BBST Foundations and BBST Bug Advocacy

Last November, I completed the four week course of BBST Foundations. The course focussed on the different terminology, bug, mission, oracle, heuristic, different types of testing and so on. It was definitely a hectic four week - each week taking as much as 35-45 hours. Remember, this is after the office hours and even more hectic to someone not used to online lecture assisted courses.

The course was interesting: there used to be few exercises, assignments, videos by Dr. Cem Kaner, quizzes and peer reviews. I liked the group assignments the most. Our group had a member each from Dubai, India and London. The different timezones made the assignments even more challenging and interesting.

After few weeks, I received an email confirming that I had successfully completed the course. I was happy on receiving the email. So, the next step was to take up the BBST Bug Advocacy Course. This course was supposed to be tougher than the Foundations.
I had two slots for this course. March and May. I registered for the May 23rd batch.
The course duration was May 23rd - June 21st.

How was the course?

It lived to its expectations. It required more time, effort compared to the Foundations course. The Bug advocacy course focussed more on how to see the bug.

How effective is your bug report? Can you get the right bugs fixed?

Do you understand the objections for fixing a bug? Some more questions were answered.

I should say, I learnt a lot in the Bug Advocacy course when compared to Foundations course. Or I could apply the learning immediately at my workplace seems better.

One of the highlights of the Bug advocacy course was a heuristic for bug investigation.

RIMGEA:

Replicate

Isolate

Maximize

Generalize

Externalize

And report it in a neutral tone.

This course too had its own share of exercises, peer reviews, quizzes, assignments, group assignments, videos and finally an exam.

In this course, the videos described on how to

• Investigate an issue
• Write a bug report
• Be persuasive in your bug-reporting
• Increase your credibility

If you have problems in replicating issues you find, your relationships with other stakeholders is weak, you want to improve your bug hunting, bug investigation and bug reporting skills, the BBST Bug Advocacy Course might help you. It is no magic pill to solve your testing problems. It can help you solve the problems quickly.

I completed the course on June 21st and today I received an email with a pdf attachment that read:

I'm taking small steps towards my skill improvement. What are you waiting for?