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  • Exploratory Testing


Run a time-boxed test session based on a test charter to answer questions of stakeholders.

Categories

Users are very creative in using tools. That is because they are not playing with the tool, they have a goal and work to do. Good tools are helping to get things done and this makes using it fun. Testing software according to the product creator's view is therefore only one dimension. To find more dimensions, testers use their imagination and employ creative techniques to run tests. On approach to test software to create better products is exploratory testing.

The term exploratory testing has been coined 1988 by Cem Kaner.

Exploratory software testing is a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the value of her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project.

Cem Kaner. Defining Exploratory Testing. 2008

You can read more about exploratory testing in Elisabeth Hendrickson's book Explore It!

The projectdoc Toolbox, especially the add-on for software development, provides some templates to run exploratory tests.

Testers typically start with a test charter to define the mission, the tools, and the information of interest. During the test session they log all information they find. Some information is pursued immediately, some is noted for later sessions. At the end of the session a test report is presented to the interested stakeholders.

 

The templates are available on Bitbucket with an open source license. Feel free to fork the project and adjust the templates to meet your requirements!

Resources

Information Material

The following list of resources provides information on using the projectdoc Toolbox for Confluence.

Resource Short Description Type
Get started with the projectdoc Toolbox: learning by doing
topic
Concepts central to projectdoc. Things users have to understand to get the most out of using projectdoc.
topic

Doctypes

The following doctypes (blueprints based on the projectdoc Toolbox) provided page blueprints to run exploratory tests.

Name Short Description Since Set
Defines a charter to run an exploratory test session.
4.3
Defines a document to collect information during a test session.
4.3
Documents the results of a test session for the sponsoring stakeholders.
4.3
Describes a single step of an activity. A step is a generic document that is associated with a document that describes a process. It may be a test log or a howto.
4.2
Sections of a document are typically part of a document. But the size of sections may vary. To support a team to write collaboratively on the documentation, a larger document may be subdivided into external section documents.
1.0

The category '/ Process / Test' provides an overview over all doctypes related to testing.

Macros

The following macros of the projectdoc Toolbox support creating and working with exploratory tests.

Resource Short Description Categories
Lists references to projectdoc documents in a table. Allows to select document properties for columns. Also non-list representations are provided.
Renders a predefined list of documents in a table.
Transcludes content from a document marked with the content marker macro.