Creating a master test plan not only consists of creating a draft MTP, doing a product risks analysis and creating the test strategy. You also have to estimate the project. In this post I describe how I do this. In January I asked Pradeep Soundararajan (@testertested) how he estimated test projects. He posted an blog on [...]

Hi friend J., Thank you for the opportunity to test your new application. It’s pleasure to see such a product from a totally new organization with a young entrepreneur like you. With your product you can support a lot of people that need your services, easily by asking it via internet. As you already know, we [...]

In 2008 I was attending a session for the Sogeti Test in Gouvieux. France. There I learned about standard testware. Standard testware should help companies to upgrade there outsourcing abilities for their clients. But the question was how this could be accomplished. My answer to this is by ‘tagging’. According to Wikipedia a tag is “In [...]

Sometimes testers make some assumptions, but hopefully they avoid them. This series of posts will show you some well-known pitfalls and assumptions that tester make. This third post describes assumptions about testing during lifetime. (post 1, post 2) The application react the same in production as in the test environment Some people assume that if you finished [...]

This post is a continuation of my first post about a lean MTP. Last week I had my second two days in filling in the test strategy and finalising my MTP. But first the response I got of my project leader about the first concept I send him. He most of all missed the DSDM [...]

Security testing is always very thankful, many defects, many examples for the trainer of a course. Sir Wilfred Grenfell once said: “Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile.” He mentioned this quote while he was helping others with medical support. But this quotation is also [...]

Many software testers I know are relatively young, just finished their study and haven’t much experience with complex business processes for example in the banking or pension business. And specially these people have to test, for instance the finance and insurance application of large banks and insurance companies. It looks like they are selected especially [...]

I just started a new assignment as a test manager. This assignment conducts in ‘write a mastertestplan (MTP) as fast as you can, so we can pass the QA check for the project’. I immediately started to think about a colleague of mine who is working on a ‘Quick MTP’. With this quick MTP he [...]

Security testing is often a risk based approach. The risks with the highest priority must be tested first because they caused the biggest danger for the business. There are a lot of approaches to rate these security risks. One of them is to classify them with the CIA-rating. CIA means confidentiality, integrity and availability. The end result [...]

Fellow Twit @testingqa recommended this article to me. It’s about how your brain hides facts from you. Even if these facts are the thruth. This also has its effect of the software development process. On how testers should look at the SuT, but even more important why developers don’t find defects. As a test manager I [...]

Last week the Dutch magazine Computable published an article of mine about how we should use new media to reach the new generation of software testers. In this article I express my opinion about how we can use the internets functionality, to teach a new generation of software testers. You can read the article here (this [...]

Last year I’ve written a post about the use of crowds while testing application: crowdtesting. And now I’m invited to present about this at the Swiss Testing Day on March, 17 of this year. I would like to share some more thoughts with you about this subject Alan Whitney Brown (American comedian) once said: “There are [...]

I wrote a column in Dutch for the Innovation Board Testing about testing techniques. Here you can find the translation. Please feel free to react. I’d like to know what you think about it. What is a testing technique? That question that comes to my mind when I’m asked to write something about testing techniques. According [...]

As the end of 2009 comes closer and closer it’s time for a little reflection on 2009. This my first full year as a business developer at the company Andréas and I work at. Last year I started in April and we had one assignment: ‘write a book about BDTM’. But this year started with [...]

Sometimes testers make some assumptions, but hopefully they avoid them. This series of posts will show you some well-known pitfalls and assumptions that tester make. This second post describes is about responsibilities. Assumption: The developer has performed all the technical checks In my opinion it’s the task of the developers to perform all the technical checks. Unfortunately [...]

Sometimes testers make some assumptions, but hopefully they avoid them. This series of posts will show you some well-known pitfalls and assumptions that tester make. This first post describes two things you can`t see if you only read the documentation or click throughout the application. The next one is about responsibilities. Galileo Galilei once said: “All [...]

I just read this quote by E.F. Schumacher: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Let’s have a touch of genius because our future systems are becoming more and more complex. [...]

A couple of weeks ago, Sogeti published the new version of TPI®, TPI ® NEXT. Reinder Otter wrote a summary on his blog about it. And if you want to know more about the new TPI read the information on http://tpinext .com. In this post I want to explain the meaning of the cover, as [...]

How can I as tester deliver an added value for my organization? Of course I check that the drawn up requirements and specifications are correctly processed in the software and that the software works correct. But more and more around me I see that this checking is rehabilitated. First there was the idea to automate [...]

Is the user acceptance test we perform, a real UAT? This question comes in my mind thinking about the three aspects of software testing, checking, exploring and accepting, that are mentioned in this post. Is the user acceptance test a test where we really execute an user acceptance test? I think it isn’t, because most [...]