Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Ajay of 2013 thanks 2013 and welcomes 2014.

Five more hours before the new year at Bangalore...
Five more lines before I end this blog post.
Thanks for everything that happened in 2013.
Thanks for every experience, I learned from and specially the ones, I couldn't learn from.
Thanks for the good health and wisdom to choose the right words.
Hope to live one more year of experiences, learning, caring and contentment.
Have the courage to give wings to your dreams before its too late.

Leia Mais…

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Let us support "State of Testing Survey 2013"

I support. Do you?
Website Link
Please click on the above link and extend your support.

Leia Mais…

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

The joy of bug hunting

A short post on what happened yesterday in office:
I and my friend Sanket Gagneja were involved in a paired testing session. We had two mobile devices with us. One of the devices had the app which acted as the oracle and the other had the test app.
I was keen on using the test app as I was new to this app. Sanket was testing this app since few days.
He was the note taker and would answer my questions.

I tapped on an icon, typed "test3" and tapped another icon. There appeared a popup with some text. I was reading in my mind and told to Sanket this line "Your development team has really done a good job" and then THE APP CRASHED.

We both looked at each other for a second and emailed the logs. I tried to replicate the issue and once the popup appeared, the app did NOT crash. I immediately pressed another button.

Sanket took over the device and tried the steps. Then, Sanket did something which made me very happy. He not only repeated the steps but went ahead and told the line "Your development team has really done a good job" and THE APP CRASHED.

He was smart enough to not get diverted and actually remembered the exact sentence and repeated it. It is not about remembering the exact sentence. It is more about being aware of what happened, what's happening and is this what is called as "Situational Awareness"?

PS: The app seemed to crash after 10 seconds of inactivity once the popup appeared and we took 10 secs on average to say that sentence.



Leia Mais…

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Agile Testing Days: Presentation Slides Explained

I was very happy to be at Agile Testing Days, 2013.
This is how I felt when I was leaving Potsdam, Berlin.
My promise on twitter:
And here are the slides explained. The complete slide deck can be found here.
Before I started the session, I showed most of the slides to the audience and a one-liner on what the slide is about. I then gave the option to choose some other session, if the audience did not like what will follow for next 45 minutes. This way, I would have wasted only 2 minutes of someone's time and not 45 minutes.

No one left after the quick overview of all the slides. 
This slide was on even before I started the session. I kept this slide to lighten the atmosphere. Most of the talks I have attended have the first slide with the topic name, presenter's name and maybe the company logo. 
To ensure that there were no red flags about my understanding of "Agile Testing", I used this slide. I did not read through the contents as it is already known to many. I highlighted that Agile Testing used "Agile Manifesto" as a guideline and customer satisfaction by delivering quickly is more important than following any process. When no one raised any red flag, I moved on to this slide:
With the above slide in background, I explained what Exploratory Testing is, how there are different definitions but highlight one common theme:
If the next test is influenced by learning from the previous test, you are applying exploratory testing approach.
I then- asked the audience on what they feel about Exploratory Testing. The whole group then came up with a list of words/topics. I played the role of note taker. The beauty of this exercise was each word/topic seemed to lead to a new word/topic.
Once we were done with Pros of Exploratory Testing (ET), we also discussed a bit on Cons of ET as per those who complain against ET.
The next slide, we focused on the ET skills, highlighted by Jon Bach.
There are some pre-requisites to do exploratory testing which can stand up to scrutiny. Everyone can test but is your testing valuable? Why do so many people reject ET and force testers to follow a scripted approach?
Good testing requires skill and good testers work on their skills.
As each link explains the myths in detail, I did not spend more time on this slide.
The following slide seems to need more explanation. Let me explain.
Skills:
Work on your skills. Do not just restrict to testing related skills. Learn from other disciplines. Spend time practicing the skills. Only those who work on the skills will survive.

Experience:
Experience matters a lot. Try to experience as many different contexts as possible. The varied experiences and the experience in a particular context  helps you think of different and useful test ideas which would help you in testing.

Customers/Context:
What is the use of any product if it does not solve customers' problems? Do you understand your customers and the context well enough to design your test strategy? I do understand that customers is one of the factors in context.

Risks:
My first question to the product owners and the programmers in my company: What is the biggest risk you feel with this feature? What are you worried about the most? The answers help me a lot in understanding the product and the project a bit more in detail.

Exploration:This is related to the "Experience" point. In any aspect of the project, pay additional attention to exploration path. Do not restrict it to just testing. Explore in the true sense - to investigate.


Testing:
Finally, a tester with good testing skills and who is skilled at Exploratory testing will be able to help any project and not just Agile testing projects. This tweet sums up the essence of my talk:


Last few slides are self explanatory. And here are some of the photos from twitter:
 

Finally, I ended my session with a call for questions. Hope this blog post serves the purpose of the session. I enjoyed the session where most of us were involved and shared thoughts. 
If you have any questions, feel free to email me at ajay184f@gmail.com

Regards,
Ajay Balamurugadas

Leia Mais…

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Agile Testing Days - Day 2: A mind map

Day 2: Agile Testing Days



Leia Mais…

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Agile Testing Days - Day 1: A mind map

Day1: Agile Testing Days
Tutorial I attended: http://www.agiletestingdays.com/program.php?id=297

“Compressing Test Time with Exploratory Methods: A Practicum”

Leia Mais…

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Free download - Software Testing Books

I published the first book on 16th Oct 2011 and till yesterday, I have sold more books than I initially expected to sell. So, thanks a lot.

And I did realize that many testers are still hesitant to pay 800 INR on testing books.
So, here is the deal:

Feel free to download the books for free.
Book 1: What If: A collection of tips from a software tester
Book 2: What If: 50+ tips to win testing contests
Book 3: What If: 50+ tips to boost your productivity
Book 4: What If: 50+ tips to improve tester-programmer relationship
Book 5: Mobile Testing: Ready Reckoner
Book 6: UI and UX Testing: Ready Reckoner

I don't want to upload a zip file and let it lie unzipped for months together.
I am aware of the risk that some of you might download and not read it any time as it is free.
This post is for those who wished to buy but cannot afford it at this moment.

Best Wishes
Ajay Balamurugadas

Leia Mais…

Saturday, July 20, 2013

(Free) Hands-On Training on Software Testing

Course Overview
Update: The seats have been filled and registrations have closed. Thanks.
This time, I am conducting this course in collaboration with STeP-IN Forum and the target audience is testers with experience between 0 - 3 years.

Schedule:
Date: August 1st to August 30th (excluding weekends)
Time: 06.00 am to 07.30 am IST
Link to Register for the course: http://stepinforum.org/software-testing-training

Course Overview:
As highlighted in the mind map, this training will focus on the following topics:

Basics of Software Testing
We will start with understanding the basic terms like bug - issue - quality - defect. We will definitely NOT go through V-Model, Waterfall and many other such terms which is slowly losing out its importance in today's testing world.

Test Ideas
This session will focus on how to generate test ideas, learn from different sources to test any product. We will also know that software testing is not only about testing Functionality.

Bug Hunting
There is no fun without bugs. So, how do we find them? How is bug investigation different from bug hunting? How to find Sev 1 bugs?

Tools
We will definitely be using many tools in our sessions. We will also focus on how to scout for resources and tools in particular.

Test Reporting
Once a tester completes the test execution, (s)he should be able to provide a professional test report. We will create different reports and get feedback from the group.

Generic
Does your learning stop after a course or workshop? How can one learn about software testing every day? We will go through few important areas for self-learning.
=====================================================================
Link to Register for the course: http://stepinforum.org/software-testing-training

Leia Mais…

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Thanks. 7 years of software testing

July 17th 2013, I complete seven years of testing software.

Leia Mais…

Sunday, July 7, 2013

STeP-In: Done. Next Generation Testing Conference: In Progress

The STeP-IN conference started on 18th June and the closing ceremony was on 21st. I received the Best Speaker award for my hands on tutorial on "Mindmaps: A powerful testing tool to aid testing thought process"

After STeP-IN, its time for World Conference on Next Generation Testing by Unicom.


I am excited to be part of this conference for multiple reasons.

This is the first time, I am conducting a paid workshop on Exploratory Testing. Details about the workshop are here (Click on the Agenda tab). This is a one-day workshop and you can register here. The speaker list is impressive. I have known many of the speakers for quite a few years now.

I take this opportunity to let you know of three reasons why one should attend this conference:

Reason 1: The Experience & Knowledge
If you have never attended any conference till date and you are working in software testing industry, I would say that its too late. You need to experience the conference atmosphere. Better late than never. Get started. Once you attend, you will know about different contexts other than the one at your office. You would also know that you can present in next conference too.

Reason 2: Build your Network
It is good to know that others share your passion or have interests just like your team. The problems faced by your team are already solved by some other teams. You may never know whom your company might hire in next three months or which domain interests you after six months. The bigger your network, higher your chances.

Reason 3: Good Investment
When I started my career in software testing, I paid one-fourth of my salary for a half day workshop. Friends called me crazy but the investment paid off big time. My perspective on software testing changed. And today, I have reached a state where I would conduct a paid workshop. Do not wait for your employer to pay for your learning. Invest in self-learning and reap the benefits soon.

I will be available at Le Méridien from 10th to 12th July. See you there.

Leia Mais…

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Mind maps at STeP-IN Summit 2013. See you there.

One of the highlights of participating in Weekend Testing sessions is that you get to see others test, their test reports and thought process to an extent. When I participated in sessions conducted by Europe chapter of Weekend Testing, I noticed that few test reports were in the form of mind maps. Darren McMillan was excellent in reporting with the help of mind maps. When I asked him to help me with mind maps, he wrote this beautiful blog post which soon became the go-to post for mind maps. I myself would have referenced this over thirty times.

Over the last two years, I have practiced and used mind maps to collect all sorts of information.
Starting from test ideas to book draft to bug investigation, I have gained a lot by using mind maps. I have also conducted workshops at Hyderabad and Chennai on usage of mind maps in testing. It was well-received. So when STeP-IN agreed to my topic of mind maps, I was happy. I see this as an opportunity to help more testers realize the power of mind maps and save a lot of valuable testing time.

Do attend STeP-IN Summit 2013?

 

I am presenting on mind maps on June 18th and there are other valuable presentations and workshops too. Hope to see you there. An overview of my presentation can be found here.

Any questions, feel free to ping me.


Leia Mais…

Friday, May 31, 2013

Release of two more books

We have a competition at office - a quarterly one. You are free to work on any idea for 24 hours. No meetings, no work, no deadlines. At the end of the day (which is usually a Friday), you get ready to present your idea and its implementation before the judges.

Book 1: Mobile Testing: Ready Reckoner
So, in the event held few days ago, I and my friend Sundaresan Krishnaswami wrote a book on Mobile Testing. We admire Jonathan Kohl's book 'Tap into Mobile Applications' a lot and have learnt a lot from the book. We needed a ready reckoner - a very short book and we created it based on our readings, testing experiences, competition experiences and feedback from other testers.

Each page is designed in such a way that an idea is explained with the help of a screenshot. We have also added the learning and resources link if necessary. As a tester or a mobile enthusiast, you can open any page and apply the idea immediately.
You can print the entire book and have it as a pocket calendar. The book size fits the pocket.


Book 2: UI and UX Testing: Ready Reckoner
This book is also in the ready reckoner format. A screenshot followed by explanation of the idea. Fits into pocket, go-to book before any testing competition or a quick reference when you run out of ideas.


Download from bit.ly/booksaj

Leia Mais…

Saturday, April 13, 2013

What is the difference between Smoke test and Sanity test

As testers, we ask a lot of questions. Sometimes, we need to answer a lot of questions too. Few days ago, I was asked the question:
"What is smoke and sanity testing and how is it connected with high level test cases?"
I asked why he wanted to know the answer and pasted the link to blog post by Michael Bolton:
http://www.developsense.com/blog/2011/11/smoke-testing-vs-sanity-testing/

I told them that it is much more important to practice testing and improve one's testing skills than know answers to such questions. When I mentioned about BBST, I was asked if BBST meant Behavior Based Software Testing. I was disappointed and emailed the tester my first book - 'What If... A collection of tips on software testing'. To my surprise, the tester had already bought this book. I was even more disappointed.

The next day, I received this email from the tester:

Since I have read this book before and at that time, I have just read it like other testing guides and have joined people just to ask my testing queries those were not for testing but was for interview preparations.

But after your advice , I have started reading this book again. This time I am feeling like I have started learning the basics of testing  very first time, since the time you have just sent the book to read. You would be amazed sir, that since evening to this time I have just read only 6 pages of it and this time I have not skipped any links or any thing.

Now I am feeling like this book is the best gift given by anyone and once more thing initially i was using it like quick recap but today i feel that it is more like an encyclopedia of testing basics.

Sir, I would request you to just help me in getting to draw the Mindmap and also with basics of drawing these mindmaps (But at least this week i wouldn't get time for  this, not because i have a lot of work in office but I have your book to complete it with all its link with better understanding).

I am happy that he has found the book useful. Balaji from ZenQA, Hyderabad also finds the book useful. When I met him last time, he told me that he uses the book as a compulsory reading for the new joinees. 

Let us stop worrying about what Sanity or Smoke tests mean. Let us focus on our skills instead!!!
PS: I have titled this post as "What is the difference between Smoke test and Sanity test" to attract more hits. I hope more and more testers read this post and the post by Michael Bolton.

Leia Mais…

Sunday, March 24, 2013

The Perimeter Test: A new test idea?

We have bug bashes in our company. In every release, the tester invites other testers to test his/her feature. Fresh eyes, different experience usually helps in bringing new test ideas and bugs to the forefront. I usually participate in such bug bashes as it exposes me to different features and test ideas. It is a good opportunity to practice testing and a good break from regular testing too.

In one such testing session, I found a bug where the button was tapped even though I did not tap the button. On further investigation, I realized that the focus of the button was much more than the button area. Let me highlight the issue with the help of the following image.


On the left image, we have a problem. The button's perimeter is displayed by red color.
But when the user taps or clicks anywhere within the green rectangle, the button is still clicked.

On the right image, the focus of the button is limited to the area highlighted by red color. On tapping or clicking outside the red area, the button is not activated.

How do we usually test such buttons?
  • Clicking on the button
  • Changing the state of the button - enabled/disabled
  • Test the default state of the button
  • Combining the button action with other actions
What am I proposing?
I want to include a test to click around the button to check if the focus of the button is restricted to the button area or extends outside the button area. According to me, the name for the test idea: "The Perimeter Test".  

Why this bug is important:
a. The user might not know that the click outside the button behaves similar to click on the button.
b. It would be confusing if there is little space between adjacent buttons. The user will not know which button was clicked.
c. The trust on the application's behavior is reduced as the user is not sure of what to expect.

I would like to highlight the Perimeter Test's importance on mobile devices and areas where multiple buttons are placed close by. Try 'Inspect element' on the button and discover the area quickly. Also, the Perimeter Test might not take more time. A quick test to highlight an important bug.

I am happy to give the test idea a name and hope to come up with more such test ideas.
What do you think about 'The Perimeter Test'?

Just to confirm: This is different from "Boundary Testing technique".

Leia Mais…

Monday, February 11, 2013

Context-free questions mindmap

I was having a Skype discussion on asking the right questions when someone asks us to test a product. We realized that there were many questions and thought of creating a mindmap to build a mnemonic for easy remembering. It is not mandatory that we ask all the questions but it is a good idea to consider all of the categories.

Here is the mindmap and the mnemonic. Thanks to Michael Bolton. http://www.developsense.com/blog/2010/11/context-free-questions-for-testing/
  
                                                                           Context-free questions

PCM - TRP - DOT - TED - FIAT
P: Permission 
C: Clients
M: Mission
T: Time
R: Reports
P: Products
D: Data
O: Oracles
T: Thinking
T: Testers
E: Experts
D: Developers
F: Feelings
I: Information
A: Avoid
T: Tools



Leia Mais…

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

2 day testing vacation at Hyderabad

I left Bangalore on 1st Feb on a 2-day trip to Hyderabad. The purpose of the visit was to interact with my Hyderabadi tester friends and also take a break. Anurag Raghuvanshi received me at the Kacheguda station. The train was delayed by half an hour. We took the MMTC train to Hi-Tech city.

Anurag & myself discussed about various testing challenges including

  • building awareness about testing 
  • continuous learning 
  • relationship with programmers especially when they are not in the same time zone
  • counting bugs
Then we freshened up, had our breakfast and started with a testing session. Anurag wanted us to test Junglee. Last time, we had tested Flipkart. So, we set a charter to test just the Search bar on Junglee.

Junglee Search Bar
The session was restricted to 15 minutes. I created a mindmap and screen recorded my session.
Test Ideas
Then we had a pretty long de-brief. It was a two hour long de-brief where we discussed the following:

  • Why did I record the session
  • How to use Comparable Products heuristic
  • What was the test idea behind using script tag attack
  • Special cases discovered in the session
  • Persistent XSS Attack
  • Http codes
  • Difference between SupportDetails.com and .net
We went for lunch - Hot butter rotis and lots of paneer. Later we sat down for another testing session. I was happy with the Wi-fi speed and checked the speed on SpeedTest. It was more than 2Mbps.
He downloaded the application PNotes and I asked him to highlight his test strategy.
Then, we created a map for Project Planning template.
Plan for a new project
After reviewing Anurag's work, I gave him the next task to discover what the files .aff and .dic stood for.
I showed him the power of search terms to gather more information about the files. It was time for a break.

We enjoyed few hot Jalebis, parathas and then headed for Skype Coaching session from 10pm IST.
I had asked folks to create a mindmap and get used to the tool. 

Day 2, we had guests to the room. Sudhamshu, Abhinav and Balaji.
We discussed the Web Testing Heuristics mindmap. We got to know of the following:
  • Xenu link checker
  • Spoon.net
  • Firefox addon - Extended Status bar
  • Charles
  • Article on Cookies
We stopped and then had Hyderabad Biryani for lunch. Balaji came after Abhinav and Sudhamshu left for the day. We went through my article on New Year Resolutions for a tester.
Balaji highlighted his experiences of RST workshop with James Bach. He tried 1-2 exercises on us and also told why he was so impressed by Rahul Verma's words. We discussed about why reputation and credibility is so important for a software tester.

Then, it was time for Weekend Testing session. The report can be read here.
When I thought that it was leave Hyderabad, I met Bikash who turned out to be a passionate mobile apps tester. We had a good discussion on the tools we use and the challenges we face.

All in all, it was a great two day trip to Hyderabad. My special thanks to Anurag for hosting me.

If you want me to coach you personally or conduct a session in your city, feel free to drop me an email at AJAY184F AT GMAIL DOT COM

Leia Mais…

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

1 year @Fiberlink


Leia Mais…

Monday, January 28, 2013

Software Testing Training - Skype

Skype Training from Jan 31st



Leia Mais…

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Weekend Testing needs your support

It's been a while since the last weekend testing session conducted five sessions back to back. Testers who were interested to join were disappointed. Weekend Testing site was not at all updated for a long time. There were multiple emails which did not receive any reply. Multiple comments were not published. So, why this post?

This post is to convey two points:

I am sorry for the unintended break
I got a new job, got busy and can give many more excuses but the truth is I did not facilitate the sessions. I am sorry for it and I promise to dedicate time for Weekend Testing once again.

Weekend Testing is back and is here to stay
This Sunday onwards, we will have sessions regularly - hopefully, every weekend.
The site contents have been simplified

  • Removed unused content/options
  • Removed registration link - I don't see a need for testers to register. Also, the % of spam users seems to be greater than testers.
  • Just the required content is present.
So, as a co-founder of Weekend Testing, I need your support to help me continue Weekend Testing sessions. Join the sessions, help me facilitate and present your ideas.

Here is the plan I have in my mind. Have a theme for every session.

First sunday - Bug hunting a desktop application
Second sunday - Applying a testing technique on a website
Third sunday - Analyzing a tool for a particular type of problem
Fourth sunday - A case study, compare and contrast sessions.

So, lets get started. As usual details will be posted at 

Any questions? Email - weekendtesting@gmail.com

Leia Mais…

Saturday, January 5, 2013

Guess this Quick Test

Leia Mais…