For the first time in a long time, I am prepared to endorse a new trainer of the Rapid Software Testing class: Paul Holland.

Paul has been a tester and test manager at Alcatel/Lucent for something like 17 years. In recent years he has been using and teaching Rapid Software Testing methodology within Alcatel. His practical experience is fabulous.

But that’s not why I’m happy to have him working for me. There are a lot of experienced people in the world.

He is a pilot. He flew Sea King helicopters for the Canadian Navy. The thing about pilot training is that it is similar to good tester training. You have to practice, practice, practice. I’m a pilot, too. Most of my family flies airplanes. My approach to training is much influenced by that experience.

Still, that’s not really why I’m excited.

I’m excited because Paul enjoys an excellent reputation within the Context-Driven community as a facilitator of peer conferences. He’s irreverent. He’s an innovator. That’s important, because anyone who teaches my class must make it his own class, too. Paul has the right temperament for that.

Paul’s teaching style is a bit less aggressive than mine (as is Michael Bolton’s), if you like that sort of thing. He will teach through Satisfice, Inc., so if you want him to do a class at your site, contact me.

Bharani from India is a novice tester who appears to have a lot of energy. She recently emailed me this:

Sir, I need one small tips. As a, new tester how should they improve to became sharp and clever in the testing field.

 I mean that, What is their homework. what they should do daily…without skipping. 

For ex: like normal daily activities. we have to do exercise  breakfast..so….so..

I mean that, what is the testers daily activities?

I am asked many questions by testers. This particular one reveals a lot about the questioner. For one thing, she thinks differently, because I have never been asked this. And it’s a question about discipline, so perhaps she’s a tester who is truly serious about developing herself.

My first answer is the same as the one my world famous writer of a father so often gives: write.

Write every day.

For me this takes the form of carrying my Moleskine notebook everywhere I go (now with a bandolier for my pens!). Whenever I find myself with a few moments, I make notes of my thoughts about testing and technical life. My notebooks serve as one source of great new ideas for my consulting and teaching.

But for testers, there are a few more practices to keep in mind…

Watch yourself think ever day.

While you are working, notice how you think. Notice where your ideas come from. Try to trace your thoughts. This is not easy. You have to practice to improve your skill of self-observation.

As a tester, you must become an artist of your thoughts, you must learn to see the structure and gain control of the structures by which you notice what no one else notices. These structures are not simply “intuition” or “common sense.” We can do better than that.

Question something about how you work every day.

Testers question things, of course. That’s what testing is. But too few testers questions how they work. Too few testers question why testing is the way it is.

For example: Why do we talk about tests “passing” and “failing”, instead of talking about whether there are problems? Do all bugs need to have steps to reproduce? How do we decide when to write a test down and what steps need to be written?

Explain testing every day.

The ability to explain testing is linked to nearly every other testing skill. Even if no one makes you explain your methodology, you can explain it to yourself. Do that. Practice doing it by voice and in writing. Don’t rest with buzzwords. Don’t tell yourself that you did “black box testing.” Break it down. Explain what you did specifically and explain why you did it.

I’m delighted that Rob Sabourin, creator of the Just-In-Time Testing class, will be with us during the Rapid Testing Intensive, in July. He’s coming as a student, but you know, we’re ALL students of the craft, so I’m going to put him to work. Big time. We will also have Ajay Balamurugadas onsite. He’s among the most famous of the Indian Context-Driven testers.

As I figured, most of the sign-ups have been for online participation. So far, we have six onsite students, plus my brother and I. I imagine we’ll get a couple more before all is settled, but still– a small group. It’ll be like a team of commandos.

If you want to work shoulder to shoulder with us, getting on-the-job test coaching during five long days, sign up soon. The early bird discount runs out in a few days.

As I was having dinner with Noah Höjeberg tonight, he said an interesting thing. “Some people think testing is mechanical, and that’s bad enough. But a lot of people seem to think the alternative to mechanical is magical.”

(Noah is the new test strategist at Scila AB, in Stockholm. Interesting guy. I’ve played a lot of testing dice with him, in the past. I meant to do the Art Show game with him, too, but we got so much into our conversation that I completely forgot.)

Mechanical and magical are false opposites. In Rapid Testing, we pursue another path: Heuristical. In other words, skilled testing, achieved through systematic study and the deliberate application of heuristics. This is neither a mechanical, algorithmic process, not is it magical, mystical. We can show it, talk about it, etc. And yet it cannot be automated.

I did not invent sympathetic testing. Anyone who says I claim to have invented it will have only read the title of this post, but nothing further. Now you know.

I may have been the first in my circle to recognize one specific benefit of sympathetic testing. But if so, that is a minor technical point. Because I know that my recognition came directly from a point of view championed by Cem Kaner. From where I stand, it came largely from him.

Okay, James, this is a bit confusing. Why are you talking about this, today?

Ajay Balamurugadas came to me today asking if I came up with the idea of “sympathetic testing.” This is an idea he’s found in Mike Kelly’s work, which derives partly from my work (on tours). It’s also in the section of Lessons Learned in Software Testing that I wrote (and which was edited by Cem Kaner and Bret Pettichord). He had already asked Cem Kaner, who said he got it from my brother [correction: Ajay tells me he saw Cem say that on a video]. But if so, I know exactly where Jon got it: from me, during a project we worked on around 1997. That’s where he was working for me on a court case where I had to do an analysis of “good enough” quality, using a method strongly influenced by Cem’s thinking about cognitive biases.

I’m talking about this today because the provenance of ideas can be confusing when people work closely together. Who cares who invented it, or named it? You might be surprised. Credit is important to people who live by their reputations in a world of ideas. Reputation is money, to put it bluntly. To achieve high income and control over your work as a tester, one way– and the only way I know, actually– is to build your public reputation. Moreover, a lot of our motivation is the respect of our peers. Therefore, this matters.

This isn’t really about “sympathetic testing”, then. Still, what IS sympathetic testing?

Sympathetic testing, as I think of it, is sometimes slightly confused with the closely related ideas of “happy path” or “positive testing.” Sympathetic testing means testing while affirming (rather than challenging) each assumption, resource, or service. But if that’s all it meant, then it would be the same as positive testing. For me, sympathetic testing means more. It means asking “what is wonderful about this product?” rather than “what is broken about this product?” I can do positive testing all day and still be focused on bugs. With sympathetic testing, I may find bugs, but that is not my focus or purpose– my main purpose is learning; building a rich model in my mind.

The insight I had, when working with my brother (way back before he was a recognized test expert in his own right) was that sympathetic testing made me better at unsympathetic testing. Searching happily prepares me to search aggressively.

Okay, then what’s really troubling you?

What bugs me is that Cem deserves more credit for sympathetic testing. But if he claims it himself, he probably thinks he will anger me, and if he gives me full credit, it would anger him: because Cem and I aren’t on speaking terms, at the moment. (I hope that’s temporary.)

I’m hereby offering him credit. Cem and I collaborated for roughly 16 years. We had probably hundreds of deep conversations about testing. Among those conversations, he lectured me on mental models and biases. We once had a fairly bitter argument about what a model is. He won that argument, thankfully, and I have been comfortable with the outcome ever since. He introduced me to Cognitive Science and pushed me deeper into Epistemology. It was that sensibility that led to me discovering a lot of things: among them the power of sympathetic testing. I’m certain that the first person I ran to with my discovery was Cem, but not only that, this is exactly the sort of thing that he was famous for encouraging: to look at things in a sympathetic way. I can’t remember the conversation itself or what he said. I bet he said something like “That’s just what I’ve been trying to tell you!”

Therefore, “sympathetic testing” is part of our joint work. Between about 1997 and 2007, it’s a good bet that I didn’t have a significant thought about testing which wasn’t also sifted and tested by Cem. We didn’t always agree, but we were extremely close. It’s for that reason that he put my name on his BBST class, even though I didn’t do any direct work on it. He was recognizing my influence on him. I’m doing that now.

I’m my own man. I have reinvented testing for myself (just as I recommend that others do). And yet a few people have deeply influenced me in that process. The three people who have had the most influence on my are my father, Jerry Weinberg, and Cem Kaner. I sometimes joke that I can sell out and offer baloney certifications to gullible testers, just like the ISTQB does– but only after those three men have died and I’m no longer seeking their respect.

[Postscript: Why did I title this piece "How I Invented Sympathetic Testing"? Because it was the best way I could think of to attract the attention of people who might be upset that I would make such a claim. Then maybe they would read this post, and feel a lot better.]

I’ve wrapped up my first visit to Switzerland!

I came to speak at the Swiss Testing Day, which attracted a lot of testers. 800 of them, I’m told. It was a very professional operation.

For me the highlight of the visit was trading puzzles and working through Socratic examinations with various Swiss testers, principally Ilari Aegerter. Ilari (which I discovered after saying his name wrong 100 times actually rhymes with Hillary) is a man with boundless energy to solve puzzles and meet the challenges of his peers. I spent two days plus several dinners quizzing him, pressing him, sparring with him, and accepting quizzing from him.

Today we worked in the ski and cheese town of Engleberg. After getting my need to learn about Swiss cheese out of the way (what we call Swiss cheese in the USA is really “Emmentaler”), we settled in the lobby of the Terrace Hotel with the majestic Alps hovering over us.

Ilari is serious about becoming a testing expert, as well as an expert testing coach. So, we spent all day combing through transcripts of his test coaching sessions, identifying and naming his coaching patterns. We’ll consult with Anne-Marie Charrett and Michael Bolton next, to see how our patterns square with them.

He’s relatively new to test coaching. We agreed he needs to work on his patience. Coaching is a lot like fishing. In a Socratic dialog, you have to set the hook in the student and patiently reel him in.

Otherwise, the transcripts looked good to me.

Yesterday I accepted a challenge from Ilari to describe a picture as completely as possible. It was a lot of fun, so I passed it on to Anne-Marie today, who used a mind-map strategy. Now we have a new testing challenge we can give to willing students. Ilari seems to have set himself the task of becoming Context-Driven testing’s best expert on observation skills and dynamics. He has a lot more reading to do (Metzger’s Laws of Seeing, for instance; and The Science of Describing), but he’s on his way.

Tonight we worked through key bits of a book about validity and reliability in qualitative research, and closed the the evening with several lateral thinking puzzles and two math puzzles.

We’re both kind of tired now. The good kind of tired.

This is my idea of fun.

I staggered out of the Cambridge Press bookstore a bit dazed, today, having gorged on 21 books. [Addendum: I mean by this that I browsed them, purchased them, and had them shipped home.] If you want to know what a Context-Driven tester reads, here it is:

• A First Course in Statistical Programming with R
• Wisdom: Its Nature, Origins, and Development
• Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory
• Sequential Analysis and Observational Methods for the Behavioral Sciences
• Observing Interaction: An Introduction to Sequential Analysis
• Human Error
• Combinatorics: A Problem Oriented Approach (Mathematical Association of America Textbooks)
• A Mathematician Comes of Age (Spectrum)
• The Golem at Large: What You Should Know about Technology (Canto)
• The Golem: What You Should Know about Science (Canto)
• A Practical Introduction to Denotational Semantics (Cambridge Computer Science Texts)
• Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
• From Teams to Knots: Activity-Theoretical Studies of Collaboration and Learning at Work (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
• Nuts and bolts for the social sciences
• How to Fold It: The Mathematics of Linkages, Origami and Polyhedra
• The Cambridge Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology)
• The Manuscript of Great Expectations: From the Townshend Collection, Wisbech (Cambridge Library Collection – Literary Studies)
• The Cognitive Basis of Science
• Satisficing and Maximizing: Moral Theorists on Practical Reason
• The Cambridge Handbook of Situated Cognition (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology)
• Risk Communication: A Handbook for Communicating Environmental, Safety, and Health Risks

One of the challenges I have for the ISTQB proponents is “What do you read?” You see it’s a trap. If they tell me they read widely, deeply and liberally, I contrast that with the intellectual desert that is the ISTQB Syllabus and ask them why there is such a disconnect between their education and their professional claims. And if they read narrowly, well, there you go.

If you want to be an excellent tester, you need a good education. You didn’t get that in school (or if you’re in school, you’re not getting it), so you need to do something like what I do: scout for fabulous and offbeat books about all the matters of great testing– and testing touches EVERYTHING!

[addendum: If you are not familiar with my distaste for institutional education, before picking a fight with me, go see my book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar. I spent 26 years doing the research by which I assert that school, although not always destructive and occasionally helpful, is certainly not necessary if you want to live a successful intellectual life. Each day of my life is another data point about how wrong were the teachers who told me I would not be successful without submitting to "the game" of school they desired me to play.]

Most of the books on my list are self-explanatory. One in particular may seem strange: the manuscript of Great Expectations. I picked that one up because the photographic images of Dickens’ original manuscript is a beautiful example of how messy the creative process is. Imagine trying to put metrics on the process of writing that, with all its crossouts and insertions.Writing is exploratory. Just. Like. Testing.

Cem Kaner, who controls www.context-driven-testing.com, has announced an interesting change in his view of the Context-Driven School. He says he prefers to think of it in terms of the Context-Driven approach, not a school of thought. This is a significant change from his original view, which was that CDT is a different paradigm.

That means I’m the last of the founders of the Context-Driven School, as such, who remain true to the original vision. I will bear its torch along with any fellow travelers who wish to pursue a similar program.

Polarization? No. Paradigm!

One of the things that concerns Cem is the polarization of the craft. He doesn’t like it, anymore. I suppose he wants more listening to people who have different views about whether there are best practices or not. To me, that’s unwise. It empties the concept of much of its power. And frankly, it makes a mockery of what we have stood for. To me, that would be like a Newtonian physicist in the 1690′s wistfully wishing to “share ideas” with the Aristotelians. There’s no point. The Aristotelians were on a completely different path.

For me, Context-Driven thinking is delightfully about listening to people and talking to people about practices and dynamics of software testing. But this must happen within the humanist framework that we laid out in the seven principles of the Context-Driven school. That’s our world.

Polarization is beside the point. Polarization is a natural consequence of the fact that our world view is simply different. We are a different paradigm. Our paradigm cannot be explained or contained by any other testing paradigm, such as the Factory School, or the Analytical School. We must have the stomach to keep moving along with our program regardless of the huddled masses who Don’t Get It.

Why Is This Division Happening Now?

Cem’s change of position is happening partly because, after 16 years, he and I are no longer collaborators. Due to a simmering personal dispute (nothing to do with testing) that blew up last year, we no longer can stand to be in the same room with each other. Alas, I don’t think this will change. What that means, professionally, is that the conversations that we once had– the passionate arguments– which led to mutual accommodations and syntheses, no longer happen. This is too bad, because the Factory schoolers, who greatly outnumber us, will make good rhetoric out of any appearance of confusion between Cem and I about our visions of testing.

Meanwhile, I will say this about Cem: He’s a great man. His contributions to testing have been enormous. I disagree with him on some aspects of testing, but by and large he does great work. I’m sure if he weren’t so furious with me and I were able to talk to him without feeling an overpowering urge to kick holes in walls (I mean that literally), we would still be able to develop testing ideas together. However, I trust that whatever he does will be worth looking at. And I do have many other bright collaborators, so I’m going to be fine.

The Context-Driven School continues, because I, and those like me, are compelled to pursue excellence wherever it leads us, even if that means breaking with “conventional” software testing thinkers. I wish Cem luck as he consorts with those guys, but I fear his time will be, for the most part, wasted.

Satisfice, Inc. welcomes my sister Erika Good to our company. She’s our new Director of Marketing and Communication.

Erika is two years older than me. When I first got kicked out of my home, in 1981, I was a freshman in high school. Erika and I would meet each morning (on the mornings I didn’t oversleep or otherwise skip school) in the school library to check in. Later, it was Erika who alerted my father that I had started drinking, which is why I have only been drunk twice in my life– both when I was 15 years old– and why I barely ever drink now. Erika and I have always had a bond. Now she and my wife Lenore will share the burden of keeping me productive when I’m on the road and helping me organize and publish all my stuff.

Erika is quiet, polite, and unassuming (the opposite of me, in other words); a dedicated housewife and mother of two grown boys. She’s also an expert marksman (she competed as a member the Vermont National Guard pistol team— wait, she’s saying it was the rifle team. How did I not know that?),  an artist, an author as well as a private pilot and webmaster, who also helps run her husband’s property business… Geez, I didn’t realize how much she’s done until I had to write that sentence!

One immediate effect she will have is on our long neglected website. She’s already put up the announcement of the Rapid Testing Intensive, and added a video page. She’s helping me create a brand new bibliography and resource list. She’s going to add tags to all the blog entries and get a lot more content published that has been sitting on my hard drive.

This poor girl from Ghana inherited many kilograms of gold and can’t get at it because she can’t pay the back due rent on the gold storage unit. She has reached out to me, a total stranger, for help. I use my testing skills to help her understand that she’s being scammed. But you know, sometimes it’s hard to help people see the truth when fantasy seems less painful…

A stranger approaches on Skype…

[12:29:22 AM] Irene Kusi: Hello

[12:29:33 AM] James Bach: hi

[12:29:44 AM] Irene Kusi: How are you doing ?

[12:29:54 AM] James Bach: Why are you contacting me?

[12:30:10 AM] Irene Kusi: I am very sorry about that and sorry again if i disturb you. I am Irene Kusi from the UK but i am now in Ghana and i would like to know more about you.

[12:30:51 AM] James Bach: Why are you contacting ME, though?

[12:31:39 AM] Irene Kusi: Like i just told you .sorry if i disturb you.

[12:32:06 AM] James Bach: You haven’t told me why you came to me instead of someone else. Is there any reason?

[12:32:10 AM] Irene Kusi: Can we get to know each other personally? What do you mean ?

[12:32:27 AM] James Bach: Look, strangers contact me often for business purposes. That’s normal. I’m trying to figure out if this is for business. Usually people tell me why they are contacting me.

[12:33:08 AM] Irene Kusi: Yes is not strictly business. I just would like to get to know you

[12:33:18 AM] James Bach: So, you don’t know who I am.

[12:33:54 AM] Irene Kusi: Yes i really dont know you but i found your profile on skype and decided to get to know you if i can work with you.

[12:34:23 AM] James Bach: You just chose me at random? Seems like a lot of people from Ghana are doing that.

[12:35:13 AM] Irene Kusi: Why have some people from ghana done something like that to you ?

[12:35:18 AM] James Bach: Yes you are not the first person from Ghana to randomly contact me

[12:35:40 AM] Irene Kusi: And what did they want ??

[12:35:51 AM] James Bach: They wouldn’t tell me… Just like you aren’t telling me.

(She cuts the small-talk and tells me her problem)

[12:36:30 AM] Irene Kusi: My main motive here is to find someone who will help me inherit my property thats why i am on skype .

[12:36:40 AM] James Bach: oh, a 419 thing. I understand

[12:38:27 AM] Irene Kusi: Oh who said is a 419 thing

[12:39:03 AM] James Bach: I did, “oh, a 419 thing” See, that’s where I said it.

[12:39:23 AM] Irene Kusi: what shows is a 419 thing

[12:39:41 AM] James Bach: You said “My main motive here is to find someone who will help me inherit my property thats why i am on skype.” If you haven’t heard of 419, that’s okay.

[12:40:54 AM] Irene Kusi: Ok

[12:41:12 AM] James Bach: Usually it’s Nigerians who need this kind of help. I didn’t know it was happening in Ghana, too.

[12:41:34 AM] Irene Kusi: Ok .so are you going to help me or not ?

[12:41:46 AM] James Bach: What do you need?

[12:42:06 AM] Irene Kusi: I will like you to help me pay with the bills so that i can get the gold

[12:43:07 AM] James Bach: Oh, you want money. Why didn’t you say so at the start?

[12:43:20 AM] Irene Kusi: I dont know why

(With my tester skills, I immediately comprehend what’s going on: she’s too innocent; she sees only the good in people)

[12:44:26 AM] James Bach: Okay, but, why would you trust me? You don’t know me. I might be a bad guy.

[12:45:11 AM] Irene Kusi: Nothing i have just gotten to know that you a very giid guy and i will trsut you .

[12:46:39 AM] James Bach: I think you have to be careful, though. There are many people in the world who may try to take advantage of you. Especially if you have inherited gold. Let me ask you this: If I help you, will you share part of the gold with me?

[12:47:51 AM] Irene Kusi: I will do exactly that not just half but i will let you get the whole gold that is i will bring it to the USA and then we will sell it there and share the money. But before we share the money i will give you 5kilograms of the gold for free just for helping me get it . [Editors note: that's about $300,000]

[12:48:30 AM] James Bach: See? You were just about to trust me and then I tried to take your gold! Irene, you are WAY too trusting. People will want to take from you and not give you anything.

[12:49:14 AM] Irene Kusi: Oh so will you do that to me ?

[12:49:28 AM] James Bach: I just proved that you would LET me if I TRIED to. That was a test. I do testing for a living. And you showed that you are too innocent and good. This is a hard world, full of cheaters.

[12:50:07 AM] Irene Kusi: Oh okay thank you so much for telling me this .

[12:50:13 AM] James Bach: They may try to contact you and fool you into giving up your money. So be more careful.

[12:50:26 AM] Irene Kusi: Thank you

(Now I go into consulting mode… First, learn about the problem. Often the real problem is not the one they come to you with.)

[12:50:31 AM] James Bach: Why don’t you keep your money? You will need it.

[12:51:16 AM] Irene Kusi: Ok so are you going to help me pay for the bills so that i get the gold ??

[12:51:46 AM] James Bach: I thought you said the gold belonged to you.

[12:51:52 AM] Irene Kusi: Yes

[12:52:04 AM] James Bach: Then you have much much more money than I have. You can pay them yourself, can’t you?

[12:52:21 AM] Irene Kusi: Oh no not right now. You know my dad left the Gold as a form of inheritance for me and since he could keep all that in his house he had to give it to his lawyer.

[12:53:14 AM] James Bach: Okay, so the lawyer has it.

[12:53:42 AM] Irene Kusi: Yes and what the lawyer is also saying is that he gave it to a security house here in ghana

[12:53:55 AM] James Bach: That’s good. Then you know where it is. What happened when you went to get it?

[12:54:42 AM] Irene Kusi: They told me that i have to pay for the number of years that it has been there so that they can give it to me . And the lawyer told me that i also need to get a man who will stand by me just to help me

[12:55:42 AM] James Bach: Is this place a bank?

[12:56:03 AM] Irene Kusi: No is not bank but a storage house .

[12:56:19 AM] James Bach: Is it licensed to store gold?

[12:56:29 AM] Irene Kusi: Yes. Is a licensed company. It has the sole mandate to store gold for people

(Use my knowledge of local laws and customs to reveal the true culprit. A consultant should have deep knowledge in useful domains.)

[12:56:57 AM] James Bach: Then they are violating Ghanan law by charging you to release it. Your lawyer should have told you that. Do you trust that lawyer? Do you know him well?

[12:57:27 AM] Irene Kusi: Yes he is the family lawyer .

[12:57:51 AM] James Bach: Then why is he telling you something that is against the laws of your own country? I think you need to talk to a different lawyer.

[12:58:59 AM] Irene Kusi: When we went there they told me that is not like they are charging me for the gold which is mine said by my late dad but for the number of years they have kept the gold for safe keeping thats what they mean. The lawyer has got nothing to do with this at all.

[1:01:34 AM] James Bach: That’s called an “advance fee scam” and they are trying to trick you. You need to go to the police. But I think your lawyer may be in on this. He may even have paid off the police.

(My kind of consulting involves tough, direct speech, on occasion. Sometimes that’s hard for clients to hear.)

[1:02:07 AM] Irene Kusi: You cant talk to my lawyer like that

[1:02:12 AM] James Bach: Your lawyer, if he knows Ghanan law, knows that they aren’t ALLOWED to charge you. They can’t charge you! You are being tricked!

[1:02:26 AM] Irene Kusi: Ok

[1:02:39 AM] James Bach: I told you that you have to be careful. Gold is VERY valuable. People want to steal it.

[1:03:03 AM] Irene Kusi: so now are you going to help me pay the bills or not ?

[1:03:46 AM] James Bach: I’m telling you that you don’t owe any bills. It’s a trap. They want you to pay them and then they won’t give you anything. You need to wake up Irene. You are a crime victim.

[1:04:05 AM] Irene Kusi: Stop what you are saying

[1:04:06 AM] James Bach: That gold is yours. You deserve it.

[1:04:08 AM] Irene Kusi: i hate it.  what do you take me for ? you are not ready to pay fpor the bills thats why you are doing this

[1:04:40 AM] James Bach: I think you put too much belief in people who are now trying to hurt you.  Now you are upset and you want to blame me. But I am just the messenger.

[1:05:08 AM] Irene Kusi: do you think the storage house is an orphanage home where they keep things for free?

[1:05:59 AM] James Bach: Stand up for your rights, Irene. Even in Ghana, there are laws and people have to follow them. They can’t just steal your gold and say you can’t have it because it’s been “sitting there for a long time”

[1:06:24 AM] Irene Kusi: Stop what you are saying

[1:06:26 AM] James Bach: Under GHANA LAW a licensed gold storage house CANNOT charge for storage AFTER the fact. They take payment UP FRONT. Your father already paid. Your lawyer knows that. You have to fight for what is right.

[1:06:49 AM] Irene Kusi: no he didnt pay

[1:07:06 AM] James Bach: THAT’S WHAT YOUR LAWYER TOLD YOU? I can’t believe what a liar this guy is. Do you think you can just bring gold to a storage house and not pay them to store it? He must have paid. So now you are asking strangers to help you pay a bill that YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE.

[1:08:23 AM] Irene Kusi: Bye

[1:08:29 AM] James Bach: I hope you get your gold. Think about what I said.

(If the client is not ready, it doesn’t matter what you tell them: they won’t benefit. I like to think Irene is taking my words to heart. But I have to accept that she probably won’t. Meanwhile I can only hope that her lawyer has invested his ill-gotten gains in an American solar company.)

Announcing the Rapid Testing Intensive seminar.

This is something new. From July 24 to 28, my brother and I are going to run a short, extreme testing project over five days. We have a nice big space, good Internet, and we’ll be cut off from all distractions.

The most interesting element, from my point of view, is that students can attend onsite OR online. Onsite attendance is more trouble, more work, more expense, but also a completely vivid immersive testing experience where you will work shoulder to shoulder with two of the guys who created the Rapid Testing methodology that is now taught all over the world. Online participants will also test and attend optional webinars twice a day during the week. We will have a dedicated coordinator and an online forum so that the experience will be exactly like working as a remote tester on a busy project team.

The outcome of the week will be a test report that will become a part of each participant’s professional portfolio.

I’m so glad Jon is doing this with me. We complement each other well. Jon is a day-to-day test manager who has applied Rapid Testing in his work for nearly all his career since the mid-90′s. I’m a consultant who’s been teaching Rapid Testing since I invented it. Besides, it gives me an excuse to use this graphic…

This may look like George Lucas and Vladimir Lenin, but it’s me and Jon…

Hey, I’ll be doing a public class in England, once again. This time in Cambridge. See the details, here.

This year I also have public classes in Estonia, Romania, Australia, and New Zealand.

Michael Bolton is accused of hand-waving in this thread on LinkedIn. (See the comment by Peter).

Michael and I talk a lot about cognition and exploration. We speak in tropes that come from philosophy and various branches of science. Once in a while, some fellow who understands little of what we say assumes that we just made it all up to impress the ladies.

It brings to mind the Large Hadron Collider. Here’s an excerpt from one of their bulletins:

“The very smooth and fast transition to operation with ions was made possible by very good beam instrumentation performance with a relatively low number of charges per bunch, and magnetic behaviour very similar to operation with protons, as expected. These two factors combined allowed the setting-up operations to be completed very quickly, and stable beam operation, with 2 bunches per beam, was achieved in just a few days.”

Gee, if you know nothing about physics, or the LHC project, this might sound very much like hand-waving, too! In this case, however, if it sounds sketchy, it’s probably more about the receiver than the source. After all, there really is a $10 billion device sitting in the ground with 4000 physicists poring over the data it generates.

As ambitious professionals, we need to be able to speak about complex subjects without constantly going back to kindergarten to bring along the people who refuse to study their own craft.

I don’t mind if an earnest seeker, who happens to be ignorant, asks what seems to be a silly question. I will help everyone who wants to learn. And I don’t mind the assertive dissenter who has done the homework and yet has a different style and judgment from mine.

I’m talking about something different: the willfully ignorant blowhard.

Please don’t be like that.

Michael Bolton has gone off like a volcano in Iceland, writing a series about what exploratory testing isn’t:

http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-1-touring

http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-2-after-everything-else-testing

http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-3-tool-free-testing

http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-is-not-part-4-quick-tests

http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/12/what-exploratory-testing-isnt-part-5-undocumented-testing

Another thing I would add to this:

Exploratory testing is not defined by any specific example of exploratory testing.

Just as tap dancing does not characterize ballroom dancing, you can’t take any one example of exploratory testing and treat that as representative of the entire concept of ET.

If you were to hear me singing an aria by Mozart, that would be an example of opera singing. It would be an example of BAD opera singing, but it would truly be an example of the style. Similarly, I regularly talk to testers who go “oh yeah I’ve seen that exploratory testing stuff but it’s not structured… not documented… not x… not y… not whatever.” And my reply is “you probably haven’t seen skilled exploratory testing. Would you like to hear me sing an opera now? OR, I could show you a good example of ET in practice.”

Exploratory testing can be done in an unskilled, slapdash, silly way. Just as a unskilled driver behind the wheel of a car is still a driver who is driving a car, a poor tester can still be doing ET– albeit probably not very well.

The cool thing about ET is that, even done badly, it’s still a great way to find some bugs. Michael and I try to help you do much, much better than that.

The core idea of ET remains as it always has been. It’s been expressed in many different ways, but boils down to this: test design and test execution and learning mixed together in a mutually supportive way. Whenever you see that, and to the degree that you see that, you are seeing exploratory testing.

…Unless you want bad testing.

Claire Moss writes:

I am surprised that you say that scripted testing is harder for novice
testers. I would have expected that having so much structure around
the tests would make getting into testing easier for someone with less
experience and that the scripted instructions would make up for a lack
of discipline on the part of the tester.

Structure != “being told what to do”
First, you are misusing the word “structure.” All testing is structured. If what you mean by structure is “externally imposed structure” then say that. But even if you are not aware of a structure in your testing, it is there. When I tell a novice tester to test, and don’t tell him how to test, he will be dominated by certain structures he is largely unaware of– or if aware he cannot verbalize or control them much. For instance: the user interface look and feel is a guiding structure for novice testers. They test what they see.

Cognitive science offer plenty of ideas and insights about the structures that guide our thinking and behavior. See the book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely for more on this.

Scripted testing always has at least two distinct parts: test design and test execution. They must be considered independently.

Scripted test execution is quite a bit more difficult than exploratory testing, unless you are assuming that the tester following the script has exactly the same knowledge and skill as the test designer (even then it is a qualitatively different sort of cognitive process than designing). An exploratory tester is following (indeed forming as he goes) his own intentions and ideas. But, a scripted tester, to do well, must apprehend the intent of the one who wrote the script. Moreover, the scripted tester must go beyond the stated intent and honor the tacit intent, as well– otherwise it’s just shallow, bad testing.

Try using a script to guide a 10 year-old to drive a car safely on a busy city street. I don’t believe it can be done. You can’t overcome lack of basic skills with written instructions.

And sure, yeah, there is also the discipline issue, but that’s a minor thing, compared to the other things.

As for scripted test design, that also is a special skill. I can ask my son to put together a computer. He knows how to do that. But if I were to ask him for a comprehensive step-by-step set of instructions to allow me to do it, I doubt the result would help me much. Writing a script requires patience, judgment, and lots of empathy for the person who will execute it. He doesn’t yet have those qualities.

Most people don’t like to write. They aren’t motivated. Now give them a task that requires excellent writing. Bad work generally results.

Both on the design side and the execution side, scripted testing done adequately is harder than exploratory testing done adequately. It’s hard to separate an integrated cognitive activity into two pieces and still make it work.

The reason managers assume it’s simpler and easier is that they have low standards for the quality of testing and yet a strong desire for the appearances of order and productivity.

When I am training a new tester, I begin with highly exploratory testing. Eventually, I will introduce elements of scripting. All skilled testers must feel comfortable with scripted testing, for those rare times when it’s quite important.

Examples

1. Start browser

2. Go to CNN.com

3. Test CNN.com and report any problems you find.

This looks like a script, and it is sort of a script, but the interesting details of the testing are left unspecified. One of the elements of good test scripting is to match the instructions to the level of the tester as well as to the design goal of the test. In this case, no design goal is apparent.

This script does not necessarily represent bad testing– because it doesn’t represent any testing whatsoever.

1. Open Notepad

2. Type “hello”

3. Verify that “hello” appears on the screen.

This script has the opposite problem. It specifies what is completely unnecessary to specify. If the tester follows this script, he is probably dumbing himself down. There may be some real good reason for these steps, but again, the design goal is not apparent. The tester’s mind is therefore not being effectively engaged. Congratulations, designer, you’ve managed to treat a sophisticated miracle of human procreation, gestation, mothering, socializing, educating, etc. as if he were the equivalent of an animated poking stick. That’s like buying an iPad, then using it as a serving tray for a platter of cheese.