Exploratory Testing Is Now in Session

TI
AM Tutorial
4/30/13 8:30AM

Exploratory Testing Is
Now in Session
Presented by:
Jon Bach
eBay, Inc.

Brought to you by:

340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

Jon Bach
Jon Bach works for eBay (San Jose) as a QA director for the Buyer Experience team. Formerly a manager
of corporate intellect and senior test consultant at Quardev, Jon has been in testing since 1995 with
experience that includes managing teams at Microsoft, HP, and LexisNexis. The co-inventor (with his
brother James) of session-based test management, Jon is an award-winning speaker on test
management and exploratory testing. He’s mostly known for his “half-baked” ideas about how to inspire
innovation and create a learning culture for test teams. Find Jon on Facebook and Twitter @jbtestpilot.
View his presentations at quardev.com/articles and his blog at jonbox.wordpress.com.

Exploratory Testing:
Now in Session

Jon Bach
QE Director, eBay
jobach@ebay.com
STAR East 2013
eBay Inc. confidential

Testing is about DISCOVERY…


…finding emerging context


enhanced by conference…


...affected by inference


…framed by reference


“The” ET Definition

A style of software testing…
  that emphasizes the personal freedom…
    and responsibility of the individual tester…
      to continually optimize the quality of his/her work…
        by treating testrelated learning…
          test design…
            test execution…
              and test result interpretation…
                as  mutually supportive activities…
                  that run in parallel…
                    throughout the project.
Cem Kaner, 2006


The agile nature of exploration and the ability of testers to
rapidly apply their skills and experience make exploratory
testing a widely used test approach—especially when
time is short.
But exploratory testing is often dismissed by project
managers who assume that exploratory testing is not
reproducible, measurable, or accountable.


Why this tutorial?

1) Exploratory testers want respect: When testers explore during testing,
they find great bugs. However, since they often don’t know how to
describe their thinking, it’s considered to be dismissed as “playing around”.

2) The documentation dilemma: Project managers may insist that all testing
be documented, but Agile does not emphasize that. So how to balance
time spent documenting with time spent testing?
3) Your work might be scrutinized: You may have to give a report someday
about something you did that was exploratory – like attending this
conference.


A boring (Boeing) story


On October 30, 2006, Alaska Airlines flight 61, a Boeing 737200,
N740AS, took off from runway 34 right at SeattleTacoma
International Airport, Seattle, Washington.
There were no injuries to the 71 passengers or 5 crewmembers and
there was no damage to the airplane.
The airplane was operating under the provisions of 14 CFR Part
121 and continued uneventfully to its destination of Juneau
International Airport, Juneau, Alaska.


The Report


Why the report?
1. The government is collecting statistics on runway incursions, which are
potentially deadly.
2. Since the pilots or ground controllers are subject to reprimand or dismissal
for this sort of thing, a legal record that it happened is necessary.

3. Ground controllers or signage may have caused the problem.
You need a record of the event, and investigation, to discover if
there is another accident waiting to happen.


Key Idea
If you’re not free to think,
or learn,
and adapt
while you test,
it’s not exploration.

My missions for you

1) Discuss — and practice — a way to manage and
measure exploratory testing.
2) See some free tools that support sessionbased
exploration.
3) Learn why exploratory testing can be thoughtful,
structured, and measurable.
4) Have some fun.

A structure for exploration

Mission
Tactics
Story


Session report

My session writeup from exploratory testing for
Agile2010…
CHARTER
---------------------------------------------Analyze MapMaker’s View menu functionality and
report on areas of potential risk.

#AREAS
.LINK
OS | Windows 2000
Menu |
Strategy | Function Testing
Strategy | Functional Analysis
START
---------------------------------------------5/30/00 03:20 pm

TESTER
---------------------------------------------Jonathan Bach
TASK BREAKDOWN
---------------------------------------------
#DURATION
short

#TEST DESIGN AND EXECUTION
65

#BUG INVESTIGATION AND REPORTING
25

#SESSION SETUP
20


Exploratory exercise

Test this…


A story of my exploration


Translation

Bug Investigation
Test Design and Execution

Session Setup


(and Reporting)

How could you accurately report your testing?

?

unr
e
?


ns c
u

hea
r

sed

d
pte
ri

?

na
ovisatio
i mp r
?

?

l

?

One Solution:

The “Session”
1)
2)
3)


Time Box
Reviewable Result
Debriefing

Time Box: focused effort, fixed
duration
Short: 60 minutes (+Normal: 90 minutes (+15)
Long: 120 minutes (+15)
15)
– Brief enough:
• for accurate reporting
• to allow flexible scheduling
• to allow course correction

– Long enough:
• to get solid testing done
• for efficient debriefings


The deliverable: a session report
• Charter
– #AREAS

 Metrics
–
–
–
–
–

CHARTER

#AREAS
OS | Windows 2000
Menu | et-jsb-010417-c.sesView
Sample
START
---------------------------------------------5/30/00 03:20 pm

TESTER
---------------------------------------------Jonathan Bach

TASK BREAKDOWN
---------------------------------------------
#DURATION
short

65

25

#SESSION SETUP
20

#DURATION
#SESSION SETUP
#CHARTER / OPPORTUNITY


• Notes
 Bugs
–

#BUG

 Issues
–

#ISSUE

Debriefing: a talk with the lead

The tester answers questions
Session metrics are checked
Charter may be adjusted
Session may be extended
New sessions may be chartered


Anticipating Scrutiny
Agenda: “PROOF”
Past
Results
Obstacles
Outlook
Feelings

Past: What kinds of things did you do?
Results: What were your findings?
Obstacles: What slowed your mission?
Outlook: Where do we go from here?
Feelings: How are you feeling about what
happened?


Are you accountable?
How did you spend your time?
What did you find?
Did you need some help / tools?
Do you think there’s more to do
here?
Was this mission
reasonable?
Agenda: “PROOF”
Past
Results
Obstacles
Outlook
Feelings


The real message
What’s being asked

What they may be thinking

What was your mission?

Remind me what I told you to do.
Why did you do that?

How did it go?

Were you careful or reckless?
What should I be worried about?

How far did you get?

Are we closer to shipping?
Can you help me know our status?

Need anything?

Can I speed this along?
Do you need more of my time?

When will you be done?


Will I get my bonus?
I have a new task for you…

eBay sample

CHARTER
----------------------------------------------Analyze MapMaker’s View menu functionality and report on areas of
potential risk.

#AREAS
L
INK
START
----------------------------------------------5/30/00 03:20 pm

TESTER
----------------------------------------------Jonathan Bach

TASK BREAKDOWN
----------------------------------------------
#DURATION
short

65

25

#SESSION SETUP
20"C:Documents and SettingsjobachDesktopLive
Siteisrat_sessionsSession_Listing_Promo.txt"


Exercise:

An “exploration and analysis” session


When to use SBTM
Getting support: “We have thousands of test cases and a huge regression
suite, but some of our best bugs come from ad hoc testing. Why is that?”
Improving skill: “How she finds those great bugs without test cases, I’ll never
know. I guess some people are just natural explorers you either have it or
you don’t and I just don’t have her knack for it.”
Earning trust and autonomy: “The triage team needs more information
about these 3 bugs, can you give me that by the end of the day?”


Are you accountable?

How did you spend your time?
What did you find?
Did you need some help / tools?
Do you think there’s more to do
here?
Was this mission
reasonable?


Mission brainstorm

As a London Underground rider,
I want to enter my ticket into the kiosk,
Because I want to go to Heathrow.
What are the possible outcomes?

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/uk/transportlondon/section6.html

London Underground

Are these all of the possible states?
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/uk/transportlondon/section6.html


Sources of charters
• Documentation / Specifications
• Web forums
• Previous products
• Team members
• Competing products
• Your expertise
• Help files
• Manuals

High-level sources

Test Plan Evaluation Model

http://www.satisfice.com/tools/tpemodel.pdf

Test Planning Checklist

http://www.satisfice.com/tools/buildtheplan.pdf

Heuristic Test Strategy Model

http://www.satisfice.com/tools/satisficetsm4p.pdf


Key Idea

Exploratory testing
is a combination of
Imagination
and
Discovery

How to Discover with Your Imagination

CIDTESTDSFDPOTCRUSSPICSTMPLFDSFSCURA
Customers
Information
Developer relations
Team
Equipment & tools
Schedule
Test Items
Deliverables


Structure
Function
Data
Platform
Operations
Time

Capability
Reliability
Usability
Security
Scalability
Performance
Installability
Compatibility
Supportability
Testability
Maintainability
Portability
Localizability

Function testing
Domain testing
Stress testing
Flow testing
Scenario testing
Claims testing
User testing
Risk testing
Automatic testing

Charters
• General charters may be necessary at first:
• “Analyze the Insert Picture function”
• Specific charters provide better focus, but take
more effort to design:
• “Test clip art insertion. Focus on stress and flow
techniques, and make sure to insert into a variety of
documents. We’re concerned about resource leaks or
anything else that might degrade performance over time.”

Some sample session charters
• Installation:  When installed, does Triangle! put any files in the wrong places?  Does it leave any files
for the uninstall? Check the registry keys, use InCtrl to see what changes are made. Installation is new,
so we want to be sure it’s clean.
• Boundary testing:  We got word from customer support that there are runtime errors when using
integers over 32000 but no one can repro it.  Best recon is on Win XP Pro with Office 2003 running in
the background.  Sam K. in CSS says you can use his machine, and he also has customer specs.
• Ship drill:  Start Triangle! right out of the box.  For example, is the readme ready to go?  We’re waiting
from word on Legal as to the License Agreement, but that shouldn’t hold you up.  Also make sure you hit
Vista and see what issues arise there.
• Claims testing: Triangle is meant for first graders, but we plan to ship a version to General Dynamics in
a few months.  Try some usability profiles or personas to see what functions become more or less risky.
Also, discover the algorithm by which Triangle! reports its results.  Is it way off from what a user would
expect.  Does it cause the user to lower their confidence?


Open-Book Charters for eBay
• What item for sale is nearest to you location?
Submitted the most and sold the least?
What item appears most with no bids?
What are the most recent items posted for any given category?
Which category has the most items?
Which search strings create null queries?
What are 3 examples of broad queries vs 3 examples of ambiguous queries?
What queries create invalid results?
How do you find "sold" items?
What is the most common item?
What is the most bizarre item?
What is the most expensive item?
Is it possible to restrict results to one category without the categories field?
Which seller has listed the most items which have not sold?
What search string takes the longest to return results?
Is there a search that works differently on different browsers?
What was the highest bid for an item in support of any charity?
Find an item that the seller has no business selling!
Find an item you find only on eBay, not Amazon.
What item could you find that had the most bids?
How many eBay stores are there?
What is the oldest object (not item) for sale on ebay?
Are results different if you are logged in?
Try a search on ebay.com and then try the same on on your mobile. What are the 3 major differences?
What item has the greatest difference between the highest and second highest bids?
What user has bid the most but won the least?
What item has been on eBay the longest? Is there a way to tell the age of the item ID?
Who has sold the most items?
Is there a way to find the most commonly misspelled item?
What item can be found in the most categories?

The session report
• Charter
– #AREAS

 Metrics
–
–
–
–
–

CHARTER

#AREAS
OS | Windows 2000
Sample
START
---------------------------------------------5/30/00 03:20 pm

TESTER
---------------------------------------------Jonathan Bach

TASK BREAKDOWN
---------------------------------------------
#DURATION
short

65

25

#SESSION SETUP
20

#DURATION
#SESSION SETUP
#CHARTER / OPPORTUNITY


• Notes
 Bugs
–

#BUG

 Issues
–

#ISSUE

Notes from a recent conference


Styles I’ve seen

1) Novel Narrative
2) Flight Data Recorder
3) ESPN Highlight


Clark’s notes…
Captain Clark, River Dubois opposite the mouth of the Missouri River,
13 May 1804
“I dispatched an express this morning to Captain Lewis at St. Louis.
All our provisions, goods, and equipage on board of a boat of 22 oars
[party], a large pirogue of 71 oars [in which 8 French], a second
pirogue of 6 oars [soldiers], complete with sails, &c. Men completed
with powder cartridges and 100 balls each, all in health and readiness
to set out. Boats and everything complete, with the necessary stores
of provisions and such articles of merchandise as we thought
ourselves authorized to procurethough not as much as I think
necessary for the multitude of Indians through which we must pass
on our road across the continent.”


What to write while exploring
Historical Explorer

Tester
•

(To the degree you think they are
relevant to stakeholders)

drawings of flora / fauna
• descriptions of indigenous
people
• landmarks

Conjectures

•

(Inferences based on experiences.
After I test, I think I know
something)

•

Observations

•

•
•
•

Project
information

•

(Independent of observer)

•

•

•
•


•
•

what is this thing?
where should we go today?
how do we get there?
new orders from HQ?
are those people hostile?

•

mission
supplies and staff
latitude / longitude
death and disease
supply status

•

feature model
text from log files
text from dialogs

test ideas
• questions
• product and
project issues
• concerns
• risks
•
•
•
•

charter
test actions
config info
build details
tools used

Scrutiny: what happened here?
“(Orderly Book) Camp Mouth of the Kansies June 29, 1804
Ordered A Court Martiall will Set this day at 11 oClock... for the trial of John
Collins and Hugh Hall...
John Collins Charged "with getting drunk on his post this Morning out of whiskey
put under his charge as a Sentinal, and for suffering Hugh Hall to draw whiskey out
of the Said Barrel intended for the party."
...The commanding Officers approve of the Sentence of the Court and orders that
Punishment take place at half past three this evening, at which time the party will
Parrade for inspection.”
June 29, 1804
William Clark


Jon Bach, 2001

Sample test notes from actual exploratory testing :
etjsb010416a.ses
etjsb010416b.ses (for Issues)
etjsb010416c.ses (a map for more ideas)
etjsb010417a.ses (Claims Testing)
etjsb010417b.ses (for Bugs)
etjsb010417c.ses (for referenced notes)
etjsb010418c.ses (more Claims)


How much detail is enough?

1) Sufficient benefits
2) No critical problems
3) Benefits outweigh problems
4) All things being equal, further documentation (or time, effort, testing,
editing, etc.) is more harmful than helpful
All 4 conditions must be met to know when you’re done,
(From brother James’ Rapid Software Testing course)

But ask: “good enough for who, what and when?”

Metrics and Mechanics
Gathering empirical data about the object of your study; collecting different
kinds of data, or data about different aspects of the object. Designing
experiments and establishing lab procedures.


What to measure

Bug Investigation
Test Design and Execution

Session Setup


(and Reporting)

Reporting the metrics

• Test, Bug, and Setup are orthogonal categories, but all we’re only
tracking interruptions to testing

• Nearest 5% or 10% is good enough

• If activities are done simultaneously, report the highest
precedence activity: T, B, then S


TBS Report


Sample project

HTML status report


Tools

1)

Scan Tool (James & Jon Bach)

2)

Session Tester (Jonathan Kohl)

3)

Rapid Reporter (Shmuel Gershon)


Diagnosing productivity
T est
28%

• Do these proportions make sense?
• How do they change over time?

Bug
4%

• Is the reporting protocol being
followed?

No n S e s s io n
61%

S e tu p
6%
O p p o rtu n ity
1%

3 0 0 .0
2 5 0 .0
2 0 0 .0
1 5 0 .0
1 0 0 .0
5 0 .0
0eBay Inc. confidential
.0
5 /2 6
6 /9

6 /2 3

7 /7

7 /2 1

8 /4

8 /1 8

Estimating a Test Cycle

1. How many perfect sessions (100% on-charter
testing) does it take to do a cycle? (let’s say
40)
2. How many sessions can the team (of 4 testers)
do per day? (let’s say 3 per day, per tester =
12)
3. How productive are the sessions? (let’s say
66% is on-charter test design and execution)
4. Estimate: 40 / (12 * .66) = 5 days
5. We base the estimate on the data we’ve
collected. When any conditions or assumptions

Testing is like looking for
words…
???

(10 minutes)

Debriefing
Mission A: What happened during the
session?
Mission B: How many words did you find?
Mission C: What obstacles did you face?
Mission D: Do you think you found all the words?
All groups: How did you feel about your
mission?
Agenda: “PROOF”
Past
Results
Obstacles
Outlook
Feelings


3 Key Ideas

Awareness

Guidance

Evaluation

Awareness
•  Where do charters come from?  What are the domains?
•  How to pay attention to the questions you have, second by second
•  Questioning as a way to learn product modeling and test planning
•  Paired testing sessions: teach collaboration and test technique
•  Teamwide debriefing: teaches testers what test managers expect
•  Testers can write charters for each other


Guidance
•  Types of charters – using several types of questions to demonstrate
different paths or contexts through a product
•  Helps explain critical thinking when a charter is vague or has several
approaches
•  Using personas can help frame your strategy
•  Acquainting testers with both an intellectual “workspace” where certain
answers are expected, and a “playspace” where initiative, creativity, and
exploration is encouraged
•  Sessions as a way to orient testers with a piece of software used in class


Evaluation
•  How do you approach the charters?

•  What paths did you take?
•  What energy do you bring to the charter?
•  What kinds of abilities emerged?
•  What resourcefulness is demonstrated (i.e. what kinds of literal resources are
being consulted)?
•  Are your notes and narratives sufficient to convey answer(s)?


More info
• ET Dynamics:
http://www.satisfice.com/articles/etdynamics.pdf
• Test Heuristics and Planning
http://www.satisfice.com
• ContextDriven Software Testing
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softwaretesting
• Center for Software Testing Education and Research
http://www.testingeducation.org/BBST
• Books related to Exploratory Testing skills and tactics
http://www.testingreflections.com/node/view/3190
• Scenario testing examples
http://www.testingeducation.org/a/scenario2.pdf


More info
•

SBTM article – www.quardev.com

•

Scan tool www.quardev.com

•

James Lindsay http://www.workroom
productions.com/papers/STAREast_AiSBT_slides.pdf

•

More about Exploratory Testing – http://www.satisfice.com/articles.shtml


Next steps?

1) Tell the “tactics” story:  Practice using terminology for the skills used
during exploration.  It has helped managers understand the sapience and
discipline of exploration.
2) Try a threeweek SBTM pilot: Frame your explorations in sessions (time
boxed effort with a report) and see how your stakeholders react.
3) Use PROOF to anticipate scrutiny: Testing ourselves is just as important
as testing software.  It has won testers more credibility, autonomy, and
respect.


Exploratory Testing Is Now in Session

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