Session based test management is a method to track exploratory testing more precisely and just not keep it adhoc. The technique was developed by James Bach and is widely used in the industry,

1. Session Based Test Management
Webinar
Ashutosh Garg

2. Brief about me
I am Ashutosh Garg
• MBA in Finance and Marketing from IIM Lucknow (PGPWE)
• Department Manager at Mediatek Inc.
• Trainer and Writer on diverse topics like Agile, MS Excel, Negotiations, Communication, Content
Marketing, QA
• Father to a 1.5 year old boy

3. Outline
• What is Exploratory testing?
• General Problems with Exploratory Testing
• Solution - SBTM
• Details about Session Based Test Management
• Examples
• Way forward

4. Defining Exploratory Testing
• Exploratory testing is also known as Free testing (May be the word which you most commonly
know)
• It is unscripted, does not have a structure, it is unrehearsed
• Its success depends on a lot of factors like the skill of the tester, their inquisitiveness, their
experience and the courage to follow their hunch
• So all in all, it is extremely dependent on the tester who is executing the exploratory test

5. General Problems with Exploratory Testing
• Since these are intangibles and cannot be measured quantitatively, it is extremely difficult for the test
managers to get a status.
○ Most testers are not able to express it diligently, since they do a lot but when it comes to mentioning, it
gets difficult for them (either they forget or may not be able to think out loud)
• And since testers are not able to recall what they did, managers are not able to understand the coverage and
more importantly what is the health of the module they tested (How good or bad is it in terms of Quality)
• So, there is no detail on coverage, confidence on quality, accountability and the method to mention the
creativity of the tester.

6. A brief about Session Based Test Management
• A technique invented by Jonathan and James Bach, way back in 2000.
• It intends to make the intangibles as tangible.
• In layman terms, it is structured exploratory testing
○ Structure and Exploratory? Yes! Not exactly pre-scripted. But more of a set of expectations and a
structure on the reporting
• SBTM Involves exploratory testing in sessions. The session could be as short as 1 hour or as long as 1 day.
○ However, from experience, it is not recommended to keep less than 2 hours and not more than 2 days.

7. Key Item of Session Based Test Management - Charter
• A charter can be understood as the script which the tester will follow and also the report it will fill
• The Key components of the charter are as follows
○ Details about the test environment (To be filled by the manager first)
○ Test notes (To be filled by the manager first)
○ Task Breakdown (To be filled by the tester post the charter execution)
○ New areas discovered (To be filled by the tester post the charter execution)
○ Results of the test notes (To be filled by the tester post the charter execution)

8. Session Based Test Management - Flow
Preparation of the Charter
The test manager will fill the charter as to
what his expectations are from the
exploratory test
Debriefing
Tester and Manager will discuss the
charter. Since everything is now
documented, the debriefing session
becomes result oriented
Execution of the charter
and reporting.
Executing the charter shared by the test
manager. Reporting the results, findings
and effort related details
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01 02

9. Sample Problem
Type of transaction Weekdays-Day time Weekdays-Night time Weekends
Domestic 0.5% 0.75% 1.5%
International 0.75% 1% 2%
A credit card company will charge the following commission to a book based ecommerce portal based on the time of transaction
The maximum purchase a person can do on the website is 100000 INR
Need to design the test charter to check the commission calculation function (Server side can be ignored)
This is the requirement given. Know thy requirement. Ask as many questions.
Examples: When do we consider the day time to be over and when the night time to begin? Is the same cut off date for
weekends also? How probable is that someone will do a order of 1 Lakh, are there that expensive items?

10. Mind map for the sample problem

11. Pros and Cons
• Pros
○ Makes the free testing more traceable to get confidence
○ Makes the tester accountable for unstructured test also
○ Get the real picture of the test session (whether the tester had sufficient time or not)
• Cons
○ Does not mention about the issues the tester faced (however that is an easy extension one can do)
○ Test Manager need to still understand that this is an exploratory testing technique. Do not try and give so
much of a structure to this

12. Chat with me in case you have more
queries or you want to implement this in
your place of work
a@gargashutosh.com, ashutosh@2pir.in
+919810134649
www.2pir.in
www.gargashutosh.com