Testing Tools Mash-Ups

One of the three things that bring innovations, is copulation. That’s basically two already good ideas having sex with each other. I learned this from Jerry Weinberg’s Becoming a technical leader. The longer I stay in test automation and agile, though, I think this does not hold for combinations of testing tools, like a testing framework, and a UI-driver.

Continue reading Testing Tools Mash-Ups

Tell a story at the daily standup

Yesterday during my keynote at the Agile Testing Days 2012 I said I see a lot of standups, where testers report on their yesterday’s work in the following way:

Yesterday I tested the thing with the stuff. I found some bugs, and filed them. Today I will test the foo with the bar.

I think this is horrible test reporting. While concluding the fifth beta of Elisabeth Hendrickson‘s upcoming book Explore it! I found a few more hints in the same direction. On the same line I will relate good test reporting during the standup to what for example Michael Bolton talks about when it comes to test reporting – we should tell three stories during test reporting:

  • a story about the product
  • a story about testing
  • a story about the process
Continue reading Tell a story at the daily standup

Certified Scrum Manager – somewhat more than a rant

In the past I have been more than skeptic about certifications. I even wrote about my minimum requirements for a certification programme that might (or might not) add value in an article called Meaningful Certification?. Despite the split between the two larger organizations (and their early leaders) on Scrum – the Scrum Alliance and Scrum.org – yesterday I noticed that the certification scam has taken on new levels with a program called Certified Scrum Manager (IAPM). Here is my honest critique about it, and I will try to rant as few as possible about it.

Continue reading Certified Scrum Manager – somewhat more than a rant

A testing landscape

On my way to EuroSTAR 2012 I was starting to think about the Cynefin model, and landscape diagrams which I know from giving some courses. I tried to relate them to software testing, different techniques, and I was not sure where this could lead me.

I had some exchanges with Michael Bolton, Bart Knaack and Huib Schoots on my early draft, and I wanted to share what I had ended up with. So, here it is.

Continue reading A testing landscape

Code Coverage – useful or misuseful?

This year I took all three courses on Black-box Software Testing. Each of them means an investment of four weeks of my time, usually up to 2-4 hours per day. This was quite a blast, and I am happy that I made it through the courses.

One thing that stroke me in the first course was the different uses and misuses of code coverage discussed in the first part, the Foundations course. Here is a short description of things I have seen working, and not working so much.

Continue reading Code Coverage – useful or misuseful?