A Better Way – Case Study 1 – Thinking Outside the Box
In our last several blogs we have discussed ‘A Better Way to Test”.
The issue is to apply this to actual situations. We have 5 Case Studies we plan to use over the next several weeks to address this. The first one revolves around a junior QA, a very successful (small) company and a need to test effectively and quickly for a large final client. The issue that came up was the ability to “Think outside the box”.
We received a call from the President of the company indicating that the new junior QA was having trouble considering things “Outside the box”. They were good with what was presented in the Use Cases or User Stories. Most people can generate testcases based on what is provided and the happy path from the Use Cases and User Stories. Experienced testers will apply other techniques and may specifically try Exploratory testing. However, you cannot explore or test what you don’t know or don’t think of at the time.
Rather than dictating “Outside the box” which is a contradiction in itself, we decided to go with more of a checklist approach listing some of the areas that would be considered to be non-Happy Path and see if it could lead to further extensions. We did not dictate everything but started with more of a charter and guidance list to see what would come of it. The process had two advantages:
- We would have some coverage of everything “inside” and “outside” the box.
- We could use the results to evaluate the suitability of the junior QA for further roles and projects.
The President came up with the basic list and ran it from there.
If you want to discuss this further contact us.
Take a look at some of the seminars that we offer that address this situation and see if they apply to you. Testing can be better.
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