How should we test this?

“How should we test this?” is one of the toughest questions a practicing tester can encounter. Are you concerned that your testing is not oriented toward finding the problems that really matter? Do you skip thinking about risks and test strategy because your sprints are too short? Then this tutorial is made for you! We all know that risk is a central theme in software development and still we struggle to use risk ideas effectively in our work. Risk-based testing means organizing your test strategy around suspected risks. This means performing risk analysis before, during, and after testing as a continuous process. Considering risks helps us to devise a workable strategy. Effective risk analysis and creating practical test strategies are skills that are seldom taught and much of the related literature is weak and uninspiring. 

To develop these important skills, this tutorial is designed to help you to sharpen your strategic thinking skills. This will enable you to create a baseline test strategy for a product in time it takes to drink a cup of tea or a pint of beer. This is going to be fast-paced and a lot of fun. Don’t worry if you think you’ve never created a risk analysis or test strategy before. We’ll start nice and easy and we’ll increase the complexity and shorten the timescales.

Method of instruction: During this interactive and experiential workshop, we will work in groups using powerful heuristics: resources that enable us to think critically and quickly. We will also work on evaluating context, risk analysis and modelling products. Equipped with these tools, you and your group will do risk analysis and create test strategies on real software. You will present your work and together we will debrief it. By doing this you’ll learn to think critically about the presented analyses and strategies. Collectively we’ll improve our risk analysis and test strategy skills.