{"id":708,"date":"2014-08-09T07:04:14","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T05:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.asym.dk\/2014\/08\/09\/do-it-right-a-value-in-context-driven-testing\/"},"modified":"2014-08-09T07:04:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-09T05:04:14","slug":"do-it-right-a-value-in-context-driven-testing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/2014\/08\/09\/do-it-right-a-value-in-context-driven-testing\/","title":{"rendered":"Do it right: A value in Context Driven Testing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The problem with me<\/b> is that I’m really bad <\/span>at following instructions. When people tell me to do something in a certain way<\/span>, I do it differently<\/span>.
\nIt’s a <\/span>problem when I cook, <\/span>because I<\/span>‘m not particularly good at cooking. <\/span>S<\/span>o I have to follow recipies, and I often mess <\/span>it <\/span>up slightly<\/span>. <\/span>I’m improving, learning strategies to remember, but this is a fundamental personality trait for me.<\/span>
\nAnd not one I’m sorry about. Because <\/span>it’s not a problem when I test!<\/span>
\nI always <\/b>wanted to be a great tester.<\/b>
\nI tend to <\/span>become really annoyed with myself <\/span>when a bug turns up in production in something I have tested. \u201dWhy did I miss that?!\u201d I feel guilty. You probably <\/span>recognise the feeling.<\/span>
\nThe feeling <\/span>of guilt is <\/span>ok. The fact that we can feel <\/span>guilt<\/span> proves that we <\/span>have consciousness, empathy and do the best we <\/span>can. People who don’t care, don’t feel guilt.<\/span>
\nBut in testing, <\/span>finding every bug is fundamentally impossible, so we <\/span>have to get over it <\/span>and keep <\/span>testing<\/span>. <\/span>Keep exploring!<\/span>
\nEven before I learnt <\/span>about<\/span> Context Driven Testing<\/span>, I knew that great testing could never<\/span> be about following test scripts and instructions<\/span>. I noticed that I got bored and lost attention <\/span>when I executed <\/span>the same test <\/span>scripts over and over again, b<\/span>ut I also noticed that I missed more bugs when I only <\/i><\/span>followed the instructions<\/span>.
\nSo I stopped following the instructions. <\/span>This gave me an explanation problem, however:<\/span> \u201cUhh, <\/span>well <\/span>I didn’t do<\/span> quite<\/i><\/span> wh<\/span>at I was <\/span>asked <\/span>to do…. but <\/span>hey <\/i><\/span>you know, I found these interesting bugs <\/span>that I can show you<\/span>!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you hear it? That won’t impress old-school project managers with spreadsheets to check and plans to follow.<\/p>\n

Context Driven Testing has helped me greatly <\/span>in becoming a better tester<\/span>. The thing is that CDT <\/span>teaches me to do a great testing job <\/span>without instructing me<\/span> <\/b>exactly <\/b><\/span>what<\/b><\/i> to do<\/b>. Instead, t<\/span>he community shares a lot of heuristics I can use to help me <\/span>do <\/i>a great testing job<\/i><\/span>, <\/span>and <\/span>through thinking-training and inspiration from others, it’ll help me <\/span>develop my capacity to do great testing in <\/span>whatever <\/span>contexts in which I’m working. <\/span>
\nI<\/span>t may be a bit difficult to grasp at first. <\/span>A little worrying, perhaps.. But <\/span>CDT is a really, really powerful testing approach<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

And CDT has helped me explain what I do to my project managers. Even the old-school types!<\/p>\n

Social services and testing<\/b><\/p>\n

A few days ago, I read an article about quality in social services in which the following statement from the vice president of the Danish social workers union caught my attention: \u201dIt’s about doing it right, not about doing the right things.\u201d He was speaking of how the authorities try to help vulnerable children and their families.
\nT<\/span>he statement resonated with me, and <\/span>a bit later <\/span>it occurred to me that it even <\/span>sums up what CDT <\/span>is about:
\nContext D<\/span>riven T<\/span>esting is about doing it right<\/i>, not about doing all the right things<\/i>. <\/b>
\nNote that I’ve added the word ‘all’ here.
\nThere’s more to CDT of course, but this is <\/span>the core <\/i><\/span>of CDT – to me. <\/span>S<\/span>ome readers may lift their eyebrows over the \u201ddoing it right\u201d-thing: \u201dDoes he mean that there is ONE right way to do it?\u201d Read on…
\nThe past 10 years, I’ve worked in contexts where CDT is not really the thing<\/i> we do, and if I was to be as context driven as managers in my context had <\/span>asked<\/span> me to be, I would not really have been <\/span>context driven. You get the picture, I’m sure.
\nBut w<\/span>ith CDT in my briefcase, I can work to make changes and improving things in the specific context<\/i> in which I’m working. As a consultant and contractor, I’m usually hired to fix a problem, not to revolutionize things, and I’m expected to do a \u201cgood job\u201d fixing it.<\/span>
\n\u201dDoing it right\u201d is of course about doing a good job, and \u201ddoing a good job\u201d should really not be taken lightly. CDT helps me do a good job, even when I’m not working in contexts that actively supports CDT<\/span>. That’s because <\/span>CDT is flexible:<\/span> It empahsizes that <\/span>testing should never be <\/span>driven by manuals, standards or instructions, but by the actual<\/span> context in which it takes place, and that’s actually quite <\/span>difficult to disagree with<\/b>, even for old school project <\/span>manager<\/span>s<\/span>!<\/span><\/p>\n

Further, if my context (i.e. project manager) ask me to do something, I do it \u2013 even if it’s in a standard. Sometimes there’s a good reason to use a standard.<\/p>\n

Context driven testing is not <\/b><\/span>defined by any <\/span>methods or even by a certain set of heuristics. Nor is it defined by a book, standard or manual. Neither is there any <\/span>formal education, certification or \u201dclub\u201d that you have to be a member of in order to call yourself Context Driven.
\nInstead, Context Driven Testing is about committing oneself to some core values, and to me the most important value in CDT is contained in the sentence:
\nIt’s about doing it right, not about doing all the right things.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

Why would anyone wan’t anything else?<\/p>\n

(Thanks to @jlottossen<\/a> for reviewing this post and for suggesting several changes to the original version.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Context driven testing is not defined by any methods or even by a certain set of heuristics. Nor is it defined by a book, standard or manual. Neither is there any formal education, certification or \u201dclub\u201d that you have to be a member of in order to call yourself Context Driven. In this blog post, I explore what Context Driven Testing is about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,83,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asym.dk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}