Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 02, 2014
With years of my career evolution as a testing and automation professional, I’ve developed my own practical view about requirements, their role, and how to deal with them in a context-driven, heuristic way. I’m completely satisfied with the requirements provided by Business. I never require them to be 100% clear and precise, and never complain […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jun 10, 2014
Let my story be a warning. About 4 years ago, being a successful test automation engineer, I felt strong enough to challenge James Bach and Michael Bolton, who were loudly advocating for exploratory testing approach and, specifically, a methodology for a structured exploratory testing – Rapid Software Testing. So I challenged them… Oh, It didn’t […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Dec 10, 2013
One “QA” reads a document how the application is going to be. To say better, it’s a writing of someone’s beliefs how certain, those explicitly described, aspects of an application should be according to that someone, at some point of time. Then the “QA” creates another writing how the application is going to be, is […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Sep 23, 2013
Agile Testing? Waterfall Testing? Here’s another cool name I invented. In case good old Exploratory Testing doesn’t sound cool to you :) PS. I guess, the picture speaks for itself. This is a slide from my presentation for a local testing group. The point was to illustrate systematic testing approach. ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Sep 13, 2013
“These requirements are not testable”, “These requirements are subjective”, and even “These requirements are not feasible” – all that I heard recently. You see, in Ontario, Canada, Accessibility compliance requirements is a big thing now, and not only for software. Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), sets the bar aligned with Web Content Accessibility […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 19, 2013
As I presented in my last post, a lot of test coverage is either data-specific or triggered by data combinations. This is an easy kind of tests to automate assuming well-known and explicit inputs and outputs. Below I enlist most common patterns and test ideas. General Patterns All major business requirements (the ones that are […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jun 24, 2013
In my test lead role, on each project I need to assess existing test coverage, or implement test coverage, or both. What I found helpful is a systematic approach: model, categorize and classify, analyze. My initial model is largely based on Rapid Testing Heuristics. Then, based on the product/project context, traceability matrix unfolds to something […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on May 24, 2013
Some good open interview questions for QA/Testers. What value did you bring to the project / organization as a tester? What is your vision for the role of testing? Do you know / follow any school of testing? What is the recent book / article about testing you read, and can you give a review […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on May 08, 2013
(If they haven’t learnt that from doing testing) This is another my notebook entry, but entry unusual. I started it while playing chess. This is also one of the proud parent moments: my 9 years old son brought this initiative of evening chess parties – all by himself! As much as we, parents, try to […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Apr 19, 2013
I often come back to re-read certain articles and books on testing. Typically, in the light of new experience, or with regards to specific problem. This month’s top – Perfect Software and Other Illusions About Testing. Chapters 5 and 8. *** Even though testers pretty much can/should be “jack of all trades” kinds of specialists, […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Apr 12, 2013
“Personas” were not invented by testing people, but quickly picked up, especially with regards to usability testing aspects. Over the years, I’ve read quite a few articles advocating for use of Personas, mainly in exploratory and agile testing. Yet somehow I haven’t seen a single practical, “hard-coded” example. Since usability is one of the aspects we’re testing, […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Apr 05, 2013
I’m leading a SWAT team. S.W.A.T. here stands for “Systematic Wondering, Automation, Testing”. We’re doing all kinds of cool stuff in testing. Might say, transforming “some” testing to awesome testing. I am very excited about it. While doing a lot of thinking, and having a lot of ideas I could write about, and having experiences […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 06, 2012
Some time ago I had a hard time discussing performance problem with application developer. My challenge was to overcome a “block” set by the developer: “this is a one-page code, it’s a very simple logic, and I see no reasons to spend time evaluating its performance”. I didn’t have more than 5-7 minutes for the […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Dec 29, 2011
I have made two major investments into my professional development this year. One of them, taken in April, is the course of Rapid Software Testing. I wrote about my experience and takeaways, as well as proudly gave a personal endorsement. Another course, similar and different at the same time, is Black Box Software Testing (Foundations […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Dec 23, 2011
Publication URL: http://www.thetestingplanet.com/2011/11/november-2011-issue-6/ Download PDF: The Testing Planet November Issue And you can view the large mind map here (click to open in a separate window). Update: 2017. Since the original website (thetestingplanet.com) is no longer available, providing the full text here. ****** Mapping Testing Story I am a follower and a strong proponent of exploratory, context- […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Nov 14, 2011
Note. The reason of this posting is two-fold: While considering taking the Rapid Software Testing course I found surprisingly little of feedback information on testers’ blogs, and none of that addressed the questions I actually had. So I’m fixing this issue retrospectively. There are too many aggressive pseudo-education “courses” or scamming certification schemas advertised on […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 02, 2011
Although it seems like just happened yesterday, it’s been well over a quarter since I took the course of Rapid Software Testing by Michael Bolton (the course is authored by James Bach and Michael Bolton). This is a major milestone in my learning of exploratory, heuristic-based testing approach. To be fair, I was somewhat skeptical […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jul 05, 2011
I created this mindmap quite a while ago, as a follow-up to Data Container Boundaries and Complex Data Boundaries blog posts. Due to poor visualization capabilities of Freemind, I used previously, (before going with XMind), I decided to draw the mindmap manually, in MS Paint. That took me loooong time but I liked the result. Although, now I would write the […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Jun 08, 2011
A couple of things I have to say about this poster – a failure delivering the message and a fallacy of the concept. Delivering a message Pictures talk louder than words. Despite of an effort to show people jumping high in excitement we can actually see people brought down on their knees, surrendering some papers. […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Apr 19, 2011
While getting ready for the Rapid Software Testing course I dedicated some time for the “homework” – studying of publicly available exploratory testing documents. And here’s my ideas on Functionality Testing. References Heuristic Test Strategy Model – Satisfice, Inc. – Designed by James Bach Michael Bolton, DevelopSense: Testers Know That Things Can Be Different ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Apr 18, 2011
While getting ready for the Rapid Software Testing course I dedicated some time for the “homework” – studying of publicly available exploratory testing documents. And here’s my ideas on Claims Testing. References Heuristic Test Strategy Model – Satisfice, Inc. – Designed by James Bach Michael Bolton, DevelopSense: Testers Know That Things Can Be Different ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Dec 09, 2010
Quality is value to some person. Gerald Weinberg The story began when I received a new chequebook. Every bank, especially any of top 5 banks [in Canada], has a lot of claims about how much quality matters to them, and how much they care about their customers. Since I was not satisfied by a quality […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Dec 01, 2010
What, you didn't know that printer does not support mark-up characters? ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Nov 04, 2010
With this post I continue my examples on Bounded Awareness in software testing. But, again, first I ask you to read the following article: “Multi-tasking makes you stupid”. If you didn’t, here’s the summary. A growing body of scientific research shows one of the jugglers’ favorite time-saving techniques, multitasking, can actually make you less efficient […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Nov 02, 2010
Last week I asked QuickTestingTips readers to share examples of Bounded Awareness they observed in their work, and here I’m with my stories. Let’s start with this video. You see two teams of people playing basketball. While you watch the video, count number of passes made by the each team. ..Now, after you’re done, list what […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Oct 15, 2010
I’m very glad that the testing challenge I set went to a second round. I prompt my readers now to read through the post in Darren McMillan’s blog. Please pay special attention to Results and Debriefing sections. I think those are great examples of facilitation to learn from. I also would like to share what I […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Oct 13, 2010
How to find bugs quickly? How to pick just right test scenarios without losing your time trying thousands of possible combinations? These questions worth years of research. In my post I’m going to cover just one simple approach I practice quite successfully, and give a few examples you might be able to reproduce. Let’s start from […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Sep 20, 2010
If I would have to choose to keep only one of my answers on StackOverflow, I’d choose this one. Probably, not necessary explanation On a technical side, what is the greatest test automation challenge? It’s not programming, and not even learning about tool’s object model or application’s API. But it’s two-fold. 1. Automated test design […] ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 17, 2010
Software Engineering Explained Software Development Waist Line ...
Posted by Albert Gareev on Aug 03, 2010
Proverbs and quotes Remember the difference between a boss and a leader; a boss says “Go!” – a leader says “Let’s go!” E.M. Kelly I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. John Locke A promise is a cloud; fulfillment is rain. Arabian Proverb A good manager is a […] ...
