“I don’t have birthdays, I level up.”
If only it worked that way… No, no. In order to “level up” a skill we must spend time sweating it out.

It’s also never a binary ladder.

No. It’s actually very messy. Skill levels depend on the context, both external conditions and internal conditions of the bearer in particular circumstances. In order to develop a skill further, sometimes we need to unlearn it a bit, which manifests as a drop of abilities.

So what’s this about?

At Toronto Testing Meetup we are having conversations about skills and heuristics.

Heuristics are kind of hard to get. It seems that they’re freely available. Via this link, one can download the RST coursebook for free. One can take my depiction of SFDIPOT for free. But “so what” is what usually follows.

– SFDIPOT, “San-Francisco Depot”, stands for Structure-Functions-Data-Interfaces-Platform-Operations-Time.

“- Cool, so what?”

– Let’s try it.

“- Oh… I’m confused.”

Per my observations, people do “get” an idea of a heuristic, but don’t “get” how to “use” these heuristics in testing. They don’t know what to do. But it’s kind of embarrassing to admit. Like in the story of emperor’s new clothes.

So, what about giveaway of heuristics?

Well, I fooled you.

I cannot give away any heuristic. Nor you’d be able to take it.

No human being can ever just “hand out” a heuristic to another human being. Because a heuristic is an alloy of personal knowledge and experiences deliberately ​performing​ an action or a combination of actions. Heuristics are not theories. They are not facts. They are elements of a skill. And testing is a skilled craft.

But if you have read this far you’re probably still interested to acquire a heuristic or two.

I can help. If you’re in the Greater Toronto Area, join our meetup. If you’re further away, find your local meetups, and join the international movement of testing craftsmanship – then participate in our online workshops.

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