The context driven testing community

At the recent Let's Test Oz conference, James Bach presented a model of the context driven testing community. His diagram showed the community split across three levels of engagement where an "inner circle" contained those capable of deep intellectual exchange; committed innovators and philosophers.

James talked about the community in his signature blunt manner, with straightforward language of cliques, pretenders and lobbyists. He assigned the task of niceties to a greeter, the friendly face of welcome, and coupled these people with guides, who identify and elevate people with potential.

James spoke plainly of an exclusive and elitist culture; by definition 'a select group that is superior in terms of ability or qualities to the rest of a group or society'. I believe that James is comfortable in this type of environment, which is similar to the way that he described the ISST on Twitter earlier this year:

@badbud65 I like exclusivity. I want to exclude people who aren't serious enough. It's okay if you don't like that. You can have YOUR club.
— James Marcus Bach (@jamesmarcusbach) June 14, 2014

My concern is that this rhetoric of exclusion and elitism creates the impression that the context driven testing community is actually a crowd, a commotion, or even a cult.

I believe the community has grown beyond a central clique. I would like to see it represented in a more inclusive way. I see a group of people that are interested in furthering their professional skills; where intent rather than commitment is the ticket to entry.

As such, I'd like to see us adopt an inclusive model:

If it looks a bit like I turned things inside out, then you're on the right track. Let me explain.

Someone with no knowledge of context driven testing is likely to encounter a leader of the community first. These are the people with the greatest reputation and professional presence. To a newcomer, these leaders may appear to be offering a lone dissenting opinion.

Consequently, the leaders of the community are not hidden at its center. They are the public face of context driven testing, and most likely to be approached by those who are eager to learn more. I am certain that James is dealing with more enquiries about context driven testing every day than I am!

Rather than expecting a greeter to welcome people, a path should be marked so that anyone in the community can simply direct the newcomers to this route. I believe there are a common set of first steps that any person with an intent to learn more about context driven testing may take. These should be known and accessible.

This model suggests six ways that people become involved with the community:

• Readers - start reading testing articles and magazines, e.g. Testing Trapeze
• Followers - subscribe to context driven testing blogs or follow the Twitter accounts of people who are active in the community
• Viewers - watch a testing presentation or conference talk online
• Event Attendees - participate in a local testing MeetUp group or attend a testing conference, e.g. Let's Test 
• Students - attend a training course on context driven testing, e.g. Rapid Software Testing
• Inexperienced Practitioners - try a new testing practice in your workplace, e.g. visual test coverage modelling

Newcomers should feel from the very beginning that they have walked into the middle of an inclusive environment. Rather than joining the outer edge of an intellectual clique, they are in the midst of a sphere of possibility. This model offers clarity in the growth and progression that is possible within the context driven testing community.

Commitment and reputation are implicit in the layers of the model. From the center, where people are consumers of information, a person may progress to participating in the community with an active voice.

Contribution is naturally associated with challenge, as by expressing an opinion there's a chance that others will disagree with it. The community ethos is that "no one is entitled to an unchallenged opinion". I simply suggest we move the challenge from our doormat and place it at a point where people are better prepared to respond appropriately.

Finally, the strength of the community is wider than researchers, philosophers, and innovators. Those who are truly committed will naturally aspire to the highest levels, but in a variety of contexts. There are many opportunities, and most of those who operate at this level will happily assist others that want to develop as leaders.

The context driven testing community should articulate the ways in which people can join, market the opportunities for personal development, and encourage newcomers to grow the craft. Creating an inclusive model of the community is a first step in demonstrating the nature of a group that has grown beyond an elite club.

Test Leadership

Fiona Charles began her Test Leadership tutorial at Let's Test Oz by sharing, in her own words, a definition of leadership from Jerry Weinberg:

Leaders create a space where people are empowered to do their best work 

She then offered her own version of this definition, which differed only by one word:

Leaders create a space where people are inspired to do their best work 

This set the scene for an interactive tutorial that provided clarity about how leaders are defined, how they act, and how they grow.

Defining a leader

The first exercise asked us to reflect on our experiences with testing leaders. In small groups, we were asked to share our stories, and discuss the skills and strengths that these leaders possessed.

I heard about:

• a leader who could accurately assess the abilities of those around them and determine which tasks each person would find interesting, challenging, or rewarding.
• a leader who worked out how to successfully motivate people so that they became driven to seek knowledge and achieve independently.
• a leader who could link people together, within organisations and further afield, creating mutually beneficial relationships where none had previously existed.

I thought that the experiences of my group could be summarised by one word; connection. In each example it seemed that the leader was creating connection; between people and tasks, between people and what motivated them, or simply between people.

When it came time for the class to share, it became apparent that we had focused on identifying the actions of leaders rather than the behaviours that they possess. Fiona prompted us to think more about the characteristics being demonstrated. 

In my group, connection was what these leaders did, but how did they do it? With thought, I saw that the three stories shared above had illustrated leadership that was perceptive, persuasive, and astute.

From the long wishlist of attributes for leadership that emerged from the class, I noted three other traits that resonated with me; courage, intuition, and flexibility.

Being a leader

The next exercise saw the class split into two groups that were each set a challenge: to invent a test leadership problem that the other team would be required to solve. We were given 45 minutes, with one member of each group acting as an observer.

Fiona then lead a classroom discussion on the group dynamics that had appeared within each team during the exercise. The team members had an opportunity to share their observations, followed by the nominated observers. It was interesting to hear the class reflect on how leaders had emerged.

In both groups, the people that the group identified as leaders were those who spoke first. They were also the people who were first to pick up a pen to start recording the thoughts of the group. I found myself being labelled as a leader, but felt cheated that this was simply through a series of actions rather than any specific personal attributes that I held.

In the second half of this exercise each team received their problem, then worked to solve it while the other team observed. In both teams the leadership dynamic shifted from the first half of the exercise as those who had originally been labelled as leaders, myself included, made a conscious effort to avoid adopting the role again.

My most striking observation from the latter part of this exercise was that the environment in which we collaborate is very important.

The first team set up two lines of chairs that faced towards an individual at a flip chart who took notes. Communication between this group largely traveled back and forth from the single individual at the front of the room. The leader was the person who literally lead the discussion from the front.

The second team set up a circle of chairs so that everyone faced each other. Communication between this group was more collaborative, in that people felt they were speaking to each other instead of the note taker. A single leader was harder to identify, as many people had equal contributions to the conversation and conclusions of the team.

Growing a leader

We finished the tutorial with an opportunity to reflect on what we had learned. As we sat in silence I realised something that has been eluding me for months; why people have started to call me a leader. I have felt confused that, even though I haven't consciously changed anything about myself, this label had appeared.

This tutorial clearly demonstrated to me that people see leadership as actions. Speaking first. Taking the pen. To be seen as a leader, all you need to do is start doing. When you act like a leader, the label of leader naturally follows.

However, Fiona lead me to realise that it is the characteristics of a leader that distinguish good from bad. Our personal attributes are what separate a courageous action from a stupid one, an intuitive response from an indecipherable one, or a flexible plan from a fickle one.

To grow as a leader, I need to identify the personal attributes behind my leadership actions. It is those characteristics that I should look to develop further in order to feel truly comfortable in a leadership role.

Heuristics and Oracles

Heuristics and oracles may seem like inaccessible concepts for new testers. The words sound academic, removed from the reality of what a tester does every day. In fact they are immensely useful tools for critical thinking.

What are heuristics and oracles, and why should you learn more about them?

Heuristics

Imagine that I want to eat a pickle. My pickles are stored in a large glass jar. In my household the last person to eat a pickle was my husband. He has closed the jar tight. On my first attempt I fail to open it.

What do I do next?

I check that I'm turning towards the left to loosen the lid and try again. Then I retrieve a tea towel to establish a better grip when twisting the lid of the jar. Finally, in some frustration, I go and locate my husband. He successfully opens the jar.

When faced with a jar that will not open there are a number of things that I know are worth trying. These are my jar opening heuristics. When I am instructed to test a software application there are a number of things that I know are worth trying. These are my test heuristics.

Heuristics are simply experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. [Ref.] 

Every tester will have their own set of heuristics that guide their testing every day. These are innate and developed through experience. The value of learning more about heuristics is in discovering how other people think, and becoming capable of describing our own thinking.

When I run out of inspiration during my testing, there are numerous heuristics that might prompt my next move. Rather than relying on my own brain, two of my favourite resources list a variety of techniques to apply based on the experiences of other testers. These are:

• Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet Elisabeth Hendrickson
• Heuristic Test Strategy Model James Bach

This insight into how others think allows me to introduce variety in my own approach. Instead of consistently finding the same sort of bugs, I broaden my horizons. It's like a single person adopting the mantra of "two heads are better than one". James Lyndsay illustrates this difference with a nifty visualisation in his blog post Diversity matters, and here's why.

Heuristics also give me the words to describe my testing. When questioned about how I discovered a bug my response had always been a nonchalant shrug; "I just played with it". Heuristics changed the way I communicated my testing to others. Once I could clearly articulate what I was doing I gained credibility.

Oracles

Imagine that I go to lunch with a friend. I enter a restaurant at 12pm on Thursday. After an hour enjoying a meal, I leave the restaurant at 1pm on Friday. Although I have experienced only one hour, the world around me has shifted by a day.

How do I know there's a problem here? 

I may have several notifications on my mobile phone from friends and family wondering where I am. I may have a parking ticket. I may spot somebody reading a Friday newspaper.

There are a number of ways in which I might determine that I have skipped a day of my life. These are my time travelling oracles. There are a number of ways in which I might determine that I have discovered a bug in a software application. These are my test oracles.

Oracles are simply the principle or mechanism by which we recognise a problem. [Ref.]

The test oracles that I consciously use most often are those described by Michael Bolton in Testing without a Map. This article describes the original mnemonic of HICCUPPS; history, image, comparable products, claims, user expectations, product, purpose, and statutes. The list has since been extended, which Michael describes in his blog post FEW HICCUPPS.

When I find a bug during my testing I always consider why I think that I have found a bug. I don't like to cite my "gut feeling" or claim "it's a bug because I said so!". Oracles help me to discover the real reason that I think there is a problem.

Knowing my oracle means that I can clearly explain to developers and business stakeholders why the users of the application may agree that I have found a bug. This means that I am much more effective in advocating for the bugs I raise, so they usually result in a change being made.

If I cannot associate the problem with an oracle, then it makes me question whether I have really found a problem at all. I believe this self-imposed litmus test removes a lot of noise from my bug reporting.

Ten things to read after Agile NZ

I've just spent a great two days at Agile NZ. There were plenty of great speakers who gave me a lot to ponder. Here's a collection of ten articles that reflect the stories, tools, and ideas that I will take away from the conference.

Note that although I've referenced the speaker who introduced me to the material, in most cases they didn't specifically endorse the articles that I have linked to.

The US B-2 bomber crash in Guam [3 minute read]
A cautionary tale of edge case system use and communication failure.
Speaker: Gojko Adzic

Single-Loop and Double-Loop Learning Model [3 minute read]
An explanation of the two ways that we can learn from our experiences.
Speaker: Steph Cooper

The Ladder of Inference [10 minute read]
Examines how we reach conclusions, can be used to improve communication.
Speaker: Steph Cooper

Shifting from unilateral control to mutual learning [20 minute read]
Explains the characteristics of two mental models; unilateral control and mutual learning.
Speaker: Steph Cooper

Shu-Ha-Ri [3 minute read]
A way of thinking about learning techniques.
Speaker: Craig McCormick

Visual Test Modelling [10 minute read]
An examination of how to approach the creation and evolution of a Visual Test Model.
Speakers: Adam Howard & Joanna Yip

OODA Loop [10 minute read]
The process that defines how humans react to stimulus; observe, orient, decide, act.
Speaker: Bruce Keightley

The Palchinsky Principles [3 minute read]
Three principles for innovation.
Speaker: Gojko Adzic

Digital by Default Service Standard [10 minute read]
A set of criteria for digital teams building UK government services.
Speaker: Ben Hayman

6 Days to Air [3 minute read | 40 minute watch]
Learn about the six-day production schedule for writing, recording, and animating a South Park episode.
Speaker: Ben Ross

How to create a visual test coverage model

Creating a visual test coverage model to show test ideas in a mind map format is not a new idea. However it can be a challenging change in paradigm for people who are used to writing test cases that contain linear test steps. Through teaching visual modelling I have had the opportunity to observe how some people struggle when attempting to use a mind map for the first time.

Though there is no single right way to create a visual test coverage model, I teach a simple approach to help those testers who want to try using mind maps but aren't sure where to begin. I hope that from this seed, as people become confident in using a mind map to visualise their test ideas, they would then adapt this process to suit their own project environment.

Function First

The first step when considering what to test for a given function is to try and understand what it does. A good place to start a mind map is with the written requirements or acceptance criteria.

Imagine a story that includes developing the add, edit, view, and delete operations for a simple database table. The first iteration of the visual test coverage model might look like this:

Collaborate

Next consider whether all the behaviour of this function is captured in the written requirements. There are likely to be items that have not been explicitly listed. The UI may provide a richer experience than was originally requested. The business analyst may think that "some things just go without saying". There may be application level requirements that apply to this particular function.

Collaboration is the key to discovering what else this function can do. Ask a business analyst and a developer to review the mind map to be sure that every behaviour is captured. This review generally doesn't take long, and a quick conversation early in the process can prevent a lot of frustration later on.

Imagine that the developer tells us that the default design for view includes sort, filter, and pagination. Imagine that the business analyst mentions that we always ask our users to confirm before we delete data. The second iteration of the visual test coverage model might look like this:

Think Testing

With a rounded understanding of what the function does the next thing to consider is how to test it.

For people that are brand new to using a mind map, my suggestion is to start by thinking of the names of the test cases that they would traditionally scope. Instead of writing down the whole test case name, just note the key word or phrase that differentiates that case from others. This is a test idea.

Test ideas are written against the behaviour to which they apply. This means that tests and requirements are directly associated, which supports audit requirements.

Imagine that the tester scopes a basic set of test ideas. The third iteration of the visual test coverage model might look like this:

Expand your horizons

When inspiration evaporates, the next challenge is to consider whether the test ideas captured in the model are sufficient. There are some excellent resources to help answer this question.

The Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet by Elisabeth Hendrickson is a quick document to scan through, and there is almost always a Data Type Attack that I want to add to my model. The Heuristic Test Strategy Model by James Bach is longer, but I particularly like the Quality Criteria Categories that prompt me to think of non-functional test ideas that may apply. Considering common test heuristics can help achieve better test coverage than when we think alone.

Similarly, if there are other testers working in the project team ask them to review the model. A group of testers with shared domain knowledge and varied thinking are an incredibly valuable resource.

Imagine that referring to test heuristic resources and completing a peer review provides plenty of new test ideas. The fourth iteration of the visual test coverage model would have a lot of extra branches!

Lift Off!

From this point the visual test coverage model can be used in a number of ways; a base for structured exploratory testing using session based testing, a visual representation of a test case suite, a tool to demonstrate whether test ideas are covered by automated checks or testing, or as a radar to report progress and status of test execution. Regardless of use, the model is likely to evolve over time.

I hope that this process encourages those who are new to visual test coverage modelling to try it out.

Context Driven Change Leadership

I spent my first day at CAST2014 in a tutorial facilitated by Matt Barcomb and Selena Delesie on Context Driven Change Leadership. I thoroughly enjoyed the session and wanted to share three key things that I will take from this workshop and apply in my role.

Change models as a mechanism for feedback

The Satir Change Model shows how change affects team performance over time.

Selena introduced this model at the end of an exercise designed to demonstrate organisational change. She asked us each to mark on the model where we felt our team were at by placing an X mark at the appropriate point on the line.

Most of the marks were consistently placed in the integration phase. There were a couple of outliers in new status quo and a single person in resistance. It was a quick and informative way to gauge the feeling of a room full of people that had been asked to implement change.

I often talk about change in the context of a model, but had never though to use it as a mechanism for feedback; this is definitely something I will try in future.

Systems Thinking

Matt introduced systems thinking by talking about legs. If we were to consider each bone or muscle in the leg in isolation, then they would mean less than if we considered the leg as a whole.

Matt then drew a parallel to departments within an organisation. Where people are focused on their individual pieces, but not the system as a whole, then there is opportunity for failure.

Leaders focus on connections between parts and not just their piece of the system in isolation. @mattbarcomb on systems thinking. #CAST2014
— Katrina Clokie (@katrina_tester) August 11, 2014

Matt spoke about containers, differences, and exchanges (the CDE model by Glenda Eoyang [1]). These help identify the opportunities to manipulate connections within a complex system.

Containers may be physical, like a room, but they can also be implicit. One example of an implicit container that was discussed in depth was performance reviews, which may drive behaviour that impacts connections between individuals, teams and departments in both positive and negative ways.

Differences may include obvious differences like gender, race, culture, or language. It also includes subtle differences like the level of skill within a team. To manipulate connections you could amplify a difference to create innovation, dampen a difference to remove harmful behaviour, or choose to ignore a difference that is not important.

Exchanges are the interactions between people. One example is how communication flows within the organisation. Is it hierarchical via a management structure, or freely among employees? Another is when someone comes to work in a bad mood they can lower the morale of those around them. Conversely, when one person is excited and happy they can improve the mood of the whole team.

In our end of day retrospective, Betty took the idea of exchanges further:

"How does me being under pressure influence my team?" @bettyzakheim had a great takeaway that resonated. Stress creates stress. #CAST2014
— Katrina Clokie (@katrina_tester) August 11, 2014

How will I apply all this?

I have spent a lot of time recently focused on my team. When I return to work, I'd like to step back and attempt to model the wider system within my own organisation. Within this system I want to identify what containers, differences, and exchanges are present. From this I have information to influence change through connections instead of solely within my domain.

Fantastic Facilitation

Matt and Selena had planned a full day interactive exercise to take a group of 30 people through a simulated organisational change.

We started by becoming employees of a company tasked with creating wind catchers. The first round of the exercise was designed to show the chaos of change. I was one of many who spent much of this period feeling frustrated at a lack of activity.

At the start of round two, Erik Davis pulled a bag of Lego from his backpack. He usurped the existing chain of command in our wind catcher organisation to ask Matt, in his role as "the market", whether he had any interest in wind catchers made from Lego. As a result, a small group of people who just wanted to do something started to build Lego prototypes.

Matt watched the original wind catcher organisation start to splinter, and came over to Erik to suggest that the market would also be interested in housing. Being a much more appropriate and easy item to build from Lego, there was a rapid revolt. Soon I was one of around seven people who were working in a new start up, located in the foyer of the workshop area, building houses from Lego.

Enjoying being part of the Lego revolt with @erikld @achelleRay and @bennett_nj. Will be interesting to see what we ship. #CAST2014
— Katrina Clokie (@katrina_tester) August 11, 2014

There was a lot of interesting observations from the exercise itself, but as someone who also teaches I was really impressed by the adaptability of the facilitators. Having met Matt at TestRetreat on Saturday, I knew that he had specially purchased a large quantity of pipe cleaners for the workshop. Now here we were using Lego to build houses, which was surely not what he had in mind!

When I raised this during the retrospective, both Matt and Selena gave excellent teaching advice.

Selena said that when she first started to teach workshops, she wanted them to go as she had planned. What she had since discovered was that if she gave people freedom, within certain boundaries, then the participants often had a richer experience.

Matt expanded this point by detailing how to discover those boundaries that should not move. He tests the constraints of an exercise by removing and adding rules, thinking in turn about how each affects the ultimate goal of the activity.

As a result of this workshop I intend to challenge some of the exercises that I run. I suspect that I am not providing enough freedom for my students to discover their own lessons within the learning objective I am ultimately aiming to achieve.

Creating a common test approach across multiple teams

I was recently involved in documenting a test strategy for a technology department within a large organisation. This department runs an agile development process, though the larger organisation does not, and they have around 12 teams working across four different applications.

Their existing test strategy document was over five years old and no longer reflected the way that testers were operating. A further complication was that every team had moved away from the original strategy in a different direction and, as a result, there was a lack of consistent delivery from testers across the department.

To kick things off, the Test Manager created a test strategy working group with a testing representative from each application. I was asked to take a leadership role within this group as an external consultant, with the expectation that I would drive the delivery of a replacement strategy document. After an initial meeting of the group, we scheduled our first one hour workshop session.

Before the workshop

I wanted to use the workshop for some form of Test Strategy Retrospective activity, but the one I had used before didn't quite suit. In the past I was seeking feedback from people with different disciplines in a single team. This time the feedback would be coming from a single discipline across multiple teams.

As preparation for the workshop, each tester from the working group was asked to document the process that was being followed in their team. Though each documented process looked quite different, there were some commonalities. Upon reading through these, I decided that the core of the new test strategy was the high-level test process that every team across the department would follow, and that finding this would be the basis of our workshop.

I wanted to focus conversation on the testing activities that made up this core process without group feeling that other aspects of testing were being forgotten. I decided to approach this by starting the workshop with an exercise in broad thinking, then leading the group towards specific analysis.

When reflecting on my own observations of the department, and reading though the documented process from each application, I thought that test activities could be categorised into four groups.

1. Every tester, in every team in the department, does this test activity, or should be.
2. Some testers do this activity, but not everyone.
3. This test activity happens, but the testers don't do it. It may be done by other specialists within the team, other departments within the organisation, or a third party.
4. Test activities that never happen.

I wrote these categories up on four coloured pieces of paper:

At the workshop

To start the workshop I stuck these categories across a large wall from left to right.

I asked the group to reflect on what they did in their roles and write each activity on an appropriately coloured post-it note. For example, if I wrote automated checks for the middleware layer, but thought that not everyone would do so, then I would write this activity on a blue post-it note.

After five minutes of thinking, everyone got up and stuck their post-it notes on the wall under the appropriate heading. We stayed on our feet through the remainder of the session.

The first task using this information was to identify where there were activities that appeared in multiple categories. There were three or four instances of disagreement. It was interesting to talk through the reasoning behind choices and determine the final location of each activity.

Once every testing activity appeared in only one place we worked across the wall backwards, from right to left. I wanted to discuss and agree on the areas that I considered to be noise in the wider process so that we could concentrate on its heart.

NEVER

The never category made people quite uncomfortable. The test activities in this category were being consistently descoped, even though the group felt that they should be happening in some cases. There was a lot of discussion about moving these activities to the sometimes category. Ultimately we didn't. We wanted to reflect to the business that these activities were consistently being considered as unimportant.

OTHERS

As we talked through what others were doing, we annotated the activities with those who were responsible for it. The level of tester input was also discussed, as this category included tasks happening within the team. For example, unit testing was determined to be the developer's responsibility, but the tester would be expected to understand the coverage provided.

SOMETIMES

When we spoke about what people might do, most activities ended up shifting to the left or the right. Either they were items that were sometimes completed by the tester when they should have been handled elsewhere, or they were activities that should always be happening.

EVERYONE

Finally we talked through what everyone was doing. We agreed on common terminology where people had referred to the same activities using different labels. We moved the activities into an agreed end-to-end test process. Then we talked through that process to assess whether anything had been forgotten.

After the workshop

At the end of the hour, the group had clarity of how their individual approach to testing would fit together in a combined vision. The test activities that weren't common were still captured, and those activities outside the tester's area of responsibility were still articulated. This workshop created a strong common understanding within the working group, which made the process of formalising the discussion in a document relatively easy. I'd recommend this approach to others tasked with a similar brief.