What Are Test Strategies?
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Mark Winteringham
Tester, Toolsmith, Author and Instructor
Vernon Richards
Quality Coach / Senior Quality Engineer
Talk Description
Mark Winteringham
Tester, Toolsmith, Author and Instructor
Vernon Richards
Quality Coach / Senior Quality Engineer
I’m a Quality Coach & Tester that helps orgs, teams & individuals understand the relationship between quality & testing to help them build better products & deliver more effective services.
I’ve been testing since 2002 starting with video games on PS2, Xbox & PC. It may not sound like a real job but it’s the truth!
By day I’m a Senior Quality Engineer at a health tech night I run Abode of Quality. Here is one of my core values:
“The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude (& how you’re thinking) about the problem.” - Captain Jack Sparrow (the part in brackets was my addition though!)
I believe that quality & testing problems are actually people problems in disguise! Often the cause of these problems is misaligned goals, different perspectives, low empathy for colleagues, and the list goes on.
Using my coaching skills in the quality & testing space, I believe the most effective way to serve the business, is to help teams & individuals gain new perspectives about themselves & their teammates.
00:00:08,145: A test strategy is a means of informing what your testing will look like.
00:00:12,305: A test strategy will detail the approaches that you'll use,
00:00:15,105: the structure of your testing,
00:00:17,010: how you will report on your testing,
00:00:19,170: any sources of oracles or heuristics that help drive your
00:00:21,890: testing, and how you actually plan to execute your testing.
00:00:25,395: A good test strategy evolves as a team and their approach to
00:00:28,355: software delivery evolves.
00:00:29,635: And how might you format a test strategy?
00:00:32,010: Test strategies can be drawn as models such as a mind map or diagram,
00:00:36,250: written up as a single page strategy that provides a
00:00:38,490: dashboard summary,
00:00:39,765: or more commonly be written as a document with different
00:00:42,325: subsections detailing different activities.
00:00:44,565: And what's the value of a test strategy?
00:00:46,645: Sharing test strategies helps make information related
00:00:49,590: testing and its activities visible to stakeholders and all
00:00:52,870: the project members.
00:00:54,390: The activity of creating these artifacts allows us to test our
00:00:57,430: ideas and refine our strategies to improve Are there any
00:01:00,215: pitfalls? Needless documentation is waste.
00:01:03,255: Make sure you only capture what is important and don't drown
00:01:06,135: others in pages and pages of documentation.
00:01:09,210: On the flip side,
00:01:10,250: too little information would make the strategy too vague,
00:01:12,810: and this will lead to assumptions.
00:01:15,050: Things change.
00:01:16,205: Strategies evolve as we learn more and progress through the project,
00:01:19,405: so you should treat these artifacts as a living
00:01:21,245: documentation and not hard rules.
00:01:24,063: And now we know about test strategies.
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