S11-1001: Guided Exploratory Testing with Checklists and Testlists

Track: Test Process

Checklists are great. They have clear and quantifiable benefits in industries such as medicine and aviation. They are considered so important that their usage is part of the training in those industries. Software testers have also adopted checklists as a reliable artifact for documenting test cases and test results. Another approach is to use the checklist as a thinking tool and ask what we can do to enhance its usefulness given that premise. In this session, Adam challenges the first part of the word, “check”, and promotes replacing it with “test” to better emphasize the use of the humble checklist as a linchpin for planning, organizing, performing and continually improving testing. Adam will describe the steps to to evolve the checklist into a testlist to construct a testmap complete with useful information to aid the explorer-tester in providing quality data to product/program management and solution providers. Through examples of use on projects and in operations, Adam will highlight the role of the testlist/testmap in building continual improvement momentum after the first release to production, and how to use it to satisfy the needs of enterprise processes such as ITIL-oriented change and release management.


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Session Speaker:

Adam GerasAdam Geras – Senior Consultant, Ideaca Knowledge Services
Adam Geras is a researcher, coach, and speaker for those that test software. He specializes in systems delivery methods, particularly methods that enhance communications within teams. Most recently Adam has been adapting agile principles and methods to large-scale test management services for enterprise programs and projects. Adam has worked in IT for over 20 years initially as a developer and architect and over the last 8 years, quality assistant, test manager and coach to large projects. He has a Bachelor of Computer and Electrical Engineering from the University of Manitoba (1989) and a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the University of Calgary (2004). Adam has two children under two and is enjoying them immensely.