Software Testing

I’ve been a software tester by trade since 2008, working on both locally-installed and web-based applications. I’ve primarily been influenced by James Bach, Michael Bolton, and Cem Kaner, and subscribe to the Context-Driven School of Testing, as outlined below:

1. The value of any practice depends on its context.
2. There are good practices in context, but there are no best practices.
3. People, working together, are the most important part of any project’s context.
4. Projects unfold over time in ways that are often not predictable.
5. The product is a solution. If the problem isn’t solved, the product doesn’t work.
6. Good software testing is a challenging intellectual process.
7. Only through judgment and skill, exercised cooperatively throughout the entire project, are we able to do the right things at the right times to effectively test our products.

In many of my roles, my team worked hard on implementing Scrum, which is an Agile development methodology. For those of you unfamiliar with what this means, here’s the Agile Manifesto:

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.