How do you practice Software Testing?

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How do you practice Software Testing?

• By Michael Kelly

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Introduction

• The key to superior software testing skills is
  practice. Practice shows your willingness to
  "stretch yourself to the limit and increase your
  control over your performance."

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12 Ways to Improve

1. Focusing your practice
2. Avoiding Automated Performance
3. Contributing to Open Source Projects
4. Beta Testing
5. Pair Testing/Programming
6. Adopt Parallel Thinking

1. Search for Bugs in the Wild
2. Learn Systems Thinking
3. Teaching and Writing
4. Participating in Conferences and Workshops
5. Develop Your Cognition Skills
6. Finding the Time for Practice

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Focusing Your Practice

• The goal isn't repeating the same thing over and
  over again because you like it, but to get better
  at it each time.
• A musician repeatedly plays a scale, not because
  they don't know the scale, but because they
  develop better technique for doing other things
  by practicing the simple things.
• If you practice one specific area at a time, your
  skill increases.

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Avoiding Automated Performance

• Poor musicians go through a long process of
  automating how to play a particular piece.
• Instead, the goal should be to develop a strong
  technique, so that you don't have to automate,
  but can easily pick up any thing that is thrown
  your way.

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Contributing to Open Source Projects

• Contributing includes submitting code, test code,
  documentation and examples
• This is a good method of practice because it most
  resembles a real project with real issues and
  problems that you might be facing.

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Beta Testing

• Getting involved in beta testing exposes you to
  the newest types of bugs in the latest software
• Hopefully, this can help you to identify
  potential bugs in your own testing

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Pair Testing/Programming

• Done best with a tester and a developer
• If you're a tester, it's important to spend time
  writing unit test code to allow you to better
  collaborate with the developer.

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Adopt Parallel Thinking

• Look at the problem from different schools of
  thought

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Search for Bugs in the Wild

• Look for bugs in software you aren't supposed to
  be testing
• Identify if you came across the bug by accident,
  or what you did to find the bug

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Learn Systems Thinking

• Quality Software Management Volume 1 Systems
  Thinking.
• Spend time quickly identifying systems and
  interactions between different systems

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Teaching and Writing

• Sometimes teaching others what you know raises
  questions that you're forced to think about and
  answer
• Writing down your testing methods reinforces what
  you already know

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Participating in Conferences and Workshops

• An opportunity to tap into the testing skills of
  those more experienced

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Develop Your Cognition Skills

• Increase your ability to collect, analyze,
  evaluate, retain, recall, and compare information
• James Bach's article "Inside the Mind of an
  Exploratory Tester" describes ways to increase
  rapid cognition skills
• Go to a bookstore, pick a computer book at
  random, flip through it in five minutes or less,
  close the book, and ask yourself the following
  questions
• What does this technology do?
• Why would anyone care?
• How does it work?
• What's an example of it in action?

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Finding the Time for Practice

• There is often very little time between projects
  to do the practicing required
• When free time does present itself, it's
  difficult to balance personal lives and getting
  in the time needed to master your skill
• The best way to accomplish this is to know a
  specific area you would like to improve, and
  schedule time for it instead of just waiting for
  a time.