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EXPLORATION OVEDOCUMENTATION

Better testinthrough fexibilit

GREEN IGood or the world an

your compan

March/April 2013 www.TechWell.com
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2 BETTER SOFTWARE MARCH/APRIL 2013 www.TechWell.com

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www.TechWell.com MARCH/APRIL 2013 BETTER SOFTWARE 3

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Test StudioEasily record automated tests foryour modern HTML5 apps

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12

16 TAKING THE RISK: EXPLORATION OVER DOCUMENTATIONThe loudest voice in the room might push or a stable, predictable, repeatable

test process that denes itsel up ront, but each build is dierent. An adaptive,

fexible approach could provide better testing in less time with less cost, more

coverage, and less waste.

by Matthew Heusser

GAIN GREATER TESTING PRECISION THROUGH ADAPTIVETEST METHODSLearn how adaptive testing provides nimble test solutions that bend and shit

with the changing needs o the market and the environment.

by Brooke Bowie

20

24

CONTENTS

Volume 15, Issue 2 MARCH/APRIL 2013

eaturesCOVER STORYPERCEPTION MANAGEMENT (AND WHY YOUSHOULD LEAVE IT TO MAGICIANS)To build and sustain credibility, good project managers ocus on managing

expectations and leave perception management to magicians. Explore the di-

erence and nd out why.

by Payson Hall

12

32 CAREER DEVELOPMENTA MAJOR AWARD

by Lisa Crispin

You may remember the major award rom the lm A Christmas Storyas

that gaudy leg lamp. But, or Ralphie's Old Man, its indescribably beautiul.

Sometimes, the meaning o an award is more important than the award itsel.

Better SoftwaremagazineThecompanion to TechWell.com brings you thehands-on, knowledge-building inormation

you need to run smarter projects and deliverbetter products that win in the marketplace

and positively aect the bottom line.Subscribe today at www.BetterSotware.com

or call 800.450.7854.

20

Mark Your Calendar

Editor's Note

Contributors

From One Expertto Another

Techwell Spotl ight

ProductAnnouncements

FAQ

Ad Index

in every issue4

5

6

9

10

28

31

33

columns7 TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

IT'S ALL A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVEby Johanna Rothman

Everyone has a unique perspective on problems at work. Help your problems

make it to the top o the queue by expressing them in terms o business value.

GREEN IT: A SUSTAINABILITY PERSPECTIVE FORPORTFOLIO OPTIMIZATIONAs organizations grow and diversiy, they end up with a large number o IT sys-

tems. However, by quantiying sustainability metrics, they can optimize their IT

inrastructures and introduce a greener side o IT.

by Sunita Purushottam and Vaibhav Bhatia

24
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sotware testercertifcation

Publisher

Sotware Quality Engineering, Inc.

President/CEOWayne Middleton

Vice President o Communications

Heather Buckman

Publications Manager

Heather Shanholtzer

Editorial

Better SoftwareEditor

Joseph McAllister

Online Editors

Jonathan VanianNoel Wurst

Community Manager

David DeWald

Production Coordinator

Cheryl M. Burke

Design

Creative Director

Catherine J. Clinger

Advertising

Sales Consultants

Daryll Paiva

Kim Trott

Production Coordinator

Desiree Khouri

CONTACT USEditors: [email protected]

Subscriber Services:[email protected]

Phone: 904.278.0524, 888.268.8770

Fax: 904.278.4380

Address:Better SoftwaremagazineSotware Quality Engineering, Inc.340 Corporate Way, Suite 300Orange Park, FL 32073

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

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A K indof MAgic

Its called the art o persuasion, not the blunt instrument o persuasion.

However, i youve ever watched kids TV programming ater a school day or on

a typical Saturday morning, you know that commercials geared toward kids can

be noisy, fashy, and seemingly the urthest thing rom art. You needa bowl ull o

totally awesomeSugar Flakes right now!

But, beneath the veneer, even the most ostentatious commercials are working a certain kind o subtle magic. For instance,

ood artists are in charge o making sure that their products look perect on camera. They manage viewers perceptions

through trickery, such as using white school glue in place o milk in a cereal bowl, because the glue keeps the cereal rom

getting soggy on set during lming and, in the end, the television audience cant tell the dierence.

O course, i youve ever eaten a bowl o soggy cereal, you know that perception management only lasts so long.

In this issues cover story, Payson Hall addresses the dierence between managing perception and managing expecta-

tions. Keeping expectations in line is a valuable workplace skill. Pulling the wool over peoples eyes can be useul in the

workplace, too, but only i you work as a proessional magician. Otherwise, i youre trying to manage the perceptions o

your employees, your colleagues, or even your own managers, youd better start honing your magic tricks in your spare

time, because you likely wont be working as a manager or very long.

In their articles, Matthew Heusser and Brooke Bowie discuss the importance o adaptation in testing, with Matthew

ocusing on exploration and Brooke on precision. Sunita Purushottam and Vaibhav Bhatia look to the uture o green ITin their article on using metrics to show that sustainability is more than just a nice ideaits also a quantiable asset or

your company.

Plus, Johanna Rothman teaches us about working our way through problems by keeping an open mind and looking to oth-

ers perspectives, while Lisa Crispin relates her personal experience o winning a major award that appears to be just a

big rock rom someones garden but ultimately turns out to be much more.

We hope youll enjoy this issues articles, look beneath the surace, and maybe even take away a new perspective or two.

Keep your eyes peeled or ways in which people might try to manage your perceptionsespecially i theyre not magi-

cians by trade.

Yours abracadabrally,

Joey McAllister

[email protected]

Editors Note
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Lisa Crispin is the coauthor (with Janet Gregory) o Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams, coauthor (with Tip

House) o Extreme Testing, and a contributor to Beautiful Testing. She has worked as a tester on agile teams or the past ten years

and enjoys sharing her experiences via writing, presenting, teaching, and participating in agile testing communities around the

world. Lisa was named one o the 13 Women o Infuence in testing by Software Test & Performancemagazine. For more about

Lisas work, visit lisacrispin.com.

VaibhaV bhatia is a certied data center associate and green IT proessional with nine years o industry experience, most o it in the

data center space. He has managed operations o a data center in Bangalore and large-scale data center projects and has worked

on several data-center-optimizing and green IT initiatives. Vaibhav has published and presented several papers at various orums.

He is currently a senior consultant with the sustainability practice at Inosys Limited.

Contributors

Johanna rothman helps organizational leaders see problems and risks in their product development, recognize potential gotchas,

seize opportunities, and remove impediments. She is the technical editor or Agile Connection and the author o many books,

including Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Managementand Hiring Geeks That Fit. Johanna is working on a book about agile

program management. She writes columns or Stickyminds.com and Gantthead.com and blogs at jrothman.com and

createadaptablelie.com.

sunita purushottam is a principal consultant in the sustainability unit at Inosys. She has more than ourteen years o experience

as an environmental and sustainability consultant specializing in carbon, sustainability, and supply chain strategies and e-waste

management. Sunita is a ellow o the Royal Meteorological Society (UK) with keen understanding o climate change. She has a

post graduate degree in physics (with specialization in electronics) and a PhD in meteorology and air pollution models and impacts

on humans.

EdWELLEr, the principal at Integrated Productivity Solutions, is an SEI-Certied SCAMPI high-maturity appraiser or CMMI apprais-

als with nearly orty years o experience in hardware and sotware engineering. This extensive practical background in develop-

ment has resulted in a no-nonsense, practical approach to process improvement. Integrated Productivity Solutions is a consulting

rm that ocuses on providing solutions to companies seeking to improve their development productivity. You can reach Ed at

[email protected].

matthEW hEussEr is a consulting sotware tester and sotware process naturalist, who has spent his entire adult lie developing,

testing, and managing sotware projects. Matthew blogs at Creative Chaos, is a contributing editor to Software Test & Quality As-surancemagazine, and is on the board o directors o the Association or Sotware Testing. Matthew recently served as lead editor

or How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing. Follow Matthew on Twitter at @mheusser or email him at [email protected].

brookE boWiE has more than eighteen years o quality assurance and testing experience across various industries. She specializes in

transorming and creating testing organizations that t the unspoken needs o the company culture by creating powerhouse teams

that have customized testing and quality toolkits. Brooke is available or corporate coaching and training and independent consult-

ing services. You can contact her at [email protected] or testimprovements.com.

JanEt GrEGory, coauthor (with Lisa Crispin) o Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams, specializes in helpingteams build quality systems. As tester or coach, she has helped introduce agile development practices into companies and has suc-

cessully transitioned several traditional test teams into the agile world. Janet is a requent speaker at agile and testing sotware

conerences in North America, including the STAR conerences.

Payson Hall is a consulting project manager or Catalysis Group Inc. in Sacramento, Caliorniaand a magician. Payson consults

on project management issues and teaches project management. Email Payson at [email protected], and ollow him on

Twitter at @paysonhall.

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have data, then you have a way to approach the business value

o the deect.

Its the same problem with technical debt. Maybe you have

an entire group o people helping you with build automation.

Your business case would be: These people are developersin their own right. We could use them on the product instead

o on the build. That would give us another six people every

week on product development instead o managing our inte-

gration debt, and we would be able to build ourselves. Theres

a lot more to this argument, but you

could start there.

When I hear people discussing

architecture, I have to admit, the

last thing I want to do is to stop ev-

erything and re-architect a system.

However, Im happy to incremen-

tally re-architect. So, i an architect

came to me and said, I have thisidea to increase the business value

o our architecture by iterating this

way and that way, and heres the

value, and heres how I would prove it every week or two, I

would listen.

Notice the short timeboxes, my architect colleagues. I re-

alize that some rameworks take a long time to prove. I am

challenging you here and now to shorten that time. Yes, I am a

pain-in-the-tush project manager.

How do we mesh your architect perspective o needing a

air amount o time to develop a ramework and test it, and

my project management perspective o wanting to managerisk? You use patterns and evolutionary architecture. You start

proving architecture with eatures. And once you prove some

kind o business value (there we go again with business value),

Im happy with the risk management. It really is a matter o

perspective.

I you want people to care about the problems you see at

your organization, change your perspective. I like starting with

business value. Maybe you have another alternative. Let me

know.

Now, Im going outside to play in the snow.{end}

Im in Colorado on vacation this week. My amily skis, even

though I dont. By any skiing standard, theres not much snow

here. But to a person rom the equator, this would be a ton o

snow. Its all about your perspective.

We need to keep our perspectives when we think about ourprojects, too. When I go to conerences, I oten meet testers

who say, No one at my company cares about quality. What

they mean is, No one at my company cares about the deects I

care about. That might even be true.

When I meet developers, they

say, No one at my company cares

about technical debt. What they

mean is, No one at my company

cares about the technical debt I en-

counter every day that makes my lie

miserable.

When I meet architects, they

say, No one at my company caresabout the architecture. What they

mean is, No one at my company

cares about the architecture I see

every day that makes everyones lie miserable.

I could go on with managers and business analysts, but I

suspect you have the general idea. Everyone wants whats best

or the organization. How do we help the organization get

whats best, even though each o us has her own perspective?

I like to ask this question: Whats the business value o the

problem I see?

Once you ask this question, its not a matter o a tester

talking about deects or a developer talking about technicaldebt or an architect talking about architecture. No, its a

person on a project talking about a business problem. That

elevates the problem up, optimizing the problem to some-

thing that managementwhether you are agile or more tradi-

tionalcan understand.

Now, i you want to talk about deects, you can say some-

thing like this: This deect might look like nothing, but when

our customers encounter it, they roll their eyes and make nasty

comments on Twitter. We spend time deending ourselves on

Twitter. I counted orty-ve tweets last week alone. I you

Its All a Matter of

PerspectiveEmployeesdespite their many dierent viewpointswant what's bestor the organization.

by Johanna Rothman |[email protected]

Technically Speaking

If you want people to care

about the problems you see at

your organization, change your

perspective.

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TesT at a HigHer LeveL

a p r i L 7 1 1 , 2 0 1 3T o r o n T o , o n Ta r i o

D e L Ta C H e L s e a

The Leading Conference on

Software teSting analySiS & revi ew

starcanada . t echwell . com

viSit the webSite

and explore all the

ways to save

Choose from a full week oflearning, networking, and more

sunday

Mu-d t Csss b

tuesday

9 i-d h- d fu-d

tus

wednesdaythursday

3 Ks, 28 Ccu

Ssss, expo, nk

es, rcs, d M

Mapping iT ouT
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For the ull interview, visit

well.tc/FOETA15-2

From One Expert to Another

When a group o individuals

shares the same knowledge

o certain patterns, it provides

a common language or

understanding and working

together in some domain.

Interviewed by: Janet Gregory

Email: [email protected]

Matt BarcombYears in Industry: 14

Email: [email protected]

Team members should work to understand

how their particular specialties can

improve quality eorts, especially when

collaborating with other team members'

specialties.

The team should understand that quality

has various aspects and applications

depending on context and that quality is

more than just testing the sotware.

Patterns are things to be applied, not implemented.

Applying patterns allows us to take actions rom

principles, instead o mechanically implementing

some checklist.

Teams can visualize all sorts o things, like workow,

team norms, product goals, quality initiatives, etc. I

fnd that visualization helps teams come to a shared

understanding or build consensus more quickly.

At a high level, when I think o

whole-team quality, I think o a

cross-unctional development

team where all members eel

responsible or quality and

continuously work to understand

and improve it.
http://www.techwell.com/http://well.tc/FOETA15-2http://well.tc/FOETA15-2http://www.stickyminds.com/http://well.tc/FOETA15-2http://www.techwell.com/

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TechWell Spotlight

Hollywood Hackers vs. Real-Lie Hackers

by Jonathan Vanian

Hollywood seems to enjoy portraying hackers as stereotypes

akin to troubled geniuses or bands o attractive rogues sub-

verting some sort o powerul corporate or political (bonus

points i its a hybrid) dictatorship that gets a kick out o lim-

iting the personal reedoms o beautiul people and the peons

(Hollywood extras and commercial actors) that cheer or them.

With this in mind, its ascinating when prominent hackers

adopt a larger-than-lie personality that seems the stu o ac-

tion movies. In this case, Im thinking o the inamous Julian

Assange, although maybe a naturally captivating character like

him is always destined to play this role.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Hackers.

In Search o the Perect Mobile App

by Noel Wurst

I you search on the Internet or what makes a mobile app

successul, youll nd page ater page o supposed experts

telling you the three or ve or seven absolute musts that your

app must have to truly become successul. Most o these ex-

perts agree on a core list o needs or any app to be successul,

so it would seem that simply ollowing this advice would give

your app worldwide popularity.So, why is building the perect app so dicult? Two

reasons stand out: people are ckle, and technology changes

just as oten as the needs (oten really wants) o mobile device

owners.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Mobile.

How Does Testing Fit in a Patent Liecycle?

by Rajini Bharath

A patent is a universal phenomenon; you can le one regardless

o who you are or the position you hold in an organization.

Some studies show patents are typically led by men, speci-

cally those rom design and research and development back-grounds; in reality, there is nothing stopping anyone rom ling

or a patent.

Patents typically all into a patent liecycle and are suc-

cessul when mapped to a commercialization plan. Patents can

be led by a commercial organization or by an individual. In

both cases, the importance o testing in obtaining patent ap-

proval and commercialization cannot be underestimated. I a

patent is in the sotware testing discipline, it obviously calls or

a lot o in-depth testing.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Patent.

Featuring resh news and insightul stories about topics that are important to you, TechWell.com is the place to go or what

is happening in the sotware industry today. TechWells passionate industry proessionals curate new stories every week

day to keep you up to date on the latest in development, testing, business analysis, project management, agile, DevOps, and

more. The ollowing is a sample o some o the great content youll fnd. Visit TechWell.com or the ull stories and more!

How to Overcome the Impostor Syndrome

and Excessive Sel-Doubt

by Naomi Karten

A lot more people experience the impostor syndrome than

admit to experiencing it. Thats because the impostor syndrome

concerns eelings o inadequacy. Its a set o sel-sabotaging

eelings that leads people to discount their skills and competen-

cies. People with this syndrome believe theyre rauds and ear

that others will discover their inadequacies.

These people might have a nagging ear that everyone

knows more than they do; theyre all phonies and sooner or

later, theyll be ound out.

These eelings persist even in ace o inormation that proves

the opposite is true. Has this ever happened to you?

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Impostor.

Anti-Patterns: Watch Out or Common

Development Mistakes

by Brendan Quinn

As this video rom The Candlestick shows, it is just as valuable

to learn rom mistakes as it is to just ocus on best practices.

Worst practices are common thought approaches to problem

solving that appear again and again and get implemented by a

programmer or even groups o programmers across continentsand organizations. Ever heard o groupthink?

The clich is that you learn rom your mistakes, but this is

a costly approach to learning. From a nancial and timesaving

point o view, learning rom the mistakes o others makes much

more sense. As a developer, it is your job to not repeat common

coding misdemeanors. As a tester, it is your job to watch out

or those common errors.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Antipatterns.

Why Is Scrum So Popular?

by Joe Townsend

I have wondered why Scrum is mentioned more oten by devel-opers than any other orm o agile development methodology.

You might occasionally hear o extreme programming (XP),

eature-driven development (FDD), and a host o others, but

none more than Scrum. I wanted to nd out why; whats so

special about Scrum that makes it the peoples obvious choice?

To nd out why, I rst typed the ollowing into Google:

Why did Scrum methodology win? The rst article answers

that question, explaining that Scrum wins due to simplicity.

Another reason the article mentions is certication, and one

has to agree Scrum has a variety o dierent certications

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TechWell Spotlight

certied ScrumMaster, certied product owners, certied devel-

opers, etc.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Scrum.

Take the High Road When Creating Product

Roadmaps

by Scott SehlhorstThe biggest mistake you can make when crating a product

roadmap is not talking to customers and prospects about what

to put in the roadmap. The second biggest mistake you can

make is building a roadmap that schedules all the eatures and

unctions you plan to build. Thats taking the low (level) road.

You want your plan, your roadmap, and your conversa-

tions to be ocused on the problems people solve with your

productnot the gee-wiz eatures o your product.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Roadmaps.

FCC Launches Security Checker Tool or

Smartphones

by Pamela Rentz

Worried that consumers arent doing enough to ward against

possible security threats on their smartphones, the Federal

Communications Commission (FCC), the US Department o

Homeland Security, the Federal Trade Commission, the Na-

tional Cyber Security Alliance, and others in the private sector

are trying to get consumers to take steps.

The FCC launched the Smartphone Security Checker, a new

online tool that creates a ten-step action plan or consumers,

including tips on setting passwords, backing up data, and how

to report stolen phones.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-FCC.

The Perl Programming Language Turns

Twenty-Five

by Rick Scott

The Perl programming language turned twenty-ve years old

this past December. Version 1.0 was publicly released on De-

cember 18, 1987, by its creator, Larry Wall. The Perl Founda-

tion's twenty-th anniversary post takes a detailed look at the

major elements o the Perl ecosystem and the milestones the

language has passed along the way.

Perl is arguably the rst general purpose scripting language

and certainly the one that popularized the concept as we know

it today. Its choice o constructs that are useul to and makesense to human programmersas opposed to ones that map

neatly to underlying machine instructionsis characteristic o

the scripting languages.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Perl.

Why the Demand or Usability Will Continue

to Grow

by Jacob Orshalick

Usability is an important aspect o any sotware system. The

superior usability o employees' personal devices has brought

about a revolution in the oce environment. Businesses are

being orced to implement policies (e.g., usability standards

and bring your own device) that enhance the employee experi-

ence. Yet, usability is only in its inancy in terms o the impor-

tance it will play in uture sotware systems.

As the world around us becomes more complex, our

ability to solve problems without sotware assistance be-comes more limited. While an explosion o specializations in

various elds might provide us with answers, this tactic can

only take us so ar.

Continue reading at well.tc/152-TW-Usability.

So,You Want to be a

TechWell Curator?What Is a TechWell Curator?TechWell curators are software professionals who are knowledgeable,enthusiastic, and engaged in the latest industry trends, tools, andtechnology. Using content sourced from around the Internet, our curatorscompose short stories that are interesting, entertaining, sometimesthought provoking, and occasionally opinionated.

What Do I Have to Do?Each curator is responsible for submitting a minimum of five to tenstories a month. Stories should run 300-500 words, with 400 words beingideal. Stories are built around and should link to articles, videos, blogposts, or other online contentboth from our TechWell Community sitesand anywhere in the Internetthat the curator considers interesting andapplicable to our audience. You should expect to spend one to two hoursdeveloping and writing a story. Because audience engagement is key tothe success of a curated site, we ask curators to respond to readercomments and questions.

Whats in It for Me?Stories you write will feature your byline with a link to a profile pagecontaining your photo, bio, and links to your blog , Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.Readers will come to know you, your stories, and your personality.Thought leaders are born this way. TechWell curators receive $100 perstory published, up to a total of ten stories ($1,000) per month. Inaddition, active TechWell curators receive free Wednesday-Thursdayconference passes to any SQE conference and half price on pre- andpost-conference event sessions (tutorials + summit).

What Is the Publishing Process?Curators submit stories to the TechWell editors, who check them forgrammar, style, and punctuation, and then publish them to the siteusu-ally within two business days.

What If I Cant Write for a While or Want to Stop Curating?We understand life can get hectic. So, if you need to take a temporarybreak from curating, we ask that you give us two weeks notice. In theevent you decide curating is not for you, please let us know thirty days inadvance so we can look for a replacement.

How Do I Get Started?To apply for a TechWell curator position, please contact HeatherShanholtzer at [email protected] with the following information:

NameCompany affiliationInterest area(s)Approximate stories per month you are availableto curate

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OM

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Irecently met with a project manager as part of a project review.

I think the PM has a clue, but I let eeling uneasy. (For

those unamiliar with external reviewers coming in and

conducting what is essentially a real-time project audit,

having a lead reviewer eel uneasy is a bad thing.) As I re-

fected on why, I thought it might serve as a cautionary tale or

others, so Im sharing. The heart o the issue is the dierence

between managing expectations and managing perceptions.

ExpectationsExpectations are what people believe they will get out o a

project. How much do they believe it will cost? How long do

they imagine it will take? What do they think they will get or

their investment when the project is complete?

A key part o a project managers job is managing the ex-

pectations o project sponsors and stakeholders. Beore the

project begins, when it is merely a gleam in the sponsors eye,

everything is possible. This is called the honeymoon phase.

Everyone is happy and in love, giving no thought to the hard

work ahead. No one knows how much the project will cost,

but everyone assumes the cost will be reasonable. No one

knows how long it will take, but theyre sure it wont take toolong. People usually dont know exactly what they will get or

their investment, but they believe that their business problem

will be (mostly painlessly) solved by the project. This is the

bliss o early project love.

The gritty realities that emerge during planning and ex-

ecution about costs, risks, limitations, competing priorities, re-

source requirements, and tradeos oten prove more daunting

than originally imagined.

One o the principle roles o the project manager is working

to assure that these emerging realities do not surprise sponsors

and stakeholders. Managing expectations about such things as

the uncertainty o new technologies; the variability o early es-timates o cost and schedule; and necessary tradeos among

cost, schedule, unctionality, and quality as additional inorma-

tion becomes available is a tough part o the project managers

job. This involves keeping people grounded during the honey-

moon so the emerging realities arent such a shock. It also in-

volves keeping an open channel or good news, bad news, and

changes in the risk prole as the project evolves. Show me a

competent project manager who does a good job o managing

expectations, and I will show you a good project manager. On

the other hand, i you dont manage expectations well, the rest

o your perormance is oten irrelevant. Unpleasantly surprised

people are not happy people. Managing expectations honestly,

openly, and airly is an essential skill.

PercePtions

Perceptions are the meaning we make o the data we ob-

serve. Perceptions can be tricky things. An executive overhears

one person in the lunchroom saying, The Alpha Project is

having trouble, and the meaning the executive might take

rom that could be one o the ollowing:

A) One person in the caeteria says there is some kind o

trouble.

B) There is trouble.

Read those two conclusions careully. They represent two

very dierent meanings that can be derived rom the same

data.

There is a particular element o perception management

that is reasonable, necessary, and helpul: assuring that people

understand the context o the data they are receiving. For ex-

ample, imagine that integration testing in the month o De-

cember identies 2,000 aults with the system being developed.

This might sound bad. Helping to manage perceptions in thiscase might involve saying something like this:

2,000 reported aults in one month sounds like a lot, but

I need to remind you that we are talking about a system

that has several million lines o code and processes about

one hundred unique kinds o transactions with a va-

riety o interace partners. With integration testing just

starting in December, we discovered that one o our in-

terace partners had made a slight change to an interace

that behaved dierently than it had during earlier testing

and was not consistent with our agreed-upon specica-

tion. That accounted or about 900 o the aults auto-

matically reported by our testing tool. We are working

to analyze and categorize the other aults and will have

additional inormation or you next month, but we be-

lieve that the initial December numbers were reasonable

or a project o this size and complexity and, actoring

out the one interace, were actually pretty good. I look

orward to providing you with more detailed inorma-

tion about the number, sources, and severity o aults, as

well as trends, next month.

Perception management o this kind can be valuable and

improves communication.

However, managing perceptions can be taken beyondsimply providing context. When this happens, it can damage

credibility.

Dubious Perception ManagementOne o the essential skills o a magician, con man, or un-

ethical marketer is masterul perception management. The ma-

gician does it to mislead you in the service o entertaining you.

(News fash: Magicians arent really doing magic. They con-

spire with a willing audience to put on a show that gives the

perception that magic is happening.) The rest o those proes-

sional perception managers are trying to mislead you or their

own benet, oten at your expense.What does it sound like when people are trying to manage

your perceptions and possibly mislead you? It oten involves

avoiding answering questions or answering questions that

werent asked.

Failureto answer Your Questions

Q: What are the consequences o the resources arriving

late?

A: The team is working very hard to keep the project on

track.

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You might imply rom this answer that the project remains

on track, but that isnt really what was said, was it? The ques-

tion about resource issues has not been addressed.

Deecting or Redirecting Your AttentionQ: Have you been tracking the requency and severity o

the quality problems reported with the requirements

document?

A: Although there were early issues with the document, we

have instituted changes to our review process that we

believe will streamline review going orward. I wouldlike to get your ideas about how others do this kind o

review.

My guess is that the answer is No, we havent been

tracking. However, it could be more troubling. The answer

might be Yes, and it was initially so terrible that we are

avoiding discussing it and are doing what we can to resolve

the issue beore the inormation becomes public. Notice how

both o these possible answers provide more inormation than

the answer received. Notice the subtle change in subject.

The Were Doing It by the Book (WhatsYour Problem?) Non-AnswerQ: Im concerned that your monthly status reporting to

the executive team seems to exclude important quality

and risk inormation. Are there other mechanisms you

are using to keep senior management in the loop about

these issues?

A: Our status reporting is consistent with organizational

standards, and the executives havent expressed any

concerns with the content or ormat.

Notice how the response doesnt really address the question

and implies a challenge to the validity o the inquiry?

Anyone who was ever a teenager recognizes this type o eva-

sion and obuscation in the more blatant orms. Most savvy

parents learn to recognize these shenanigans. As a magician,

I can tell you that there are more subtle ways o manipulating

peoples perceptions that require more practice to detect.

The Magicians ChoiceSometimes, when a magician appears to give you a choice, it

isnt really a choice at all. I it generally appears to be a choice,

that is oten sucient.

Q: Can we please review the risk log and the budget reports

this aternoon?

A: Great. You may only have time to review one, though.

Where would you like to start?

Q: Can we start with the risk log?

A: Im araid the risk database is down today. Perhaps we

should start with the budget, and we can schedule the

risk log or your next visit.

Notice that there was about a 50 percent chance that theact that the risk log wasnt available would not come up.

Heres a suggestion: Dont try this. When it works, it works

well. When it ails, it oten wont go undetected and will be

taken or outright dishonesty.

SummaryI think the project manager Im working with is well in-

tentioned but a little green. I intend to work with him to get

past what I take as clumsy attempts to manage my perceptions,

which I currently attribute to deensiveness rather than malice.

Im aware that when Im participating in project reviews,

people are sometimes anxious about what I will nd and howI will characterize it. What is challenging or me to commu-

nicate is that reviewers like me dont expect perection. Com-

plex projects always have issues. Reviewers look or the project

manager to have a handle on where the issues are and a plan to

address them. When I eel like someone is trying to manage my

perceptions, it is a red fag that drives down credibilityprob-

ably the opposite reaction o what was intended.

I you are interested in more inormation about the per-

ception management methods o con men and magicians, you

might nd the book The Right Way to Do Wrongby Harry

Houdini (yes, thatHarry Houdini) to be a ast and amusing

read.{end}

[email protected]

Sometimes, when a magician appears to give you a choice,

it isn't really a choice at all. If it generally appears to be a choice,

that is often sufficient.

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"I want to live my lie taking the risk all the time that I

dont know anything like enough yet. That I havent un-

derstood enough. That I cant know enough. That I am

always hungrily operating on the margins o a potentially

great harvest o uture knowledge and wisdom. I wouldnt

have it any other way. Christopher Hitchens [1]

Inspired by Hitchens, Id like to contrast two ways o

looking at sotware testing. The rst is straightorward, pre-

dictable, and repeatable, while the second is wild, dangerous,

and perhaps a little bit scary. Ater explaining both, Ill provide

some tips and guidelines to help steer testing in an environment

that is constantly changing and chaotic.

Example 1: ProcessCorpProcessCorp, a large enterprise operating in twenty states,

was in the middle o a transition rom a waterall approach

to Scrum. For ProcessCorp, the test process was straightor-

ward. Any given story had acceptance criteria. Testers took

the acceptance criteria and turned it sideways, creating test

cases that operated at the click-type-click-expect level o detail.When the build was ready, the tester would create a test run

to record results.

In the world o ProcessCorp, bugs came rom one place:

Test runs did not comply with expected results and could be

traced to acceptance criteria. Test automation and training

on the application were easy, because anyone could automate

the cases and, likewise, anyone could run the tests to get up to

speed on the sotware.

Example 2: AdaptiveCorpAnother company, roughly the size o ProcessCorp, with

something like a hal dozen development teams spread over sixcities and two continents, AdaptiveCorp was also starting with

something like Scrum and adapting it.

Instead o viewing specications as the source o truth, the

sta at AdaptiveCorp viewed them as a source o truthas i,

at some point, they decided to stop investing time in arguing

about what they were building, wrote down the inormation as

best they knew it, and started working. In this model, deects

are very dierent. Instead o coming rom the requirements,

a bug is, as Michael Bolton has said, anything that bugs

someone that matters. [2]

Dierences and SimilaritiesAt ProcessCorp, bugs are easy. I the requirements say

that the button should be Cancle and the developer wrote

Cancel, well, le the bug and ail the test run. Sure, it looks

like a typo, but the requirements are the source o truth, and

the bug will at least orce the conversation among the decision

makers.

At AdaptiveCorp, everyone is a decision maker. The com-

pany takes the risk that the whole team can use their judgment

and skill to gure out the right thing to do in the moment, in

trade or the reward that decisions and xes are much aster.

Now please dont laugh about ProcessCorp and tell me

that it is not a real company or that I am making a straw

man argument. This is the way a real client recently explained

testing to me and, while we may be tempted to mock it, Pro-

cessCorp oers real answers to the questions What is a bug?

and Where does a bug come rom? AdaptiveCorp does not;

it requires us to develop a method that may change over time.

Now, Ive painted these as two polar opposites because they

represent two dierent ways o thinking, but the way people

actually act is usually not black and white. At ProcessCorp,

testers oten perorm exploratory testing to get results to the

programmers ast. They may nd hal the deects through an

exploratory process. Likewise, they are quick to admit that the

documentation oten ails to cover all combinations o the user

interace and that something is happening to help people

gure out whether an undocumented behavior is actually a bug

or an unplanned, logical consequence.

Where Do Bugs Come From?When I view sotware in a dierent browser and it overlaps

so that I cant read the page, its obviously a bug. No require-

ments document told me that. It just seems sort o obvious.So, how do I know it is a bug? Where did that come rom, and

how do we know?

I have a very simple suggestion: Bugs come rom an incon-

sistency between the sotware and some expectation. In other

words, the sotware is somehow dierent rom what we ex-

pect. As critical thinkers, we seek out those dierences and

then attempt to gure out i they matter. One term or this is a

consistency heuristica heuristic being an imperect method

to solve a problem, or a rule o thumb. Here are a ew o the

more obvious ones we use every day but rarely think about:

Inconsistency with requirements: The obvious one. We

have examples or denitions o what the sotware should do,and it does not do it.

Inconsistency with past experience: The last time I used the

product, it did not do this. The requirements or the eature

have not changed, and now it does something dierent.

Inconsistency with language rules: I know how cancel

should be spelled, and this aint it. I I look hard enough, I

could nd the right way to spell it in a dictionary or the Holt

Handbook or grammar.

Inconsistency with user-interface standards: Open,

Save, and Save As ... should go below File, which

should be at the top let. I just know this. Again, i I tried hard

enough, I could nd a reerence or you, but I dont need one.

Inconsistency with comparable products: When we were

making an online spreadsheet at Socialtext, one o our simpler

tests was to see i a ormula gave us the same answer in Mi-

crosot Excel and in our product. Beyond simple eature-or-

eature comparison, many products have metaphors you can

borrow rom, such as how resizing should behave.

Inconsistency with claims: When companies talk about a

product, they oten reer to promises about uptime, crashes,

and reliability. Any time we nd that the sotware is inconsis-

tent with those claims, we may have a problem. I the company

hasnt made any claims, getting them down is just a matter o

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having a conversation with a decision maker about what the

customer experience should be like.

Oten, the claims are implied. We may derive customers

should never crash the web browser rom a vague claim that

quality is job number one and may internalize our job as

testers as making sure that a web browser crash never happens.

For a great deal more on where bugs come rom during

improvisation, I recommend James Bachs Heuristic Test

Strategy Model. [3] Parimala Hariprasads blog post The

Power o Mnemonics [4] also outlines many popular collec-

tions o these heuristics.

But, What Do the Testers at AdaptiveCorpActually Do?

What the testers at AdaptiveCorp actually do is improvi-

sation. For any piece o work, they meet with the customers

and developers to agree on some minimal examples o passing

tests. The company calls them acceptance tests but they are

more like rejection teststhings that have to pass in order

or it to be worth having a human exploratory tester take a

look at things.Then, the testers have a piece o work called test the sot-

ware. To accomplish this, they pull out a whole list o test

ideas rom a bag and actually use the sotware, looking or in-

consistencies. Once they nd an inconsistency, they take steps

to resolve it, which may mean a conversation with a developer,

the product owner, other members o the team, or a customer

proxy. At some point in these conversations, the tester decides

whether this is a bug and signals to have it xed (or not).

On the surace, this looks like a messy, unrepeatable way to

develop sotware. The heuristics above are allible. The testers

need to work closely with the customers and business owners

to gure out whether an inconsistency matters. Actually suc-ceeding with an exploratory approach requires a great deal

o discipline and skill. Ater all, it relies on real, thinking hu-

mans to gure out what to test each time. It requires not only

that regression testing be more than mere script ollowing, but

also that the team to comes up with dierent approaches or

each build based on dierent risks. I some part o regression

checking is automated, then the automator will need to actually

understand the sotware instead o ollowing a pre-determined

script. It requires that all testers actually understand the sot-

ware and are trained. It is dierent, and change can be scary.

Also, it works.

Teams that ollow an adaptive approach shit what testers

spend time on, rom creating documentation to actually testing

the sotware. This change allows the team to move aster. By

altering what is tested with each build, adaptive teams increase

the overall test coverage o the application. (Spending a greater

amount o time actually testing helps, too.) Encouraging im-

provisation allows the testers to see the whole boardi.e.,

to consider risks outside the scope o a specically crated

requirements document. It also orces conversations that can

uncover risks and consequences that testers could never nd

working o a script.

Testers at AdaptiveCorp dont nd their value in ollowing

For more on the ollowing, go towww.StickyMinds.com/bettersotware.n Reerences

a script that must be completed to call a phase done. Instead,

they nd value in helping to get a product to market. Without

specic direction, they need to nd the best way to do that.

The bet that AdaptiveCorp makes is that those people,

in the moment, know better how to invest their time than

someone else who weeks or months ago wrote a script. The bet

is that by documenting what to test rather than how, the team

will create documentation that is cheaper, less brittle, and pos-

sibly more valuable.

It is also a bet I would make any day o the week. In a very

real way, I have staked my career on it.

Moving Toward AdaptiveI your company thinks more like ProcessCorp, then I sug-

gest you try an experiment. First, to the bottom o your test

cases, add an exploratory section that contains general advice

on what to attack. Over time, compare the type o bugs that

all out o the test cases versus the exploratory testing and de-

termine whether the exploratory section would have ound the

bugs that the scripting tests ound. Second, propose not doing

test cases at all in avor o charters, which describe what to testinstead o how.

I you work more like AdaptiveCorp, look or opportunities

to experiment with the how much o exploration. When I

was at Socialtext, we would occasionally tweak our regression

test process to ocus on the issues o the daya new browser

release, a critical new eature, or a major reactor. This allowed

us to change the coverage to address the risk prole. You may

nd that some types o stories (e.g., create, read, update, de-

lete) can do with less how documentation, while others (e.g.,

pasting o bullets and indents rom Microsot Word) could use

more. Dont look or a sweet spot o how much. Constantly

experiment.As I wrote earlier, my inspiration comes rom Christopher

Hitchens, who wanted to live his lie as i he did not know

enoughas i there were something new to discover about the

world and about the way he did his work. Thats kind o how I

eel about sotware testing. I may use scripts to save time, but I

want my work to heavily include exploration, adaptation, and

discovery. I wouldn't have it any other way. What about you?

{end}

[email protected]

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I

have alwaysbeen ascinated with creating methods

or efcient delivery, particularly during testing.In the 1990s, I was stretching my theories to the brink and

loving the ride. The adoption o evolutionary methods brought

about many solutions or better eciency, including the idea

to test smaller, more requently, and earlier. In todays age o

automation and complex integrated inrastructures, we oten

encounter the unresolved issue o how to get high-value testing

within the condensed time-to-market window.

Automated rameworks and modularized scripts provide

a partial solution, but they are not independently intelligent

enough to provide consistently high value or highly ecient

testing. To solve this, we need to select tests that require us to

examine what is needed to test within each unique increment,

THINK

STOCKPHOTOS.C

OM

cycle, or iteration. Every change, whether done or improve-

ment or remediation, presents an opportunity or the sotware

ecosystem (applications, browsers, web services, and vendorsotware) to ail. This results in a much greater need on our

part to perorm high-value testing.

High-value testing does not mean that you need to per-

orm all end-to-end testing or run the ull suite o tests. This

can potentially create a bottleneck and dampen the velocity.

To properly perorm high-value testing requires a precise and

oten unique test response or each new change, which entails

a medley o testing types, each working in concert to ensure

the quality goals. This is a modern-day necessity to ully ensure

the end-user experience, the ecosystem stability, and product

health.

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The goal is or you to create an intelligent testing trove

(security tests, unctional tests, data accuracy tests, peror-

mance tests, usability tests, interoperability tests, etc.) thatcan be succinctly arranged and rearranged across varying sets

o browsers, platorms, and hardware. This variety o intelli-

gent tests is scalable to varying business goals and marries the

quality categories to the unique business requirements to create

test goals. The adapting tests are always targeted at the most

relevant business and quality goals, which yield the most im-

portant results or the team to use or decision making.

Experience 1: Quality GoalsOne o my recent challenges involved a two-week sprint

with thirty-eight backlog items (including requested system

changes), o which most were small, ront-end UI changes to

multiple web applications. In this case, the test team executed

all the tests and perormed regression, and the sprint was giventhe green light. This was ollowed by an uneventul implemen-

tation.

To our chagrin, on the day ater implementation we re-

ceived a call rom an executive inorming us that one o the

two user proles was redirecting to a broken page ater login,

and the other had severe perormance issues, taking over three

minutes to authenticate the user. This particular login page and

process had not been changed by the recent implementation,

and our previous regression testing had only targeted the login

process o one user prole using test data. We did not test the

less-common user prole (which resulted in the broken page).

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This would have resulted in higher test eciency and better

test precision based on the goals o data accuracy, security, us-

ability, and content consistency.

Both o these experiences resulted rom misplaced testing

rigor, or the lack o intelligent test design because o low busi-

ness domain knowledge. Adaptive testing would have allowed

the teams to ocus on the greater goal o the changes and to

creatively ashion test solutions by combining and rearrangingtests, types o tests, browser and OS combinations, or hard-

ware congurations, according to the need in dierent envi-

ronments. For example, high-value tests or production may

encompass 40 percent usability (o both unctions and con-

tent), 30 percent interoperability (o critical user fows), 20

percent security (user authentication and data fows), and 10

percent perormance. It all depends on what the quality goals

are or that particular test run and environment. The testing

value shits with dierent changes and potentially with each

unique need o the code promotion.

Incorporating Adaptive Testing MethodsHere are a ew ways that I have ound to be successul in

incorporating adaptive testing methods to gain precision:

1. BecomeselF-adaPting.

Break out o the pre-dened test scope by creating versa-

tility and fexibility in your testing suite. You can do this by

engineering a fexible ramework that allows unique combina-

tions o small, executable tests and grouping test assets based

on quality goals. This will provide the ability to re-integrate

parts o stories (or test cases) into new, high-value runs. You

can dene the new executions by precise needs and execute

them in combination or independently. The core principle here

is the fexibility o test assets, which presents endless optionsor creative execution.

2. deFinethetestgoals.

Most testing, whether agile or not, requires pre-planned

executions, which are largely categorized into either new

change or regression testing o existing unctionality.

This traditional separation o test eort hinders the creative

blending o testing types and methods. With adaptive methods,

you can drive the testing based on the goals, regardless o

whether it is new change or existing change. By combining

meaningul tests together into a logical fow o quality-based

goals, you can accomplish testing o the new delta along withadditional regression coverage under the theme o the test

goal. Commonly used goals include usability, integration and

interoperability, user and data security, data accuracy, and

brand testing.

3. adaPtdata-driventesting.

You should support your test selections with data and

analytics o past-run metrics, user analytics, and test-ailure

analysis. This will allow the team to clearly see testing needs

and dene test goals. For example, user analytics might reveal

that 60 percent o your customers used a tablet device to access

When constructing the initial user stories and tests, we

knew that the login process was a critical path and should be

included in regression. But, we had designed stories or general

login with test data since it seemed stable in the test environ-

ment. As we learned, however, 70 percent o the generated rev-

enue was connected to this line o business, and the production

environment was conclusively dierent, which could render

some o our test results useless.In the retrospective meeting, it was clear to me that a ew

key areas were being underserved, resulting in a growing

problem. For one thing, the testing value was beneath the

quality need, meaning that the best test results did not accu-

rately predict the system behavior or condently indicate that

the business goals would be met in production. Ater I digested

this premise, the exact root cause o the issues was less rele-

vant, because we didnt have a process that would allow us

to detect errors let or right o the established regression. The

established regression comprised previously created user stories

and tests.

The regression suite was enormously inecient and took

two to three days to execute. The thought o having such an

ineective, time-expensive process boggled my mind. The pro-

duction problem was revealed to be a service breakdown be-

tween the content management system (production instance

only) and the middleware, which would have never been caught

due to the established coverage gap and lack o testing in the

production environment. From this, I concluded that there was

a potential o ongoing deect migrations into production as

well as unknown issues residing in the production environment

that were both just waiting to be encountered by a customer.

We could have used adaptive testing during production, as this

method would have created a ocus on quality goalsin this

case, critical process fows, usability, and content.

Experience 2: Unique Project NeedsUsing adaptive testing also would have been benecial in

another case o mine, when a nancial client added a new on-

line product to its services and rebranded old content in an e-

ort to create a better customer experience. During this project,

two decisions were made: We wanted to use a limited set o test

data that represented only a raction o users and unctions,

and we wanted to eliminate security testing rom the scope o

work. The testing eorts were rom local (decentralized) teams

that executed system, integration, perormance, and user ac-

ceptance tests on their allotted work stream. The end o theproject revealed a scattering o moderate to minor deects,

which were sanctioned as acceptable in production.

Upon release into production, major processing errors oc-

curred that displayed the wrong users account inormation

to users. This allowed an account holder to view and change

another account holders inormation. The decision to remove

security testing and usage o small-scale data limited the testing

and was solely based on controlling exorbitant testing costs.

I this team had employed adaptive testing, the use o smaller,

more precise tests could have been shared across teams, al-

lowing them to arrange tests per their unique project needs.

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[email protected] or 301.654.9200 ext. 403or additional inormation and registration details

www.alpi.com

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your site, and 40 percent o the existing customers use mobile

devices to post product opinions on social media. This data

tells you that the tablet presentation (usability and branding)

will be important to test, and the ease o launching to social

media rom a mobile phone (interoperability and perormance)

should also be precisely targeted by combining tests that ocus

on these areas.

4. PerFormevergreenmaintenance.

Continuous integration o the testing baseline is best or

adaptive testing, because you can rely on your test execution

selections to be relevant and up to date. You

dont want several generations o automation

or old test cases hanging around that can be

inadvertently selected or rendered inecient

by not being execution ready. Ongoing fuid

development, testing, and test-baseline integra-

tion (o retrospective eedback, production xes,

planned change, etc.) will decrease the need or

large maintenance windows and provide a oun-

dation or continuous testing.

5. extendtestingtoProductionand

BeYond.

Testing based on adaptive goals is valuable

across the entire liecycle and liespan; however,

the greatest benet can be seen during produc-

tion. The results o early cycle, preproduc-

tion testing can lead to a high-perorming live

product. The product owners will thank you

because you are assisting them with customer

retention. Technology sta will thank you or

providing aid in an accelerated discovery, x,and deploy cycle.

6. monitorandmeasure.

You should measure test velocity and preci-

sion by capturing test execution metrics and

comparing them to the test goals and the deect

types. Production monitoring and issue resolu-

tion should be ed into the test baseline and uti-

lized as a production quality metric. This can be

used to identiy potential areas o risk and aid

with test selection. Common metrics that indi-

cate quality and health include the number andcriticality o deect hotspots, the time between

deect identication and recovery time, and the

time between test execution and test goal com-

parisons.

The Simple TruthAdaptive test methods create fuid and con-

tinuous testing, which in turn provides a orce

o adaptive patterns and relevant results. Testing

can no longer be dened by an infexible, un-

changeable, one-toned unction o test execu-

tion. What were once called regression, perormance, and se-

curity tests are now combined needs that can be incorporated

into a standard testing process. This method serves best when

done in a lightweight and sel-adapting way. Adaptive testing

provides nimble test solutions that bend and shit with the

changing needs o the market or the environment.{end}

[email protected]

This article frst appeared on AgileConnection.com.
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