearly defined procedure.
Both attitudes conflict with the goal
of finding bugs and getting them
fixed. Bugs are unpredictable and
messy, and finding them without
getting inundated with false posi-
tives requires flexibility and judg-
ment rather than adherence to a
predefined procedure.
As an example, the problem
mentioned above, of program-
mers incorrectly marking their
own defects as false positives, has
no simple procedural fix. Simply
Why Testers Should
Care About Static
Analysis
BY Andrew Yang and
Flash Sheridan
The real danger isn't that computers will begin 2 think like men but that men will begin 2 think like computers.
~SydneyHarr… @AGareev

About Author
Rikard Edgren, tester at TIBCO
Spotfire, blogger at thetesteye.com
things that are easily expressible in
written format. The implicit require-
ments, things that a user would want,
are not included here.
The blue area is all possible us-
age and errors, which in reality is an
infinite area.
But we’re lucky! The area for
important things isn’t that wide, and
we can perform sample tests (sym-
bolized by dashes.)
The samples doesn’t cover ev-
erything, but if a skilled tester looks
at what’s happening, there is a great
chance that they will discover impor-
tant issues in nearby areas (this is the
everyday serendipity of the software
tester.)
Creativity is needed to go from
About Author
Andrew Yang and Flash Sheri-
dan are consultants with Code
Integrity Solutions (http://www.
codeintegritysolutions.com), a
professional services firm fo-
cused on static analysis and
software development infrastruc-
ture. Code Integrity Solutions
helps leading companies greatly
improve the quality and secu-
rity of their code. Andrew and
Flash can be reached at andy@
codeintegritysolutions.com and
flash@codeintegritysolutions.com.
Count On Serendipity
You will find the best things when
looking for something else; execute
two different tests at the same time,
and explore the areas in between
Keep all your senses wide open!
Learn A Lot, And Combine
Disparate Knowledge
Creativity never comes out of the
blue; it is most often a new combina-
tion of existing things.
Ergo; learn more different things,
and combine them in fruitful ways.
Steal, combine and adjust two
well-known concepts and invent
your own method.
Use Creativity Techniques
There are many ways to stimulate
creativity, e.g. brainstorming, pro-
vocative operators, mind mapping,
pair testing…
My favorite is “the opposite
method”; thinking about things like
“How can our software be as bad as
possible” (Can’t start it; Can’t Install
it; Can’t Find it) has a good chance
of generating insight of what is re-
ally important.
Creativity is not a gift, but rather
the result of discipline and patience
together with an open and curious
mind.
Everyone is creative. Find your
creative thinking and set it free.
I think I love software testing
because it involves such a great
deal of creativity - “the process
of having new ideas that provide
value”. Sir Ken Robinson. [http://
www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_
says_schools_kill_creativity.html]
The creativity is needed both
when generating test ideas outside
explicit requirements, and when
finding the effective methods for
running important tests.
I’d like to explain this by visu-
alizing software in the form of a po-
tato The square is the requirements
document, which covers important
and security goal.
Testers need to view quality as
a whole, which includes building
quality and security into the soft-
ware development process. Test
teams can help define reasonable
acceptance criteria and work with
development and management
teams to create the right processes
and infrastructure to support the ef-
fective use of the tool. When prop-
erly implemented, static analysis
will result in big gains in productiv-
ity as well as quality.
the requirements to “what’s impor-
tant”, and to do it in an effective
way.
Testers can combine knowledge
from a variety of models, from the
product’s history, from the tech-
nologies in use, from software
testing itself, from actual usage (or
stories thereof), from the context of
the project, by conversations with
different people, and by using their
own skills.
We can’t find every bug, but we
can aim to find all bugs that are
important.
Cheating With Creativity
Since each project is unique, I
can’t give you any secret methods
of how you can create low-hanging
fruit with ingenious test ideas and
approaches.
But I can give you some hints on
cheating:
Allow Creativity And The
Mistakes That Go Along
With It
Try many approaches, and cheat
by letting there be some waste in
your test efforts. Try rotating a
“free role” within the team. You
will make up for it, eventually.
Have a diversified team, and let
people collaborate and inspire each
other. Trust the tester’s intelligence.
Use Check Lists
And Cheat Sheets
Your own list is the best, but as
inspiration, search for “Test Heu-
ristics Cheat Sheet”, “Exploratory
Testing Dynamics” or “Software
Quality Characteristics”
Get inspired by solutions and
bugs for similar, and radically dif-
ferent, projects.
Testing & Creativity
BY Rikard Edgren
Eat lunch with your developers -- they'll talk about changes they've forgotten to tell you about. @jbaibel

in the quality, breadth of applicabil-
ity, and effectiveness of their train-
ing. When taken together, it is clear
to me that testers should have more
access to high quality, affordable,
broadly applicable, and reference-
able education and training.
Over the last 3 years the Asso-
ciation for Software Testing (AST)
has been piloting a new way to
deliver education and training to
testers that we refer to as the BBST
program. I’m sure that many of
you have at least stumbled across
something about this program in the
blogsphere, but I’d like to take a few
minutes of your time to share some
things about it that you probably
don’t already know.
Understand that my intent is
not to “sell” you on this program
(though I would be pleased if after
reading this at least some of you
decided to take one or more of the
courses). My intent is to share with
you what I believe is the best cur-
rently implementable model that I
am aware of to better educate more
testers at all stages of their career
and to raise your expectations about
complementary course evaluations,
but I’ve never seen the words “…
learn more than I thought I could.”
I struggle to think of higher praise.
It’s my opinion that this kind of
praise is only possible because of
this program’s unique variety of
teaching, learning, and experienc-
ing methods employed during each
course. The following description
of the program comes from the latest
status report to the National Science
Foundation:
“Each of the AST courses is a
fully-online course taught over four
weeks. The first three weeks use a
collection of videos, readings, online
activities, reflections, and quiz-
zes to present course materials. In
the fourth week, students turn their
attention to writing a final exam,
peer reviewing another student’s
exam, and completing the course
evaluation. In addition to the formal
instructional delivery, we provide
online space for student study ef-
forts (asking for help, discussing
quiz results, and preparing for the
final exam) and social space to meet
their peers and share non-course
related information regarding jobs,
promotions, new babies, and links to
interesting current events. For more
details, please refer to the complete
paper at http://bit.ly/cYIGwg.
Assignments are due twice a
week, on Wednesday and Saturday.
Over a 4 week period successful
students spend 32 hrs or more per-
Depending on what research you
trust, there are between 4 and 14
million people currently employed
in the areas of software quality or
software testing worldwide. I like
to say “about 10 million”. Of them
only a tiny percentage, I estimate
in the neighborhood of 1%, receive
any reference-able training, profes-
sional development, or education
specific to testing software each
year. If total book sales are a fair
indicator, fewer than 10% those
employed in software quality or
software testing own a book di-
rectly related to their job. With
numbers like this, it’s no wonder
that many people feel like educa-
tion and training in the field is, shall
we say, lacking.
And what about the quality
or effectiveness of this existing
education and training? We know
that the majority of the available
education and training is delivered
by tool, certification, and training
vendors who, appropriately, are as
interested in promoting their prod-
ucts and earning a profit as they are
the education and training that
should be available to all testers.
Also understand that it’s not
my intent to discuss the quality of
the content of this, or any other,
course. While I believe that quality
education and training begins with
quality content, I also believe that
it takes more than just content for
people to learn effectively. What I
am discussing is how a particular
delivery format is being shown to
be more effective, particularly for
working testers seeking profes-
sional development, that either
university or commercial formats
you may be familiar with. In fact,
the content that is currently avail-
able through the BBST program has
been, and continues to be, delivered
in both university and commercial
formats, and that is part of how
the effectiveness of this format has
been assessed. But don’t take my
word for it, read what this student
had to say in the mandatory, but
anonymous, post-course evaluation
survey:
“This was a terrific experience.
I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot.
I got to be around diverse testers
from diverse backgrounds who
came in from all over the world. I
had some really knowledgeable tes-
ters give me advice and correct me,
which made me learn more than I
thought I could.”
I’ve delivered a lot of training in
my career, and read a lot of highly
Black Box Software Testing
BY SCott Barber
use personas, aligned with the sequence in which they'll do things in the app, to think of scenarios to explore and test.
(#notnew) @lisacrispin

tor assessment. In the words of
another student:
“In my opinion, the 4-week long
online course was a systematic
journey towards learning a few core
fundamentals of software testing. In
addition, it helped me build a practi-
cal approach to look at test strate-
gies, testing mission and oracles,
and how the mission is dependent
on context. This journey was very
effective because it was based on
cognitive learning -- due to which
the knowledge could be applied and
used in new situations while thinking
about new challenges. I think that
this was the epitome of this online
training program.”
It is the diversity of methods that
enables courses in this program to
focus on problem solving and deci-
sion making while introducing the
student to new material rather than
simply presenting disembodied pro-
cedures to accomplish specific tasks
that may or may not turn out to be at
all applicable when you get back to
the office, or as this student writes:
“This course forces the partici-
pants to think. That immediately
welcome to use the same materials
to conduct their own training, with
proper attribution, of course. This
might not make a big difference
to students while they are taking
the course, but I know that when I
started filling lead and management
roles, I found myself wishing that I
had access to materials from courses
I’d taken years before to help me
train my staff. I also know that
even when I knew people who were
willing to pull strings on my behalf,
never once
was I suc-
cessful in
getting my
hands on
anything
more than
the slide deck.
Did I mention the pricing? AST
offers Foundations free members and
charges $200 for members ($300 for
non-members) for advanced courses.
I think you’d agree that compared
to most reference-able training
available today that this qualifies as
affordable.
163 students have successfully
completed the first course in the
series (Foundations) as of June 1,
2010, and 48 have completed the
second (Bug Advocacy) with more
classes currently in session. There
are a number of new courses in
active development, a growing
number of trained instructors, and
growing interest from potential
delivery partners. The next face
to face version of the instructor’s
course (open to anyone who has
completed one BBST course) will
be held on August 5, 2010 in Grand
Rapids, MI, USA for a mere $100
($50 for AST members) on the day
following AST’s annual conference,
(see http://www.CAST2010.org for
more information). Those numbers
certainly don’t put much of a dent in
millions of testers who didn’t receive
any training last year, but it’s a start.
And the numbers are growing. For
more information visit the links
below:
AST’s delivery of BBST Courses:
http://bit.ly/1a5nMj
BBST Instructor Training:
http://bit.ly/awZ0r5
Course Materials:
http://bit.ly/1KijAa
forming all of the activities above
at a time when it’s best for them.
Unlike a 5 day face-to-face class
that also provides approximately 32
hours of interaction with the mate-
rial, this format allows students to
“pause, rewind, play, and replay”
at will to work around distrac-
tions, to take some time to absorb
concepts, and to discuss the mate-
rial with their peers, instructors,
and co-workers at their own rate.
Students don’t have to worry about
having their questions “tabled”
because they don’t fit in the course
schedule. Students can even “test”
the material as they go at their
workplace instead of having to wait
until after the course is over and the
instructor is gone to figure out what
implementation challenges they are
up against.
Other things that distinguish
these courses from other formats
with a similar number of hours of
interaction is that in addition to
video lectures, readings and discus-
sions, it has individual and group
exercises, welcomes discussion of
diverse experiences and opinions,
and employs self, peer, and instruc-
differentiates it from commercial
courses. I’m only slightly kid-
ding. The format also challenges
the participants writing skills when
answering and reviewing other
students’ work. This is a skill that
I find more and more important in
the relevant professional world.”
This student was particularly
impressed by the value of learning
in an environment where they can
interact with a diverse peer group:
“One of the best things about
this class was
the peer reviews
and being able
to work with
people on the
assignment. It
was amazing to
me how relatively simple it actually
was. People were civil and kind,
and yet could assess your work
and be honest. I really loved being
around other software testers who
really love what they are doing.”
The following students draw
comparisons to other training they
have received:
“This course was more intense
and made more sense than {certi-
fication} (which I have done) - its
more in depth and had me thinking
at a different level. I have identified
some of my weaknesses and will be
working on them. The BEST course
I have taken on software testing -
period!”
“I have taken a number of com-
mercial courses and they gloss over
a lot of what I have learnt in the last
4 weeks. BBST is worth more than
the {deleted} certificate I have in
my possession!”
“I feel you need only one skill to
clear commercial exams, that is to
memorize and deliver. University
exams, though, depended much on
memorizing. They had labs, group
discussions, and assignments,
which was more challenging and
helped [me] to learn, but I some-
what felt the application was miss-
ing, which was addressed in this
course. The examples discussed,
peer reviews and the orientation
exercises were fantastic in BBST
and I feel all these are missing in
the university syllabus.”
As an added benefit, all of the
BBST course materials are pub-
lished under a Creative Common’s
License, meaning that anyone is
This course forces the
participants to think. That im-
mediately differentiates it from
commercial courses
Blog post: Will A Bug Destroy Civilization? : http://bit.ly/9NhvjI
Association for
Software
Testing
ast
www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org

July 2010 www.softwaretestingclub.com Use #testingclub hashtag
we solve your testing problems
· Review your testing strategy
· Usability Reviews
· Coach Software Testers through a software development release
· Train Software Testers
· Supplement your software testing resources on-site or off-site
Services include
www.testingtimes.ie
20
education in our field is going to get
better on its own. I believe that it is
going to take testers and their em-
ployers demanding something better
and rejecting training that isn’t meet-
ing their needs or isn’t cost effective
before we see widespread improve-
ment. I believe that better and more
accessible training is one thing that
testers can actually unify over.
As a field, we may never agree on
what a test case should include, what
percentage of tests should be auto-
mated, or how many testers per de-
veloper is ideal, but I see no reason
why we can’t unify over demand-
ing, creating, and making widely
available affordable, high-quality,
referenceable, effective training and
education for software testers – Do
you?
Whatever you may think about
AST’s program, I ask you to put the
training model to the test against
your own training experiences, then
ask yourself the following ques-
tions:
• Why it is that most software
testers don’t receive any training at
all each year when more and more
fields all the time require people to
complete some form of professional
development annually?
• Why it is that so much of the
training available for software
testers is reported to be “not use-
ful”, “not implementable”, or “not
permissible” for their job or their
company when asked about the
training later?
• Why it is that so much of the
referenceable training for software
testers is so cost prohibitive?
• Why have we accepted this as
the state of our field’s professional
development?
I suspect that after asking your-
self those questions, you’ll find
yourself asking yourself one more
question - the question that led me
to get involved in this program in
the first place…
• What can I do to improve the
availability and quality of training
available for people working in the
areas of software quality and soft-
ware testing?
Maybe the answer to that ques-
tion will lead you to get involved
with the program too. Maybe it
will lead you to start a training
program of your own. Maybe it
will lead you to speak out against
over-priced, ineffective, low quality
training that you’ve experienced.
But if you agree that training and
education in our field is lacking, I
want to encourage you to take ac-
tion.
I do not believe that training and
these practices or standards and
question them. Few people trial
these practices or standards before
applying them to their own projects.
Suppose, there was a team leader
who said you should execute 23.45
test cases per day, find 23.456 bugs
per thousand lines of code and au-
tomate 3.56 test cases per day. The
next day this becomes a standard for
every tester in the team. It becomes a
Best Practice.
I once worked for a company
which asked testers to execute X
number of test cases
per day. Executing X
target would ride so
high on tester’s minds
that they would ignore
all the bugs that they find outside of
the test cases, assuming that any of
the testers ventured from the scripts
in the first place. Their focus was on
X test cases in a day, nothing more,
nothing less. Such standards cage
testers’ imagination and prevent
them from thinking beyond the test
scripts.
If such standards are questioned,
management often asks “Why re-
invent the wheel?
Why not use something that has
succeeded in the past?” The manage-
ment fails to ask if it suits the current
context.
The intention of quantifying
everything is an overhead. Instead
of focusing on such overheads, the
need of the hour is to understand
Once upon a time, a herd of
sheep were grazing in green fields
in the countryside. There was a
fence along the field’s border to re-
strict the sheep from crossing over
to the other side. One fine day, one
sheep from the herd jumped over
the fence to the other side. Another
sheep followed. The shepherd saw
this and decided to remove the
fence so that the sheep would not
get hurt.
None
of the
remain-
ing sheep
realized that the fence had been re-
moved and continued to jump over
a fence that did not exist anymore.
This type of herd behavior is
not just restricted to sheep, but also
among us testers as we try to follow
the so called processes, best prac-
tices and industry standards. Such
standards often start as an answer to
a problem which itself has a spe-
cific context. Yet many testers who
follow these processes don’t bother
to check if it suits their context
or not. If a particular process/best
practice/standard has succeeded on
a couple of occasions, it is assumed
that it will succeed for all time.
Few people analyse these prac-
tices or standards to see if it suits
their context. Few people revisit
Context Driven
Jumping
BY Dhanasekar
Subramaniam
Why not use something that
has succeeded in the past?”
About Author
Scott Barber is the Chief Tech-
nologist of PerfTestPlus, Execu-
tive Director of the Association
for Software Testing Co-Founder
of the Workshop on Performance
and Reliability and co-author of
the Microsoft patterns & practices
book Performance Testing Guid-
ance for Web Applications. Scott
thinks of himself as a tester and
trainer of testers who has a pas-
sion for testing software system
performance. In additional to
performance testing, he is particu-
larly well versed in developing
customized testing methodologies,
embedded systems testing, test-
ing biometric identification and
personal security systems, group
facilitation and authoring instruc-
tional materials.
www.perftestplus.com
Check out http://feeds.softwaretestingclub.com - nice aggregation of Software Testing Club blogs and news :)

who entered the particulars on that
page added a second signature in
the comments column by error (or
intent?). The twenty other people
who completed stationary requests
that day copied without even bother-
ing to check why they needed to sign
twice.
So what happens if the processes
are questioned and analysed? It leads
to the discovery of new information
which can be raised with the “right”
people. It leads to new ways of
working. It leads to change. It leads
to new ideas. It leads to bugs, issues
and further questions. It breaks down
assumptions and leads to real im-
provement.
Process Is Mere Process
Process doesn’t find problems,
people do. Don’t follow the sheep in
front of you blindly jumping obsta-
cles that have since been removed,
or didn’t even exist in the first place.
Question, challenge and analyse.
shines”. Of course that’s not wrong,
but shouldn’t they be providing
value for the money they charge?
Shouldn’t they be imparting the right
knowledge, rather than teaching
misplaced information without really
caring about the aftermath?
Impact On The
Testing Community
What is the the impact on the test-
ing community at large? What would
be the impact on the companies
these people end up working for?
Will we get skilled people at work?
What kind of quality deliverable can
we expect out of people who have
been trained this way?
How To Handle
This Situation?
It would be good if people, who
enrol in training institutes, verify the
correctness of the information given
to them via trusted, impartial, online
resources or by talking to their peers.
Unfortunately, this requires a testing
mindset, something these people are
maybe trying to build upon in the
first place.
Read More Testing Books
Read, read and read more. There are
many great books on testing avail-
the customer’s context and their
needs and decide what works for
them rather than what worked for
a different customer two years ago.
Customers depend on us to use
our technical knowledge, experi-
ence and skill to provide them what
is best suited for them. Custom-
ers don’t ask about metrics if you
deliver them the best (Unless, you
want to overcharge them by show-
ing these metrics). Customer feed-
back is the right way to measure
quality. It’s not just counting test
cases and defects raised.
I encountered this example of
blindly following when I was in
need of a new notebook and a pen.
The stationary is available at the
reception desk in our office where
we need to make an entry in the
register when we collect the items. I
went to reception to get my station-
ary where the receptionist gave me
the register to make the entry. There
were already many entries made on
the page, I was almost at the end
of the page, so I checked the last
entry to know what details to enter,
it had the following details; Name,
Employee ID, Particulars, Quantity,
a signature and again the same sig-
nature in subsequent column.
I was wondering why he has
signed it twice. I then looked an en-
try above and that too had two sig-
natures. So I scanned a few others
entries, all had the same patterns.
Now I looked at the column head-
ers. They were as follows; Employ-
ee Name, Employee ID, Particulars,
Quantity, Employee Signature and
Comments. It seems the first person
plained where I disagreed with her
arguments. She was surprised but
accepting that her view of the test-
ing lifecycle could well be wrong. I
talked about mine, but I didn’t stop
there. I wanted to know from where
she had studied and learned about
testing. What she told gave me the
shock of my life.
She had enrolled and paid a
hefty sum to a testing institute who
sent her a heap of training material
to learn remotely. Now, that left me
perplexed. I wondered how much
of what she learned was right and
how much was wrong.
Masters Of The Field
It’s shocking to me that com-
panies whose business is to teach
testing and who claim to be mas-
ters in the field impart misguided
and potentially wrong information
to candidates. How can a person,
totally new to the testing field, ever
figure out if they are getting honest,
real and accurate information?
Cash Cow Mentality
One of the major problems is
that anything that becomes a trend
or the “in-thing” and is widely
in demand, becomes a very good
business opportunity. There are
many people who bank on it to
make quick money, just as the say-
ing goes “Make hay while the sun
Future Testers In The
Making Or Breaking?
BY Krishnaveni One of the candidates started dis-
cussing the testing life cycle. I got
interested and focused my attention.
What I heard was a shocker. With-
out fearing bad manners, I politely
volunteered to correct her.
I told her that what she was say-
ing didn’t fit with my understanding
of the testing life cycle, so I pro-
ceeded to give her what I believe to
be the right information. At first she
refused to accept my version. I ex-
This incident took place when
I went to attend an interview for
a prestigious IT company. While
I was waiting for my interview, I
overheard a conversation between
two other candidates who were
seated alongside me. They were
talking loudly enough to be heard
across the hallway, so I didn’t have
to strain to listen to their conversa-
tion.
About Author
“Pragmatist, Sapient Soft-
ware tester, Automation Checker,
Practising Context driven test-
ing, Strongly believes Question-
ing leads to Progress, Hakuna
matata.Take life as it comes
and make it beautiful,blog at:
http://bit.ly/bXUt89 and tweets @
sdhanasekar. Favorite quote “Life
begins at the end of your comfort
zone.“– Neale Donald Walsch”
Thanks to Stephen Hill (@Stephen_J_Hill) and Thomas Ponnet (@ThomasPonnet) for volunteering time to help out with
The Testing Planet

Search To Evaluate The
Companies Credibility
Know more about the institutes
before joining in blindly. Research
sufficiently. Talk to students who
have studied there in the past. Talk
to the lecturers and teachers to get an
understanding of their personalities,
passion and course material.
Ray Of Hope
I hope this has been a good, if not
brief, eye opener for the many aspir-
ing people who are thinking about
parting with large sums of money
and their precious time in the pursuit
of becoming a more experienced
software tester.
Elizabeth Fiennes: which is a great skill in testing
trisherino: Elizabeth: good point, that’s a good testing skill
Marlena Compton: There’s an American saying, “I disagree with what you
say, but will die defending your right to say it.”
Elizabeth Fiennes: exactly
Elizabeth Fiennes: except with that particular author, I might just take a
Chinese burn on their behalf but not much more
Elizabeth Fiennes:
Markus Gärtner: so, to wrap up on self-education in testing is worthy,
maybe we need a different teaching model, besides universities...and certi-
fication is just paper
Elizabeth Fiennes: that’s the masters you get after the degree from the
university of life?
Markus Gärtner: blogging helps to have ideas floating around, and im-
proves our argumentation skills, argumentation skills? Or discussion skills?
Markus Gärtner: oh, and conferences are great to connect and get new
ideas
trisherino: It forces you to form ideas properly into words, which I think
helps with learning.
Rob Lambert: lol we’re off again
Elizabeth Fiennes: Engagement skills
Rob Lambert: engagement skills - interesting.
Rob Lambert: Takes it to the level of a two way conversation with empathy
on each side
Marlena Compton: We need much more engagement skills and less debate
skills in testing.
Markus Gärtner: +1 Marlena
trisherino: @Marlena completely agree
trisherino: Written engagement skills even. Which can be difficult.
Elizabeth Fiennes: well, 20-ish years ago, we all started off on IRC and it
was mental the flame wars that took place
Elizabeth Fiennes: then we graduated to nicer message boards, webpages,
IM chats, forums and blogs
Elizabeth Fiennes: and the same flaming is still going on by newbies to the
formats
Elizabeth Fiennes: whereas us old hats know that is not the way to engage
Rob Lambert: oh how there have been some flame wars in testing
Rob Lambert: what is the best way to engage?
Marlena Compton: so....
Rob Lambert: when faced with distance
Elizabeth Fiennes: stepping back
Elizabeth Fiennes: asking yourself, is this someone looking for a flamed
response, is it worth my time to give it, will me ripping his head off (meta-
phorically) in a public forum achieve anything?
Elizabeth Fiennes: and if the answers are yes, no and no, then go and find
something else to read that is not going to make me go all 1995-IRC on
their post
trisherino: I think when it comes to online debates, we have the advantage
of being able to take the time to calm down before writing a response, un-
like in some face to face scenarios.
Rob Lambert: @trish - indeed
Marlena Compton: twitter, on the other hand.
Rob Lambert: @trish - in our daily jobs it can also be prudent to take a step
back and think about things. Especially in heated meetings
trisherino: @Rob That’s true as well, if possible.
Elizabeth Fiennes: thing is, I think that slowing yourself down online
teaches you the value of holding back your reactionary self and once your
embrace that, you can apply it in real life (without realising it) as well
Thomas Ponnet: A couple of thoughts from me after reading the quite sub-
stantial discussion. I didn’t read it with a glass of wine as Elizabeth sug-
gested, I didn’t think that would improve the reply..
Is The Explosion In Blogs About Testing A Positive Thing,
Even If We Don’t Agree With The Message?
Elizabeth Fiennes: Yes it is as it promotes discussion
Markus Gärtner: yes
Marlena Compton: Visibility is good.
trisherino: yes absolutely!
trisherino: Free flow of ideas. If people don’t agree with the message, it
will at least get them talking.
Rob Lambert: for sure
Marlena Compton: +1 for that
Markus Gärtner: it helps in bouncing ideas around, thereby making our
profession even more professional
Elizabeth Fiennes: and understanding the views of someone you do not
agree with help with engaging with them
Markus Gärtner: ok, got a topic for the weekend
able. The Internet is also a great
source of information to guide new
apprentices to the world of software
testing. You can join many online
discussion forums to share your
knowledge and find lots of informa-
tion for you to browse through.
Network With
Passionate Testers
The Testing field has progressed
rapidly over the last few years.
There is loads of information on
testing available on forums and
websites including groups of pas-
sionate testers who are dedicated to
helping grow and steer the testing
community.
It’s really good to see that pas-
sionate testers are willing to share
their precious knowledge and are
willing to help people learn more
about testing.
Find A Mentor For Yourself
Having a mentor makes learning
easier by setting a suitable direc-
tion and context to your learning
goals with someone highly skilled
and motivating. It is good to find
like- minded testers willing to help
budding testers to learn and practice
testing.
STC Chat
hosted BY ROB lambert
About Author
Name: Krishnaveni
Job title: Senior QA Engineer
About Me: Have been in testing
for the past 5 years and am truly
passionate about it.
Coverage must apply to performance tests, too. Showing the truth (low % coverage) will drive innovation in your testing
#dttip by @ bradjohnsonsv

Is Attending Conferences Valuable?
Markus Gärtner: depends
Elizabeth Fiennes: oooh, there is a question
Marlena Compton: yes...it gets you out of your own fishbowl
Elizabeth Fiennes: attending can be expensive, whatever about valuable
Marlena Compton: Especially if you are a solo tester or on a small team.
Markus Gärtner: attending a conference on the solar system may be of
lesser value than attending eurostar
trisherino: I’ve only ever been to STANZ for testing conferences. Went to
some developer ones though.
trisherino: but STANZ was invaluable, especially as I was the only tester
on my team at the time
Marlena Compton: I went to GTAC and it opened my eyes
Markus Gärtner: I think the professional exchange during the breaks is the
best benefit you can get from a conference with a bad program
Marlena Compton: and GTAC is free
Markus Gärtner: oh, it is?
Marlena Compton: yep
trisherino: I found the conference really opened up a whole new world for
me, of people who are interested in testing.
Markus Gärtner: you should have told me this one year earlier
Marlena Compton: @trisherino I think I had a similar feeling at GTAC
trisherino: where is GTAC?
Marlena Compton: This year it’s at Hyderabad. I attended in Seattle
Rob Lambert: I find them inspiring. Gives me the ideas to try out and the
enthusiasm to do so
Markus Gärtner: I noticed that a community of great people also helps my
own thinking
Markus Gärtner: it’s infectious
Elizabeth Fiennes: you know what I would find really useful as a tester
(esp. one working as the dogsbody for a startup) - an online calender of
testing events, confs etc
Rob Lambert:check out the SoftwareTestingClub calendar
trisherino: Elizabeth - yes! I have been looking for some calendar like that
Markus Gärtner: last year, GTAC was in Switzerland, I think
Rob Lambert: @markus - the conversations outside of the event are the
really great value add.
Elizabeth Fiennes: I tend to find out about confs in retrospect when ppl
blog about them
trisherino: There never seems to be many testing events happening in Aus-
tralia. But maybe I’m just not aware?
Marlena Compton: @trisherino You are right.
Rob Lambert: Start one
Marlena Compton: I’ve counted 3
trisherino: Marlena: good time for us to start some?
Rob Lambert: yay
Marlena Compton: A peer conference or unconference might be fun.
Rob Lambert: open space events are fun
Markus Gärtner: started to love the open space parts at the last few confs I
visited
Marlena Compton: New Zealand is having one soon. Wish I could go.
trisherino: Marlena: I’d be happy to help organise something in Sydney
sometime.
Marlena Compton: @trisherino We can talk about it.
So Is A Diploma With Work Experience A Way To Go?
Elizabeth Fiennes: For me, yes
Markus Gärtner: that depends
trisherino: Sounds like a good idea.
Marlena Compton: Seems like it assumes certain limits to software.
Markus Gärtner: diversity in work experience would be more interesting to
an employer, I think
trisherino: I guess it depends on what’s being taught?
Marlena Compton: I think I agree with what you said.
Rob Lambert: I have worked in many industries and each one has needed
a new set of ideas and principles not to mention new people with different
skill sets and new terminology
Marlena Compton: Do you mean “testing diploma” or “a diploma”
Markus Gärtner: well, I think it’s unlikely that you learn everything at a
single company, and that everything you learned there is of any meaning at
a different company
Elizabeth Fiennes: I mean a software testing diploma
Marlena Compton: that assumes limits to software
trisherino: It would be nice to have something like that to give wannabe
testers a starting point to further their own education through self-learning
and experience.
Rob Lambert: @markus - absolutely. Staying at the same company can
often be detrimental
Rob Lambert: you need to explore how different places work
Elizabeth Fiennes: That’s true Rob but in every company I have gone to, I
have drawn on skills that I have learned somewhere else
Elizabeth Fiennes: (and developed some new ones)
Rob Lambert: but have these been general skills suitable for any industry
Markus Gärtner: (weekend testing can provide you with some experience
in different applications, if you like to take the challenge)
Elizabeth Fiennes: Yes, the ability to think quickly, stay calm, not throw
heavy objects at PMs, all very transferable skills
Rob Lambert: commuinication? Analysis?
Rob Lambert: Social skills? Learning? Self teaching?
Rob Lambert: Being unafraid to ask questions?
Marlena Compton: So would the same “testing diploma” prepare me to test
at Microsoft and Atlassian?
Markus Gärtner: i think there is a difference between experience in terms
of practically applying something, and knowing about it
Markus Gärtner: the most critical thing for myself was my ability and will-
ingness to learn new things on my own
Markus Gärtner: so, learning is a worthwhile thing to have
Rob Lambert: @markus essential some might say?
trisherino: Sounds about as good as any other diploma / degree - enough
to learn some terms and concepts, but then you get into the industry and
realise you don’t know a damn thing.
Rob Lambert: @trish - good point. I’ve seen that first hand
Markus Gärtner: I learned some of that during my university courses (to
get back to Rob’s question from earlier)
Marlena Compton: I stick by my Interdisciplinary Studies degree. The CS
degree has made it easier, but I could have done without it.
Markus Gärtner: I don’t know whom to attribute it, but “I’ll stop learning
when I’m dead.”
Rob Lambert: If you think you’ve reached the top you are already on your
way down
Elizabeth Fiennes: There’s a top to software testing?
Marlena Compton: yeah....less specialization
Elizabeth Fiennes: I heard it as I’ll stop improving when I’m dead but same
principle
Any comments on The Testing Planet? hello@softwaretestingclub.com

Weather & Games
Brief
HistorY
OF
Time
a
French Edition
Bug Forecast
JUNE JULY AUGUST SEPT
HOLIDAY
Across
2. Simultaneous learning, test design and test execution
4. An iterative, incremental framework for project management
and agile software development
7. A name of a test tool and a chemical element
9. The real name of‘The Social Tester’
10. A software implementation of a machine
Down
1. A type of people who join The Software Testing Club
3. A name of a test conference that shares it’s name with a train service
5. An open source automated acceptance testing and ATDD framework
6. Also known as an error
8. A type of team also confused with a test team
See what lovely @testingclub services are on offer - http://bit.ly/d88e69
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