When I left university 10 years ago, I had no clue I would end up in QA/Testing. I didn't even realise it was an option! Looking back on my degree course (and I really enjoyed my degree), it was very Programming heavy (C#, C++, Java and Prolog all taught) and testing was only taught as … Continue reading Software Testing at University – Is it an Option?
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I'm sure most of us will have worked on projects where without having to do any particularly extensive test scenarios or having hardly dived into exploring the product, you find things that break that would be immediately obvious to the customer. This kind of project depresses me (even though it is fun to find defects), … Continue reading Making Your Testing Effective
For me, Testing is a mindset, not just a role that needs to be performed. Testing isn't just part of the development cycle, it should be ingrained in every stage. Every aspect can be 'tested', whether that be requirements, architectural diagrams, code, unit tests, test scripts, user docs etc. When Does Testing Start? If I'm … Continue reading The Testing Mindset
There has been a lot of buzz around this topic at recent testing events and in forum discussions between testing professionals, there are a fair few different certifications around but are they of value? A quick google and I found the following certifications: ISTQB - Foundation, Advanced (Test Manager, Test Analyst and Technical Test Analyst) … Continue reading Testing Certifications – Are they worth the paper they are written on?
For me, testing is a mindset rather than just a role and sometimes that can and does affect other aspects of life. The amount of times I have gone to try and break something intentionally, just to check that it can handle error cases. That would be fine, but doing it to the TV while … Continue reading Spreading the Word – Being the Sociable Tester
Last June, I had the opportunity of a new challenge within my current company, which I grasped with both hands. I moved from a team which had a very well-oiled engineering process, a very stable test framework which gave the team confidence in their product and a team which I had worked in since I … Continue reading Not Familiar with Testers? – Proving Your Worth With a Development Team
I have to admit, I was really excited about attending TestBash in Brighton, it was my first conference for 18 months and there was a real buzz about this one on social media. The schedule looked really interesting and there was a 5 of us attending from work so it was kind of like a … Continue reading TestBash 2015 – More than Just a Conference
Maybe I was quite naive about peer reviews but my experience previously was that it was a natural process to have QA/testers involved in code reviews alongside developers. Whenever a new feature or a bug fix was implemented, before the code was checked in, the developer would set up a walk through with another developer … Continue reading Overcoming the Resistance – QA Involvement in Peer Reviews
Thought I could kill two 'proverbial' birds with one 'proverbial' stone here and document the latest conference I attended while also writing my first post on here in 2 years! It was an early start, the team of us that were going met at the rail station and got the train into London Marylebone. A … Continue reading Lessons Learned from BCS SIGiST Summer 2013 Conference
Heard these phrases before? "How hard can adopting Agile methodology be?" "If I go on a 'Certified Scrum-Master' course, it will all be ok, right?" It is very common for agile to be misunderstood by all levels of user. For a new team, starting to implement agile methodologies can be a daunting job and the … Continue reading Agile Attitude
Simon Prior 