It feels like it's been a while since I last wrote a blog post - almost a full month, but that's because I've been preparing for my first time ever talking at a conference, which I've signed myself up to do next month... It'll be at the Next Generation Testing Conference on the 23rd of May [...]
Lessons Learned from TestBash2.0
I was lucky enough to be able to attend the TestBash2.0 Testing Conference on Friday, which was fantastic. I would say that this year's TestBash event topped last year's event. It was bigger, packed full of influential people, and was such a friendly fun environment that was full of people sharing knowledge and stories. There [...]
“The Shoe Test” – does this test really add value??
I recently read an e-book from Elisabeth Hendrickson, entitled "Exploratory Testing in an Agile Context" (definitely worth a read if you havent already). In this e-book, Elisabeth uses an example of a test that James Bach performed called "the shoe test". For those of you who have never heard [...]
Learn from the “Inattentional Blindness” in your testing!
I've been researching a lot about "Inattentional Blindness" lately, and have been relating it to the world of software testing... Inattentional Blindness is a phenomenon where, if you are focussing intensely on something that is mentally demanding, you fail to notice other things happen around the thing that you are focussing on. There is a [...]
The wonders of learning through exploration
So the first week in the new job has come to its end successfully! I've had a great start! Everyone has been very friendly and helpful, and I've had a couple of tours around the company, which has helped me to better understand the business processes. It's brought the challenges that any new job brings... The [...]
Adios Amigos… New employer, here I come!!
So, this is my final week working at Fivium... Friday is my last day. I've been reminiscing about all the things that I've learned from working at Fivium over the past 2 years, and have also been wondering about the impact that I've made within the organisation. Fivium never had a tester before I joined them, [...]
What’s the first task a tester should do?
At the London Tester Gathering event last week, I overheard someone ask the question: "What's the first task that a tester should do on a project?". There were various contrasting responses, such as: "write test case documentation", "play with the product", and "give an estimate for the testing effort". Although many projects are run differently (which is probably [...]
“How did you miss that bug?”
I've recently been involved in a discussion regarding the blame culture that lives within the software development industry. You hear the stories everywhere, where a bug is found on a live environment and people (usually management) automatically start finger-pointing at individuals to blame them for the bug, either for missing it during testing, or for missing it in the [...]
How much “Technical” knowledge is “enough” for testers?
I know that this question will more than likely cause more of this ever ongoing debate and that the question itself is full of holes (stemming answers such as: "enough to who", or "it depends"), but this is a thought that I wanted to get out there... One of my previous blogs was about the [...]
“Test Data Generator” tool is now available!
With the help of an awesome developer friend, we've created a new testing tool!! The tool is a "Test Data Generator". It allows for the quick creation of sample test data to paste into an input field. You can download the tool from my LinkedIn Box account here: Dan's LinkedIn Box Any feedback about the tool, [...]
