Presentation by Jose Aracil and Luis Fraile about "The Myths of Exploratory Testing" at Europe's greatest agile event of the year "Agile testing days"

1. Myths of exploratory testing
Luis Fraile // Co-Founder, CTO // VS Anywhere
Jose Aracil // Operations Manager // Globe Testing

2. Luis Fraile
luis.fraile@vsanywhere.com
@lfraile - @vs_anywhere
www.lfraile.net
http://geeks.ms/blogs/lfraile/

3. José Aracil
jose.aracil@globetesting.com
@pep0- @globetesting
www.josearacil.com

4. Exploratory testing?
04/11/2013

6. Inspect and
adapt
TEST
EARLY,
TEST
OFTEN !!!
Add value to
your
customer
Keys to
success
Be creative!
Take
advantage of
your team´s
skillset
Additional
to other
Testing
Quickly find
defects
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04/11/2013

7. Some myths…
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04/11/2013

8. Myth 1: Same as Ad-hoc testing
Ad-hoc testing is a commonly used term for software testing performed without planning and documentation
Must be planned and documented
You must know
What has
been tested
When was
it tested
What
defects
where
logged
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Some ideas
Testing
tours from
James
Whittaker
Sessionbased from
James Bach
Your own
method
04/11/2013

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04/11/2013

10. Myth 2: Can´t be measured
Multiple measurement techniques
• Session-Based Test Management SBTM
• Amount of logged defects
• Defects vs. user story complexity
You must be creative
Warning… Warning!
• Don´t be fooled by metrics
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04-Nov-13

11. Myth 3: Endless
Difficult to focus on long tasks (> 25 min)
Endless == useless
Must focus on specifics
• Requirements
• Problems
• Complex parts
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04/11/2013

12. Myth 3: Endless
Difficult to focus on long tasks (> 25 min)
Endless == useless
Must focus on specifics
• Requirements
• Problems
• Complex parts
Stay focused for burst periods (25 min)
Pomodoro testing  - Berlin QA – 27 Nov.
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04/11/2013

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04/11/2013

14. Confidencial y propietario // Todos los derechos reservados // Globe Testing
04/11/2013

15. Myth 4: Can´t reproduce defects
How do you reproduce a defect?
Be a
Explorer
Like David
Livingstone

16. Myth 4: Can´t reproduce defects
How do you reproduce a defect?
Be a
Explorer
Like David
Livingstone
Empower
developers
Toolset
Record video /
audio
Screen capture
Analog
recording (i.e.
Pen and paper)
…adopt a
developer 

17. Addopt a developer
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04/11/2013

18. Myth 5: Only for Agile teams
Inspect and adapt
Insanity: doing the
same thing over and
over again and
expecting different
results.
Look for new ways of
testing
Empower your team by
allowing creativity…
... Do you trust your
team?
… or not? …

19. Myth 6: Not documented
Tester “Lonely Planet”
• User manual
• Online help (the F1 tour)
• Help from third parties
Alternative Tester
• Goes outside the tour (cancelling processes halfway, using
“undo”, doing things twice…)
• Uses uncommonly used functionality or processes
• Always with an objective in mind
Second visit
• You need pictures / notes (screenshots, videos, defects…)

20. Did we change your mind?

21. When to start
As soon as
possible
Defects can
appear in any
phase
... Pretotyping
http://www.pretotyping.org/thepretotyping-manifesto-1
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04/11/2013

22. What to expect
Defects
Test plan
• … one more time
• Key areas
• Increased knowledge

23. Tools
Very Important Rol
Should help you to
• Manage testing effort
• Manage test executions
• Manage defects
• Metrics to measure progress

24. Experience and experiment
MOST IMPORTANT THING !!!!!

25. Visual Studio 2012 Exploratory Testing

26. Microsoft Test Manager 2012

27. Reviewing what we have done

28. Defect and test case creation
From the tool
With all the session info
Used for:
• Enriched bugs
• New Test Cases

29. References
●
Agile Testing from Lisa Crispin y Janet Gregory
●
Anutthara Baradwaj (Microsoft)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/anutthara
●
James Bach http://www.satisfice.com/blog/
●
James Whittaker (Google Microsoft)
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/
●
●
Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, Tricks, Tours, and Techniques to
Guide Test Design
http://thecodinglove.com/

30. Thanks for your time
Jose Aracil // jose.aracil@globetesting.com // @pep0 // @globetesting
Luis Fraile // luis.fraile@vsanywhere.com // @lfraile // @vs_anywhere
Confidencial y propietario // Todos los derechos reservados // Globe Testing
04/11/2013