When software testing, it’s handy to use mnemonics/heuristics to refer to. They can be useful as generators of test ideas, or reminders to test in a particular way, or to consider some aspect. What’s a heuristic? Think of a heuristic as a rule of thumb that helps

Have you ever been in a new city or town and been tempted to take a shortcut that you don’t know will actually be short? A hunch tells you it will be quicker. What do you do? Will you take the risk and go with your gut? Or, will

I’ve spent a day testing a scheduler using a semi-automated technique. It’s a task that is cognitively demanding. It requires creating sophisticated test data, loading it into a scheduler, then identifying if the output is as anticipated. Sound’s interesting right? It is. There are lots of different

Ever been on a long car journey packed with young kids? I remember these eight-hour drives with six kids crammed into a car driving to our holiday destination. My younger brother, in particular, was annoying, constantly asking questions and irritating his sisters. By far the most irritating question (especially to

Exploratory Testing takes software testing skill. It also requires the tester be courageous. Let me explain. Exploratory testing is an approach, not a technique. Exploratory Testing is simultaneous learning, design and execution. What information we learn about a product, helps dictate our tests providing us with information that we can

Some of my testers have become embedded on a newly formed agile team. Its been a roller coaster ride for sure. Lots of fun, thrills and a few scary points in time where I thought for certain we were not going to make it, or we were heading in the

Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom has a “moment of indecision” when halfway across a bridge he realises he’s been cornered by Mola Ram(the baddy) and his henchmen. He looks back and there’s a hoard  of lusty savages baying for his blood, no luck there. He

I wrote a feature article for Logigear Magazine February Edition entitled Beware the Lotus Eaters. I really enjoyed writing this article, I hope you get something out of it. Beware the Lotus Eaters [http://www.logigear.com/magazine/exploratory-testing/beware-of-the-lotus-eaters-exploratory-testing/] Drawing from the Greek mythology of the lotus eaters, Anne-Marie

Recently, I’ve been reading up on how we approach and report on solving problems. One book recommended to me was Exploring Science by David Klahr. There’s a lot in this book.  Khlar performs experiments in his “Discovery Lab” where participants are observed solving and reporting problems.  He uses

I liken my experience of creating an Exploratory Testing workshop as similar to recreating the wheel. It would be easy to copy someone else’s version of a wheel, after all there are a lot of great wheels out there. Alternatively, I could create my own wheel. But how do

Have you ever been in the situation where no-one else can find and repeat the bugs you find? Perhaps you have a canny knack of finding unusual bugs, or maybe it’s time to improve and update how you write bug reports! I do a lot of offsite exploratory testing

I went on James Bach’s Rapid Software Testing (RST) course because some of the concepts and ideas that I had read about exploratory testing and RST appealed to me.   I liked the idea that central to testing is a critical and context-driven approach and I also wanted to put