trying to teach testing skills and judgement

Trying to Teach Testing Skills and Judgment

Rikard Edgren

www.eurostarconferences.com

Context

• Higher vocational studies, 1 – 2 years full time

• Based on market needs, including supervised internship

• We (Rikard and Henrik) have taught test-savvy parts at several schools

• Teaching Philosophy– Motivation is key

– Not for the money

– It’s not about us

– Encourage new ideas

– Don’t be afraid



Tacit Skills and Judgment

• Asking good questions

• Critical thinking

• Understanding what is important

• Rapid learning

• Seeing many perspectives and test ideas

• Selecting effective test strategies

• Capturing serendipity

• Realizing when testing is good enough

[Courses are not centered around these, but they are embedded within “classic” testing areas.]



Think Like a Tester - excerpt

• I will now show some examples from course ”Think Like a Tester”.

• We usually start with a story…


Think Like a Tester - definition

• Testers think differently than other professions; we want to see problems.

• A good tester needs critical thinking, questioning assumptions that really aren’t givens.

• You get many perspectives with creativity, often by combining old things in new ways.

• You also need logical thinking, to understand how things are connected.

• And we need to learn rapidly, since there are loads to know in order to test well.

• On top of this a healthy dose of pragmatic thinking, to adjust to reality so you can test your best within time limits.

• This needs to be balanced with a very good understanding about what is important in the unique situation.


Critical Thinking

• Question everything, especially this statement

• What If…

• You can’t avoid bias, but you can manage it (Lessons Learned #39)


Critical Thinking - Examples

• Evaluating concepts

• Questioning the product

• Testers can make mistakes

• The critical thinking is embedded in who we are as testers.


Think Like a Tester - Exercise

• There is an empty house. One person goes in and a bit later two persons come out.

• Explanations:– By Biologist: Procreation – amitosis, fission, (asexual) reproduction etc

– By Mathematician: if one more person entered the building it would be empty again.

• How would a tester think?

• Source http://wtquestions.blogspot.se/2009/04/first-question.html

http://wtquestions.blogspot.se/2009/04/first-question.html


Think Like a Tester – Exercise Debrief

• Questioning – are the instructions (the specification) right? What exactly are the results?

• Reproduce – does it always happen?

• Variations – for any person, for two persons

• Side-effects – does anything else happen? Is it an identical clone?

• Purpose – what’s the house supposed to do? Without knowing, can we say something is wrong?


TEACHER WORK

STUDENT WORK

THEORY

STORIES

EXAMPLES

TIPS & TRICKS

FEEDBACK

QUESTIONS

DISCUSSIONS

EXERCISES

READING

AUTHENTIC PROBLEMS!

PURPOSE

WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS


Courseware

• Own material + BBST and Rapid Testing excerpts

• James Bach’s Heuristic Test Strategy Model

• Books– Lessons Learned in Software Testing – Cem Kaner, James Bach, Bret Pettichord

– Essential Test Design – Torbjörn Ryber

– Exploring Requirements – Daniel Gause, Jerry Weinberg

– Explore It! – Elisabeth Hendrickson

• Miscellaneous articles

• In the beginning I thought the material and exercises were most important.Now I believe it is the individual feedback on the work they do.


Examples

• The best examples are the ones created together in class.

• I also use authentic examples I explain thoroughly (in Swedish)

• A few examples are elaborated in English:– Exploratory Testing Example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0MXE8Onkh4

– Test Strategy - http://thetesteye.com/examples/Example_WorkRaveTestStrategy.pdf

– Test Analysis – http://thetesteye.com/examples/ScreenPluck_TestAnalysis.pdf

– Scenario Testing – http://thetesteye.com/examples/LibreScenarioTestingExample.pdf

• I would love to see more public examples!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0MXE8Onkh4

http://thetesteye.com/examples/Example_WorkRaveTestStrategy.pdf

http://thetesteye.com/examples/ScreenPluck_TestAnalysis.pdf

http://thetesteye.com/examples/LibreScenarioTestingExample.pdf


Finale

• A challenging opportunity to learn (for students and teachers!)

• “If a student wants a crystal clear education with easy assignments, you will probably not like it” (Magnus)

• I can’t really teach these tacit skills and judgment, but I know how to help students acquire it.

• You can do it too, a good start is reading the paper with details (March 2015)

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