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Manual testing is the best way to find the bugs most likely to bite users badly after a product ships. However, manual testing remains a very ad hoc, aimless process. At a number of companies across the globe, groups of test innovators gathered in think tank settings to create a better way to do manual testing--a way that is more prescriptive, repeatable, and capable of finding the highest quality bugs. The result is a new methodology for exploratory testing based on the concept of tours through the application under test. In short, tours represent a more purposeful way to plan and execute exploratory tests. James Whittaker describes the tourist metaphor for this novel approach and demonstrates tours taken by test teams from various companies including Microsoft and Google. He presents results from numerous projects where the tours were used in critical-path production environments. Learn about the collection of test tours, test cases, and bugs from these case studies and recommendations for using tours on your own products.
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Even with the best tools and processes in the world, if your staff is not focused and productive, your testing efforts will be weak and ineffective and your finished product will reflect this. Retired Marine colonel and long-time test consultant Rick Craig describes how using the Marine Corps Principles of Leadership will help you become a better leader and, as a result, a better test manager or tester.
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Ray Arell read an agile project management book on a long flight to India, and, like all good reactionary development managers, he was sold. But the agile/Scrum adoption was not without strain on development, test, and other QA practices. Join Ray on a retrospective of what went right and, more importantly, what went wrong. If agile is in your future, come discover what you're in for, traps to avoid, and how to be successful. If you're not ready for agile, you'll learn some new approaches that can be applied to traditional processes.
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If you're using exploration as part of your testing approach, it might be terrifying to try to give a status report--especially if some project stakeholders think exploratory testing is irresponsible and reckless compared to test cases. Jon Bach offers ways for you to explain the critical and creative thinking that makes exploratory testing so powerful. Learn how to report your exploration so stakeholders have a better understanding and appreciation of the value of exploratory testing to your project.
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Classification trees are a structured, visual approach to identify and categorize equivalence class partitions for test objects. They enable testers to create better test cases faster. In this video, Julie Gardiner explains this powerful technique and how it helps all stakeholders understand exactly what is involved in testing and offers an easier way to validate test designs. She also demonstrates a free classification tree editing tool that helps you build, maintain, display, and use classification trees.
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Our testing is only as good as our thinking--and all too often we are hampered by limiting ideas, poor communication, and pre-set roles and responsibilities. Based on the work of Edward de Bono, the six thinking hats for software testers have helped Julian Harty and numerous others work more effectively as testers and managers. Watch and learn how to apply the six testing hats and other "thinking skills" on your test projects.
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In this interview from STARWEST 2008, Paco Hope discusses the sessions he led at the conference, "AJAX Testing: Inside and Out" and "Automating Security Testing with cUrl and Perl."
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Google’s Testing Grouplet is a group of volunteer engineers who dedicate their spare time to testing evangelism. They tried various ideas for reaching their audience, but no idea caught the attention of engineers like Testing on the Toilet. This weekly flyer, posted in every Google bathroom, has sparked discussions, controversy, jokes, and parodies. More importantly, it has taught everyone about techniques such as code coverage, dependency injection, mock objects, and testing time-dependent code. In this keynote presentation by Bharat Mediratta and Antoine Picard from STARWEST 2007, learn the story of its development—from a deceptively simple idea to a company-wide cultural phenomenon that has received national acclaim.
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People forget things—simple things like keys and passwords and the names of friends from long ago, and more important things like passports and anniversaries and backing up data. But Lee Copeland is concerned with things that the testing community is forgetting. In this video, he explains “The Nine Forgettings,” the negative effects of each, and how recognizing them can help us improve our testing, our organizations, and ourselves.
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We're debuting the StickyMinds.com Videocasts with a tester's take on A Christmas Carol. So grab some hot cocoa, sit back, and watch the Grove Players who performed this witty play at STARWEST 2007.
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