10 years since my first MoT workshop. And my 2nd time in this venue as a workshop room. Then - March 2015. Gamification of Software Testing workshop at TestBash ‘s first workshop day. Room of 50...

Eighteen months, 19 modules, and 59 amazing contributors later, the MoT Software Testing Essentials Certification is complete! Looking back, my favourite part has been seeing so many community m...

What's a bug report?Firstly, a bug, commonly called a defect or problem, is anything that is perceived to threaten the value of the software. A bug report, is the information about the bugs that we find that we collate and supply to the product owner, stakeholders, or developers. Some means of documenting and communicating our defects within the application that we're testing or the software.  Can you give some examples of things that you'll find in bug reports?As part of bug reports, we will have, usually, a a summary of what the bug is, a detailed description with some environment information, attachments of screenshots or videos of the bug, and log files possibly too. And you would also have a priority and severity for the bug. What's the value of a bug report?Logging a bug allows us to track the progress of that bug. It also may be some time before the bug is addressed depending on its severity and priority. So logging the bug means that we won't forget about it. And it's a good starting point for developers to be able to fix an issue. What are the pitfalls?Counting bug reports as a means to determine quality can be misleading. Quality is subjective, and one person's bug is another person's feature. And also just focusing on writing a bug report can have adverse effects on having the collaborative and meaningful conversations about the bug by developers and stakeholders as well. And also badly written bug reports can also damage your reputation as a tester.

What is exploratory testing? (ET) Exploratory testing is an approach towards testing. It involves concurrently learning, designing, and executing, and recording tests, at the same time rather than specifying all your tests upfront before execution, and it has the purpose of uncovering information related to risks. Do you have any examples? I could do things like explore different types of data that could be submitted via a web form or explore the rendering of a web page across multiple browsers or explore how a feature works depending on different user privileges. What's the value of utilizing an exploratory testing approach? Exploratory testing empowers, testers to use their skills to discover information freely. ET can be structured to help keep the tester focused on specific risks, and it can help, a tester to reveal more information that a scripted test approach wouldn't uncover as you're not biased by the test case steps. Are there any pitfalls? Exploratory testing is an approach that requires a lot of skill and practice. A good exploratory tester needs to know how to focus and defocus when testing, And note taking is important to help communicate what a tester has done whilst not hampering them, but this is hard to do.

Why is influencing relevant to testing?So influence is the skill to affect something to your ideal. So influence skills are important for a tester as the topic of testing is generally misunderstood within other areas of software development. So you need to be able to influence people in order to be able to teach them about good testing practices.  Do you have any examples? So the rule of reciprocation is a great influence technique where if you do a positive favor for someone then they will be subconsciously obliged to return the favor. You've got rejection and retreat which is an influence technique that's made possible by the contrast principle where if you feel an idea that you want to pitch will be flat out rejected, pitch another idea that seems less appealing so that it gets rejected. And the second idea, the real idea you want to pitch, seems much more appealing.  What's the value?So influence skills can definitely help you overcome difficult situations as a tester. Many people have many misunderstandings of testing such as when you hear things like automate all the testing or testing is just checking requirements. Influencing techniques can help open the door to communicate to those people to teach them about what testing is and what good testing looks like.  Are there any pitfalls?Influence techniques can sometimes be confused with negative manipulation activities. Some people confuse things like bribery and guilt tripping as influence, but they're not. It's important to remember that sometimes influence techniques don't work, and it's also important to remember that you may actually be trying to influence incorrect messages based on your own misconceptions. So be aware of your own biases in the ideas that you're trying to promote.

What is session based test management?Session based test management or SBTM and it's a method for measuring and managing exploratory testing. It's a management tool to help others see how a tester is progressing in their exploratory testing work, and it empowers testers to store test notes and useful metrics for other team members to use without sacrificing the quality of the testing. And how does it work?A tester will create a charter and add an estimate of length to it, small, medium, or large. The tester executes the charter as an exploratory test session, and once complete they'll fill in a report that contains test notes, the actual time spent, and metrics on the percentage of time spent on test design and execution, bug investigation and reporting, and session setup. And then at the end the tester debriefs to another tester to ensure that they're happy with what they've tested and reported.  What's the value of SBTM? The metrics can reveal how a tester is getting on. For example, how much time they're actually testing versus setting up an environment, and charters can be calculated with estimated lengths to give an estimate of time to complete testing.  Any pitfalls? You and your team need to be disciplined when it comes to running debriefs. Missing them could affect the quality of the reports. Also, SBTM is not a widely accepted or known approach, so it requires some effort towards selling it to to stakeholders or managers.