Testing management (testing management)

The document discusses challenges with testing software without requirements documentation and provides some strategies to help with testing in such situations. It notes that QA teams may have to test without knowing what the application is supposed to do. It then suggests several paths that testing teams can take when faced with limited or missing documentation, such as UI teams creating screenshots and development teams creating technical design documents. The document also advocates for daily standup meetings between teams to help coordinate testing efforts in lieu of documentation.

The document summarizes key points from the book "Lessons learned in software testing" by Cem Kaner, James Bach, and Bret Pettichord. It discusses the role of testers in finding important bugs fast through prioritizing test areas and managing risk. It also covers working with developers as part of a team, documenting tests, and designing automated tests differently than manual ones. The role of testers is to deliver information on product quality by asking questions and exploring through varied testing approaches.

Trends in Software Testing: There has been a slow realization among the top executives that simply outsourcing testing to the lowest bidder is not resulting in a sufficient level of quality in their software products. In this session, Paul Holland will discuss how American companies are starting to reconsider “factory school” testing and are no longer satisfied with the current situation of simply outsourcing their “checking”. As the development side of software continues its dramatic shift toward Agile development – what role can testers have and how can testers still add value?

The document discusses testing without formal requirements. It notes that testers often complain about a lack of adequate requirements, but still rely on requirements to base their tests. Even without defined requirements, testers can ask questions about the system, anticipate common risks, involve users in acceptance testing, and perform random testing. The document provides suggestions for growing a "system function tree" to understand and describe a system without formal requirements in order to develop a test strategy, approach, and cases. It emphasizes that testing can still be done effectively even without traditional requirements.

Testing is probably the most misunderstood concept in software engineering. Many still believe that testing is simply a verification of actual and expected results in pre-defined set of test scenarios. I wish to know earlier how wrong this statement is. Conversations about testing can be seen wide, ambiguous, and hard to facilitate. But when done properly show prominent results. You start from quality. Addressing questions like. What does quality mean for us? Who owns it? Who is responsible for quality improvements? There is no single answer to every team. Each has to come up with their own definition, which works in their particular situation. Testing is not a measure for quality, but rather a set of activities and preparations to increase a level of confidence before releasing. You cannot simply state that after verifying 1000 test scenarios the whole product behaves as expected. During this presentation I will share key findings which I think are the most important ones to get almost any engineering team on the right track towards improving productivity and released product quality. There is no single rule to rule them all, but experience-based patterns.

Testing is needed to identify defects, provide confidence, and prevent defects. The objectives of testing include finding defects, providing information, and achieving confidence. Exhaustive testing is impossible, so risk-based testing is used instead of testing all combinations of inputs. Testing activities should start early in the software development life cycle and focus on defined objectives. Defect clusters are used to plan risk-based tests and test cases are regularly revised to overcome the pesticide paradox. The fundamental test process includes test planning, analysis and design, implementation and execution, evaluation and reporting, and closure activities. Independence is important for testing to provide an objective perspective.