Learning objectives:
- Understand the services QA provides on typical projects.
- When is testing "done"?
Who cares most about what we do? Building that relationship.
Communication - bug reports, test reports, and conversations.
- Credibility.
Advantages of test early/test often. Is it more efficient to test all at once, at the end?
- Balance between planning, estimating, learning, and testing.
- Verifying fixes.
- Oracles - explicit and implicit.
- Variables.
- Objective/subjective reports.
- Test coverage. Other ways to snoop for risk.
- How do you know if you're doing a good job?
- Psychology - protect yourself.
- Diversity.
- Critical thinking.
- Discuss your own testing department's mission.
What might be some practical results?
- Testers spend time learning about the product and its users, through conversation and direct exploration (Real Users?).
- Testers create lightweight test outlines that can easily scale up or down.
- Testers quickly and fluently generate and execute test ideas.
- Testers log clear bug reports that make developers happy.
- Testers find reasonably minimal conditions for reproducing bugs, and verify fixes accurately and efficiently.
- Testers report on quality and progress in ways that help others manage the project.
- Testers avoid common traps such as "blame game" "gatekeeper" "lack of respect"
- Testers build key relationships.
One-hour mini-classes: