Test This Blog - Eric Jacobson's Software Testing Blog

I noticed one of our development teams was creating new Jira Issues for each bug found during the development cycle.  IMO, this is an antipattern.  These are the problems it can create, that ...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/06/good-reasons-not-to-log-bugs.html

On a production support kanban development team, a process dilema came up.  In the case where something needs to be tested by a tester: Should the tester perform the testing first in a developme...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/06/shorten-feedback-loop-unless.html

A tester asked me an interesting question this morning: “How can I find old test documentation for a completed feature so I can re-use those tests on a similar new feature?” The answer is...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/03/start-from-scratch-vs-old-test.html

While reading Paul Bloom’s The Baby In The Well article in The New Yorker, I noted the Willie Horton effect’s parallel to software testing: > In 1987, Willie Horton, a convicted mur...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/03/the-willie-horton-effect-in-software.html

If you find an escape (i.e., a bug for something marked “Done”), you may want to develop an automated check for it.  In a meeting today, there was a discussion about when the automated check...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/03/couple-automated-checks-with-product.html

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?  If you have automated checks and nobody knows it, does it make an impact? To me, the value of any given suite of autom...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/03/get-your-automated-checks-in-their-face.html

FeatureA will be ready to test soon.  You may want to think about how you will test FeatureA.  Let’s call this activity “Test Planning”.  In Test Planning, you are not actually interacti...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/02/test-planning-is-throwaway-testing-is.html

My data warehouse team is adopting automated checking.  Along the way, we are discovering some doubters.  Doubters are a good problem.  They challenge us to make sure automation is appropriate...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/02/is-automated-checking-valuable-for-data.html

I read A Context-Driven Approach to Automation in Testing at the gym this morning.  I expected the authors to hate on automation but they didn’t.  Bravo. They contrasted the (popular) perc...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/02/automated-checking-is-very-human.html

Despite the fact that most Automation Engineers are writing superficial automation, the industry still worships automation skills, and for good reasons.  This is intimidating for testers who don...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/02/ways-to-boost-value-of-testers-who-dont.html

I had a second scenario this week that gave me pause before resulting in the above practice. ProductA is developed and maintained by ScrumTeamA, who writes automated checks for all User Stories...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/02/couple-tests-with-product-they-test_5.html

…It seems obvious until you deal with integration tests and products with no automation.  I got tripped up by this example: ProductA calls ProductB’s service, ServiceB.  Both products are...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/02/couple-tests-with-product-they-test.html

While helping some testers, new to automation, I found myself in the unexpected position of trying to sell them on the idea that all test methods should be mutually exclusive.  Meaning, no autom...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2016/01/automated-checks-should-be-mutually.html

I’m a written-test-case hater.  That is to say, in general, I think writing detailed test cases is not a good use of tester time.  A better use is interacting with the product-under-test. B...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/11/the-value-of-merely-imagining-test-part_12.html

An import bug escaped into production this week.  The root cause analysis took us to the usual place; “If we had more test time, we would have caught it.” I’ve been down this road so man...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/11/the-value-of-merely-imagining-test-part.html

We never have enough of them.  They never mirror production.  They never work. My opinions at my current company: Who should OWN test environments?  Testers. Who should BUILD test environmen...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/09/test-environment-responsibilities.html

I’m a Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson fanboy.  In this video , he pokes fun of a common view of scientists.  A view that when scientists think they’ve figure something out, they stop investigating ...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/08/ci-test-automation-part-1-feature.html

Acceptance Criteria.  When User Stories have Acceptance Criteria (or Acceptance Tests), they can help us plan our exploratory and automated testing.  But they can only go so far. Four distinc...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/08/acceptance-criteria-abuse.html

Notepad. After experimenting with a Test Case Management application’s Session-Test tool, a colleague of mine noted the tool’s overhead (i.e., the non-test-related waiting and admin effort ...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/05/the-best-software-testing-tool-thats.html

Whilst searching for ways to measure the value of test automation, I read Doug Hoffman’s (I’m sure classic) Cost Benefits Analysis of Test Automation paper. The first several pages were gr...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/04/dont-bother-calculating-roi-for-test.html

Look at your calendar (or that of another tester).  How many meetings exist? My new company is crazy about meetings.  Perhaps it’s the vast numbers of project managers, product owners, and ...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/04/if-you-interrupt-testing-it-will-cost.html

Last week I started testing an update to a complex legacy process.  At first, my head was spinning (it still kind of is).    There are so many inputs and test scenarios...so much I don’t un...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/04/how-to-start-challenging-test.html

Now that my engineering team is automating beyond the unit test level, this question comes up daily.  I wish there were an easy answer. If we make a distinction between checking and testing , ...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/04/which-tests-should-be-automated.html

Most of the testers at my new company do not have programming skills (or at least are not putting them to use).  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  But in our case, many of the products-unde...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/03/getting-manual-testers-involved-in.html

Egads!  It’s been several months since my last post.  Where have I been?  I’ve transitioned to a new company and an exciting new role as Principal Test Architect.  After spending months...

http://www.testthisblog.com/2015/03/hello-again-im-back.html