7N Network: Renegotiating Testing

Testing is about breaking illusions for our software systems. It’s work where results - information at our disposal - matters, with no easy way of listing the results. There is no ‘answer key to all the bugs’, the practice of us testing turns the invisible ink visible line by line.

The world of testing is changing. We can factually state that levels of automation and programmatic tests have increased. A raise of hands in a developer conference asking which of them tests has all hands up. Testing is too important to be left just for testers. And testing is too important to be left without testers. Agile mindset and practices have effectively removed test managers, and redistributed that work to product owners and teams.

Let’s look at what the recipe for resultful testing includes - how different roles contribute, how we assess testing as a whole, and we all have our part to play in creating an environment where resultful testing is not only possible, but likely, both in software delivery and acceptance organizations.

Transcript

1. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to by Maaret Pyhäjärvi Renegotiating Testing
2. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Testing serves a purpose: catch information we may be missing.
3. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to 1250 programmatic tests run on average 20 times a day producing 25 000 test results … being 10% of testing done
4. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to
5. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Test Team Test Mgr Manual Tester Automation Tester Specialist Tester Security / Performance Dev Team We used to have this… Queuing theory Failure demand Conways Law
6. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Team Team And we started having this… Power dynamics Renegotiation of work and expectations Renegotiation of identity Team member Product Owner Agile Coach Custo mer
7. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Stakeholders happy, even delighted –Quality Information Good Team’s Output –Quality Information Less than Good Team’s Output –Quality Information Results Gap Surprise! Results Gap on a Team that thinks Testers == Testing Pick up the pizza boxes… ”Find (some of) What Others May Have Missed”
8. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to ANTIPATTERN in Framing Testing Exploratory Testing – the Noun Feature / Change Early Ideas of Testing Final Ideas of Testing Documented Tests Automated Tests Throwaway automated tests 20 22 0 22 22 100% ‘Agile’ Exploratory 20 2000 1000 20 = 18+2 1% 10 % 2 50% 80% RESULTS PLAN STEER
9. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Creativity requires time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDngw5R32WE&list=FLrTlIKuIS-LmRk-aAbcxTKg
10. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to People Think Differently Source: Adapted from Bret Pettichord. 2000. Testers and Developers Think Differently Type A Type B Need of Mastery Focus of Modeling Focus of Thinking Tedium and Conflict Get up to speed quickly Generalist Domain knowledge Ignorance is important Thorough understanding Specialist Knowledge of product internals Expertise is important Model user behavior Focus on what can go wrong Focus on severity of problem Model system design Focus on how it can work Focus on interest of problem Practical Empirical: What is observed Sceptics Theoretical How it is designed Believers Tolerate tedium Comfortable with conflict Report problems Automate tedium Avoid conflict Understand problems
11. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Results worth Investment Usability Validation Verification Functionality Performance Security Reliability Risk (of these types of problems of relevance) Documentation Observations from #TestingDozen mentoring program for Contemporary Exploratory Testing
12. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Availability timeline Results Productive Generative Short term Long term Find and get fixed Executable docs Holding space Leaving co-owned automation behind Leaving better behind Improving *your* skills
13. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Discovery Delivery Production
14. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Testing Challenges, a paired modeling session result by Maaret Pyhäjärvi & Irja Straus, 9.12.2022
15. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Everyone can test
16. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Visualized with gource.io
17. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
18. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to (Exploratory) Tester (Application) Programmer Test Automator / Programmer Testing is too important to be left for testers! …but also without testers.
19. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to Testing = empirically inclined glue work Results in product; ways of working; capabilities
20. @maaretp @maaretp@mas.to 2020 2016 MIATPP Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person #PayToSpeak #TechVoices #EnsembleTesting #EnsembleProgramming #StrongStylePairing #ExploratoryTesting #TestAutomation #ModernAgile #AwesomeTesters Maaret Pyhäjärvi (from Finland) Email: maaret@iki.fi Twitter: @maaretp Web: maaretp.com Blog: visible-quality.blogspot.fi (please connect with me through Twitter or LinkedIn) 2019 - 2022 https://exploratorytestingacademy.com Ohjelmistotestaus ry https://techvoices.org