My talk at #TestConVilnius 19.10.2017 about what is exploratory testing (ET), how can you make it work and what is there in the future of exploratory testing: test management tool support, testing with tools, AI support, ET as standard way of testing in especially agile and DevOps projects

1. TestCon Vilnius October 19, 2017
Kari Kakkonen, Knowit Oy, FiSTB, ISTQB
@kkakkonen
Exploratory testing –
basics, experiences and future?
Knowit 1

2. Kari Kakkonen
ROLES
• Knowit Oy, Director/Quality and Competences, Lead Consultant, Trainer and Coach
• Treasurer of ISTQB Executive Committee
• Chairman of Finnish Software Testing Board (FiSTB)
• Auditor of Robot Framework Foundation.
ACHIEVEMENTS
• Influencing testing since 1996
• Ranked in 100 most influential IT persons in Finland (Tietoviikko magazine)
• Great number of presentations in Finnish and international conferences
• TestausOSY/FAST founding member.
• Co-author of Agile Testing Foundations book
• Regular blogger in Tivi-magazine
EDUCATION
• ISTQB Expert Level Test Management Full & Advanced Full & Agile Tester certified
• DASA DevOps Fundamentals, Scrum Master and SAFe certified
• SPICE provisionary assessor certified
• M.Sc.(Eng), Helsinki University of Technology (present Aalto University), Otaniemi, Espoo
• Marketing studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, the USA.
BUSINESS DOMAINS
• Wide spread of business domain knowledge
• Embedded, Industry, Public,
• Training, Telecom, Commerce,
• Insurance, Banking, Pension
SERVICES
• ISTQB Advanced, Foundation and Agile Testing +
Knowit Quality Professional
• DASA DevOps Fundamentals
• Quality & Test process and organization
development, Metrics
• Agile testing, Scrum, Kanban, Lean
• Leadership
• Test automation, Mobile, Cloud, DevOps
• Quality, Cost, Benefits.
Twitter: @kkakkonen
LinkedIn: fi.linkedin.com/in/karikakkonen/
Knowit 2

4. What is it?
Knowit 4

5. Characterization of exploratory testing
• ”Planning and execution of testing is done at the same time”
(After James Bach)
• Test cases are not necessarily documented even afterwards (Cem Kaner)
• Testing is done iteratively piece by piece
• Continuous learning and interpretation of conceptions
• Utilization of knowledge gained from experience
5© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

6. Exploratory testing - terms
• Adventure may go to sidetrack as long as you
come back to mainroad again (Kaner)
• Testing area: a bunch of functionalities
• Testing session
• Duration about ½ - 2 hours
• Time span of concentrated work is about 20
minutes
• Getting back to work takes about 20 minutes
6© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

7. An example: www.Topsellers.Com,
a fictional e-commerce shop
• Test case: ”Log in. Browse the content of your shopping cart. Result: Shopping cart is empty, because no
items have been picked.”
• During testing it is noticed that the shopping cart contains items! Items have been picked with the same
user account and the e-commerce shop keeps the earlier picked things in shopping cart.
• Aftertaste: ”The test should have considered this. Let’s change the test data and the test itself, and
design a new test case, which takes into account that the shopping cart can store items.”
• A familiar situation?
7© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

8. Learning in exploratory testing
8© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Testing
Opinion-forming
Reporting
Designing actions
Observations
After reference: Psychology of Usability, Sinkkonen et al.

9. Learning from the system and customers
• What has changed or changes frequently?
• What do the customers want?
• What has been defined in an ambiguous way?
• Where do faults cluster?
• Weaknesses in the platform or programming language
• System dependencies
9© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Reference: Lessons learned in software testing. Kaner, Bach, Pettichord

10. Learn from other testers, designers, from yourself
• What kind of errors do certain programmers make and how to report to and communicate with them
• What typical errors can there be in the system
• What functionalities have been built in a hurry
• What have you misunderstood and what is typically misunderstood
• How can the system be tested (especially in pair testing!)
10© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

11. Why exploratory testing?
Knowledge-based perspective
• Exploit the natural diversity of people in testing *)
• ”Do not plan for store”
• Systematic variation of testing
• Quick feedback to the designers intensifies learning process *)
• Spread the knowledge of a tester of a special area
11© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen,
Rautiainen

12. Why exploratory testing?
Testers’ approach
• Want to add more test cases and increase the coverage of the tests *)
• For defining the degree of automation of tests
• Quick overview of the quality *)
• Testing the side effects of changes – scripted testing can end up testing only the documented features *)
• The problem in regression testing is the selection of test cases, which requires user experience and
understanding of the system
• When the test documentation can not be written in advance *)
12© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen,
Rautiainen

13. Why exploratory testing?
Management approach
• Low management costs of test documentation
• Finding out the features of a poorly-documented component
• Optimizing the productivity of testing?
• When the available workload is limited *)
• When you want to train the customer support at the same time
13© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
*) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen,
Rautiainen

14. Where exploratory testing fits
14
Different styles of testing
Adhoc testing
Exploratory Testing
And Session-Based
Test Management
High level test cases
design and
execution
Detailed test cases
design and execution
ET + SBTM
High level TC
Detailed TC
Automation
Automated testing
and ATDD
Exploratory
Testing
ET
Systematicnessoftesting
Adhoc
ET Scripted testing

15. Exploratory testing as part of test strategy
15© Knowit Oy Confidental 2012
Pure (100%)
scripted testing
Scripted testing
Exploratory testing
Pure (100%)
exploratory testing
Where do you put the
focus of your own
testing?Maybe here?

16. How is it done?
Knowit 16

17. Step by step
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Plan
• Test charter
Test
session
• Notes / Log
• Bugs
Debriefing
• Dashboard

18. Exploratory testing in Prague – find a park
• Test charter
• ”look for green”
1819.10.2017 © Copyright Knowit Oy 2013 | Confidential | Version 1.0

19. Exploratory testing in Prague – find a park
• Test execution log
• Dashboard
1919.10.2017 © Copyright Knowit Oy 2013 | Confidential | Version 1.0

20. Exploratory testing in Prague – find a park
• Defect report
2019.10.2017 © Copyright Knowit Oy 2013 | Confidential | Version 1.0

21. Test design in a test charter
• Define the testing areas of the test object
• Divide each area to one or more test sessions
• Test charter works as a roadmap per test session
• Define test cases to be documented
• heuristic: less than 10% of all tests
• Write down test ideas and/or high level test cases
21© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

22. Purpose of test charter(s)
• What will be tested?
• What documents are available?
• What kind of errors are being sought?
• Tasks and what test techniques will be used?
• Targets and outputs (for example reports)
22© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Reference: A practioner’s guide to software test design. Copeland
Ref. Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen, Rautiainen

23. Charter classic example
Area Coverage
and
working
hours
Practice Documents Result possible
errors
Risks
R1. Customer’s
all selected
items are not
added to order,
Effect: 20
eur/buyer,
probability 5%
R2. Order can
not be
completed after
interruption, 5,
probability: ??
Main page 100%
Path coverage
(direct paths) and
the most common
(80% used) loops
10h
Scripting
with
Functional
Tester-tool
Main page display
description
document, navigation
map (COMING
FROM
DEVELOPMENT)
All pages and
the shopping
cart are
available
Shopping
cart
5h Shopping cart-
UC.doc (use case)
Shopping cart
can be used in
the same way
as a real
shopping cart
The same
product can
not be added
to shopping
cart several
times
Emptying the
shopping cart
causes an
execption
R1
Order ? Order-UC.doc? R2
23© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

24. Exploratory Testing – Test Charter another view
24© Copyright Knowit Oy 2017 | Confidential
• Actor: intended user of the system
• Purpose: the theme of the charter including what particular objective the
actor wants to achieve, i.e., the test conditions
• Setup: what needs to be in place in order to start the test execution
• Priority: relative importance of this charter, based on the priority of the
associated user story or the risk level
• Reference: specifications (e.g., user story), risks, or other information
sources
• Data: whatever data is needed to carry out the charter
• Activities: a list of ideas of what the actor may want to do with the system
and what would be interesting to test (both positive and negative tests)
• Oracle notes: how to evaluate the product to determine correct results
• Variations: alternative actions and evaluations to complement the ideas
described under activities
Reference: ISTQB Agile Tester syllabus

25. Charter as an excel
25© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

26. Documents supporting testing
• Charter
• List of different testing strategies
• Lists of heuristics
• List of typical errors
• Kaner’s bug taxonomies*)
• Legal notices, standards, de facto-standards
• Requirements and design documentation of the system
• Self made description and models of the system behavior
• User guide *)
26© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
*) Reference: Testing Computer Software. Kaner et al.
**) Reference: Exploratory testing: A multiple case study. Itkonen, Rautiainen

27. Kaner’s bug taxonomies:
• User interface errors
• Error handling
• Boundary-related errors
• Calculation errors
• Initial and later states
• Control Flow errors
• Errors in handling or interpreting data
• Race conditions
• Load Conditions
• Hardware
• Source and version control
• Documentation
• Testing errors
27© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Reference: Testing computer software, p. 60 – 64

28. Exploratory Testing - Heuristics
• A set of heuristics can be applied when testing.
• A heuristic can guide the tester in how to perform the testing and to evaluate the results, few examples
below
28© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Heuristics Examples
Boundaries: Approaching the Boundary e.g. almost too big, almost too
small, at the Boundary
CRUD Create, Read, Update, Delete
Configuration variations Varying the variables related to configuration e.g. Screen
Resolution; Network Speed, Latency, Signal Strength; etc.
Interruptions e.g., log off, shut down, or reboot
Source: Elisabeth Hendrickson www.testobsessed.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/testheuristicscheatsheetv1.pdf

29. Performance attitude - professional working
• Keep the targets of testing in mind
• You can visit bypaths but only for a moment
• Write down observations and questions about the system
• Report in a disciplined and systematical way
• During the execution, write only the most essential test cases and in high level
• Test cases can be refined later
29© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

30. Tests are designed during execution
• Define a test from a question
• Design test on the basis of charter and test
ideas
• A surprising situation may indicate an error:
Utilize the surprise effect!
• Heuristics e.g.
• ”Backwards thinking”: ”This button saves
the definition text. I wonder what other ways
are there for saving the text?”
30© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

31. Note taking: test execution logs
• Keep a test execution log
• Keep track of the tests carried out
• Main thing is that executed tests are noted
• You may create scripted test cases of some of the tests
• Keep the most important test cases that have been executed, which show how the testing has been
done, e.g. what values have been used
• You may record your execution
• Write down also test notes for test session post-mortem and your own learning
31© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

32. Test charter and test log in mindmap (Xmind)
32© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

33. Note taking: defect logs
• In defect reporting, traceability to the requirements must be maintained so that coverage can be
evaluated
• A well written error log is the best evidence of the existence of a fault
• Report a bug clearly, so that the failure can be repeated
• You may use defect reporting systems
33© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

34. Testing dashboard as a test report - an example
34© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Test area Workload Coverage Quality
level/risks
Comment
Main page !Interrupted High,
5h
Very high [all
parts + stress
tests etc..]
49: 1435, 36:
1469,
42: 1501
wait for more
pictures of
user interface
Shopping
cart
!Started
High, 2h (reserved
4h)
Low [main parts
to testing] (High)
81: 1425
[probability 9 x
effect 9; error
number. 1425]
Order !Done
6h (reserved 4h)
High [all parts]
Feedback !Not done
Low (reserved 1h)
Low [main parts
to testing]

35. Measuring exploratory testing
• The duration of the session
• The relative change in the number of test cases by the same tester
• Coverage of testing per session
• The number of interruptions (Suspension criteria)
• Number of rejected defects in defect database
• …
• Metrics are the eyeglasses of testing that you need in order to be fully aware of the situation and
potential problems in testing
•  It is recommended that you choose metrics that are suitable for the challenges of exploratory
testing
35© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

36. Some Tools
• Notetaking:
• Screenshots With Annotation
• Video with Annotation
• Intergrated bug reporting
• Test Management tool suite add-ons
• Micro Focus / HPE Sprinter
• QA Symphony qTest eXplorer
• Telerik Test Studio Explore
• qMetry Voyager
• Steps Recorder
• Recording Browser extensions
• Bug Magnet
• Notepad++ (pad tools in general)
• Xmind, Mindmup (mindmap tools in general)
• Rapid Reporter
36© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
• Test charter planning
• Charters
• Priorization
• Test Management tool suites
• Trello
• Jira Agile
• Micro Focus / HPE Agile Manager
• Pivotal Tracker
• Excel

37. Who can do it?
Knowit 37

38. Who to recruit? The profile of an exploratory tester
• Exploratory testing is particularly well suitable for a person, who…
• likes to take risks
• is not afraid of changes or new things
• is open-minded
• sets challenges and goals to themselves
• is smart and quick in finding test conditions
• ”Pioneer-style”
• Everyone can learn to be an exploratory tester
38© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Reference: Choosing and Managing the Ideal Test Team. Lloyd Roden

39. Exploratory testing requires learning skills
• Outline the functionality of the system on paper
• Aim at understanding
• Don’t force yourself to remember facts, use documents
• Ask questions about the functionality of the system
• Recognize the items on which you need more information
39© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Reference: Tutkiva oppiminen. Hakkarainen et al.

40. Improve your testing thinking skills
• Observe your own testing habits
• Recognize your own ways of thinking
• Learn from misunderstandings and mistakes
• Select the testing techniques according to the situation *)
• Improve your skills to deduce the states of the system *)
43© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential
Adapted from the reference: Tutkiva oppiminen. Hakkarainen et al.,
*) Reference: Rapid Software Testing. James Bach

41. What in future?
Knowit 44

42. Exploratory future
• Exploratory testing will become the norm in agile testing
• And agile will be the norm for all development
• Testing tools suites will include exploratory testing charters and logging
• Coverage will be proven with both last quantities of well-logged exploratory testing and some formally
designed test cases
• With test automation to make sure the basics work, testers will be free to find important defects with
exploratory testing
• People will start exploring also with test automation
• Keyword driven and data-driven approaches
• AI will help with some of exploratory Testing
© Copyright Knowit Oy 2015 | Confidential

43. Questions?
kari.kakkonen@knowit.fi
@kkakkonen

44. 10/19/2017 Knowit 47
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opportunities