Over lunch time today our WeTest meetup group discussion topic was the ‘7 Testing Principles‘.
Our aim was not to dissect and review the principles.. We only had 50 minutes – less the time it takes to order and pay for lunch! Instead we used the principles as a focus point to discuss relevant aspects of our current project contexts and our past experiences.
From principle 3 ‘Early testing’ – my takeaway was that testing involvement is more useful before and after architectural design rather than during architectural design. I think this could be a whole separate topic for discussion\debate, depending on other testers’ experiences and context.
There were also real-world stories of what can go wrong when testing is not done early e.g. finding issues with requirements during UAT, on an “Agile” project!
From principle 6 ‘Testing is context dependent’ – We had fun explaining different aspects of context and how they affect our current projects. My key takeaway is that context can change even within the same team and project. Eg, one company grew from 5 to 150 people, causing a major context shift.
The question was raised, “Can automation be context-driven? “. Again, that will be a good topic for a future discussion. I’d like to discuss this in more depth.
Principle 2 “Exhaustive testing is impossible” – This came up briefly, and basically we all nodded 🙂
At that point we were out of time, and we finished by unexpectedly giving Elena (a Neighbourly developer) some direct user-feedback.
This meetup was interesting, easy to organise through our existing Meetup group, and fun to attend. I encourage you to consider hosting a similar discussion group.
Is it good enough yet? 