Skip to content

Tag Archives: Exploratory Testing

Evaluating Exploratory Testing

Thursday, December 10, 2009

This month’s issue of Testing Experience published my article that summarizes the findings of several case studies of exploratory testing both inside and outside of Microsoft. Although some people consider me to be a harsh critic of exploratory testing nothing could be further from the truth. When I started my career as a professional tester [...]

Filed in Testing Practices | Also tagged | Comments (2)

Exploratory Testing Inside The Box

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Originally Published Friday, March 20, 2009
Much of the information about exploratory testing focuses on testing from an end-user perspective. Pundits of exploratory testing claim the approach is also useful from a white box test design approach, but I have yet to see any practical discussion or examples. But, professional testers use exploratory testing approaches all [...]

Filed in Testing Practices | Also tagged | Comments (0)

Exploratory Testing vs. Scripted Testing; Is It Really Only Either Or?

Friday, November 13, 2009

Originally Published Sunday, December 09, 2007
I just left Stockholm after spending a week there. That was my second visit to Stockholm and it is truly a remarkable city. I spoke at EuroStar which is the largest software testing conference in Europe, and had the opportunity to meet some old friends and colleagues as well as [...]

Filed in Testing Practices | Also tagged | Comments (3)

Exploratory Testing versus Ad Hoc Testing

Friday, November 13, 2009

Originally Published Friday, October 19, 2007
A few weeks ago a read an interesting post on SQA Forums about exploratory testing. It was interesting not because there was anything ‘new’ to learn about ‘exploratory’ testing; but because it offered a compelling counter-argument to ad hoc testing. It is also a good read because it differentiates exploratory [...]

Filed in Testing Practices | Also tagged | Comments (2)

Exploratory Testing Examined

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Originally Published Sunday, September 03, 2006
Exploratory testing is a topic often embroiled in unreasonable controversy. I didn’t always understand what all of the hullabaloo is about because the simple fact is that all testers engage in exploratory testing, and have used it in software testing for decades (although the early pioneers of software testing [...]

Filed in Testing Practices | Also tagged | Comments (5)

Exploratory Testing and Philosophical Psycho-babble

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Originally posted June 01, 2006
Last year James Bach wrote that he “…”invented” testing…mainly by discovering that the problems of testing have already been solved in the fields of cognitive psychology, epistemology, and general systems thinking.” Well, there are simply 2 things wrong with the 2 points James makes in his statement. First, I am pretty [...]

Filed in General Testing Topics | Also tagged | Comments (3)