Here is a list of some movies and documentaries that helped me think better about testing:
The Pentagon Wars
This movie is about a test manager trying to test the Bradley Fighting Vehicle. It shows some of the elaborate justifications people make for avoiding testing or dumbing down the testing process. It also comically depicts the process […]

I just returned from teaching in Bangalore, India. I taught at Mindtree and Wipro, two well-known outsourcing companies. Before I taught there, I had believed that exploratory testing techniques would not go over well in Asia, because the Indian technical culture is too “process oriented.”
I was wrong. To the country and testers of India, I […]

When a specification is silent about a matter that seems important, that’s probably a risk area.
Mysterious silences may be caused by a simple oversight. Or maybe because that information is “obvious” (see the Obvious/Oblivious heuristic).
I smell bugs whenever I ask the developer about something and I get a shrug, or hear “I haven’t really thought […]

As a process guy, I often hear the term “common sense”. It’s a strange term. Like “luck” it’s a concept that generally brings an end to inquiry, because it’s a reference to magic. “That’s just common sense” seems to be a signal that “I haven’t thought about that, and I’m not prepared to talk about […]