Going back to a mandate levels model I used in building up teams with two different mandate levels at previous place of work.
#ExploratoryTesting has always been an idea about increasing agency in testing by keeping things together that should stay together (design - execution), and #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting was adding automation and deciding.
A lot of our salary models are based on ideas of having beginners in low mandate roles.
@maaikees I look at plenty of people who do work as test automation experts, and they get the chance of doing testing. In fact, I observe that some of them get all things testing done while creating automation.
In creating a world where automation would no longer mean giving up something on testing, I have been discussing #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting to differentiate from what I see too much: automators who don't know how to test; testers who don't know how to automate.
A test colleague with a few years of experience turns out to be "most wanted" this week. Three projects have offered her a job, asking if she could start next week even. The interesting phenomena is that while she is most wanted, others without her personality characteristics may not be.
We talk about demand for skilled people, but we don't do so great growing folks like her I frame with #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting.
Ei mulla mutta muualla, paikassa jota voi sivusta kuunnelleena lämpimästi suositella. Haussa aloitteleva #testaaja #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting -tyyliin. https://urasivut.huutokaupat.com/jobs/5460957-ohjelmistotestaaja-huutokaupat-com
One of my colleagues read my #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting book, currently holding my Foundations of Exploratory Testing (in contemporary frame). She liked it, and was the first person to energetically come to me explaining what she learned, and what insights it gave her on how she tests.
I appreciate the world for her.
Post-ranting, had a lovely collaborative conversation with @joeposaurus and notes on #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting and understanding what may lead to the differences we are experiencing. If random notes are your thing to look at, we'll later turn our notes mural to something useful. https://app.mural.co/t/maaretp9875/m/maaretp9875/1712320495550/51265bff427e7a786717104d1eefd11970706c03?sender=ucddf1bed5813fc32aa588827
You know that split to builders and testers? You can’t hold on to that because your job is to leave behind a system of programmatic tests and finding identity as not a builder leads you astray these days. #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting
Two years of documentation as output. The practice I have been experimenting with is to add story, acceptance criteria and the NOT list while working from a one liner, and make sure it’s done when work completes. This matches #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting idea of treating documentation as output of testing after learning, not input from a team we knew the least. I find myself with routine and discipline this requires and struggle getting others to care for their future colleagues and self.
Had this conversation of "testing does not improve quality" and how the two of us disagreed on it with a colleague. First of all, neither of us would test just to produce information that no one acts on. The information and doing something with it are paired. Second, just existing in a team, holding space for quality makes people address things you would tell them about.
Yet another of those things where our thinking is that #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting is different.
Some days I find it hard to explain how versatile my day is. From getting employees phones and approving user rights, to strategizing high availability deployment design choices, to testing latest changes and documenting scopes, to fixing bugs.
Third consecutive day of testing. Damn it felt good to hear the testing I shared was exactly what the team had been hoping the testers would step up to. There’s quite a difference in #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting and what most testers are taught to do.
Oh well true. Antonym for contemporary or modern is outdated. #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting
In its 36+ years of existence, we have learned that people think about it differently. I still to this day struggle explaining the the brand I am teaching is founded on extensive use of automation, but not just regression automation - there is so much more to programmatic testing. So I called my learning brand #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting
Asked my teams’ testers to share their prepared plans for performance, reliability and recovery testing. While I’ve been nudging building the capabilities last year to finish them this year, seeing the four who are now testers eloquently build things forward was a proud moment. #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting most definitely, threading something that really is off-sync in terms of building up a capability.
Yritin lennosta kääntää #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting suomeksi ja eipäs oo muuten helppoa.
Contemporary art olis nykytaide.
Nyky tutkiva testaus ei toimi.
Nykyaikainen ei ole sama asia.
Osaako joku suomea? :D
Seeing this org that loved test cases announcing that manual testing is geared towards exploratory testing is just happy news. I hope they'd stop adding the word manual, and start to frame attended and unattended forms of testing within #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting but I take my wins where I find them.
This year I was thinking of reading / classifying the test cases I inherited and writing a research paper on usefulness. 11 days to read with 1 minute each.
In-sync / off-sync testing is split I introduced in 2003 to teach myself and my colleagues that some testing you do as response to change becoming ready, while other types require you to plan ahead. It helped me then, and it helped me today.
Similarly, I have used attended / unattended testing to discuss automation in context of #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting.
In recording of the Test Case Scenario podcast, Marcus Merrell reminded me of this keynote I did in 2018 on showing exploratory testing with a demo of writing code without centering the code or automation. This was early stages of really digging into #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting. Still relevant even though I stopped repeating this talk and wrote some hundred of more framings since. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es4SfYog5VA
I work with a tester who has before only written system test automation code in Python, based on tasks including detailed scenarios. I moved her to a project with TypeScript (new language), solid developer testing (new mode of operating automation) and refused to give her a task but said to explore a little and then contribute.
It's like I have now the tester I always wanted. Great work, and great example of #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting.
Test management in this continuous style is the work we do ensuring that the sum of all things testing leads to the results it should. It seems like a product owner not knowing testing can water it down. It seems like a functional test case or ad hoc tester can water it down. So I call for #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting and a map of things different people can do.
A tale of three testers but entirely different frames of reference. #ContemporaryExploratoryTesting and we knew coverage, found bugs and hit schedules. #DomainSpecialistTesting and we covered only requirements, insufficient testing, fuzzy communication on status. #ProgrammerTesting got road blocked to fixing, leaving coverage low and missing bugs.
