Thinking Outside the Box with Lisa Crispin

Finding bugs requires detective work. You look for evidence, you interrogate witnesses - and some of those might not be telling the truth! You need lateral thinking to find your perpetrator.

As testers, we often hear that the capability to think outside the box is an essential skill to have. In fact, this skill is great to have even if you’re not a tester.

Thinking outside the box permits you to generate new and innovative ideas, to find bugs that nobody could think about, it can also help you find completely new ways to solve problems.

We all have unconscious biases that can limit our observational skills and creativity.

In this session, we’ll discuss lateral vs. vertical thinking, and explain how our brain’s “wiring” can make thinking outside the box be difficult.

Lisa will talk about several common cognitive biases that can work against us and get in the way of effective testing. She may challenge you to try some games that promote lateral thinking, as best we an in a virtual conference! You’ll get some guidance on how to keep building up your lateral thinking “muscles”.