Testing circus-vol2-issue3 india-cover

Testing Circus

Volume 2 - Issue 3 March 2011

www.TestingCircus.com

YOUR MONTHLY MAGAZINE ON

SOFTWARE TESTING

6

From the Keyboard of Editor-in-Chief

Test

ing

Circ

us

Vol 2 - Issue 3

www.TestingCircus.com March 2011 - 2 -

Almost every day I get calls from potential trainees who want to learn software test-ing from me. They are from diverse back-grounds. Some are still students, some are engineering graduates fresh out of college, some are working in BPOs, some are mar-ried females once studied engineering – got married – kids – and now wants go back to work, some are from other non-IT job profiles. I am a choosy teacher. So I ask lot of questions before taking someone into my training program. The first natural question is why he or she wants to join or learn software testing. The most common answer I get is “software testing is easy compared to programming” or “it is the easiest way to get into IT industry.” Oh crap. Software testing is not easy. At least I think so. Also it is not the easiest way to get into IT industry.

Why do these guys feel that software test-ing is easy? Four reasons I feel are respon-sible for this kind of wrong opinion on software testing. One - since we don’t do coding as a part of our everyday job, soft-ware testing is an easy task. Two – the product development managers will put their worst coders into testing. Three – HR guys will take anyone into testing when the market is hot. Remember 2006-2007? Every other guy got into testing during that period in India. Four – last but not the least – Testers are responsible for making non-testers feel that testing is easy.

Today how many of us feel proud being associated with testing? Most of us were forced into testing. Very few people are testers by choice. Few testers like me who are testers by choice do not educate non-

testers that testing is not everyone’s cup of tea and it is not that easy how they think it is like. Testing requires skills, thinking beyond the limit programmers can think, ability to see beyond obvious, rapid learning, mental and visual se-quencing ability, building up scenarios that may happen with the product and passion for investigating into details.

I heard this someone saying. Don’t re-member who said this but agree fully to this opinion. Don’t separate product team into developers and testers. It should be programmers/ coders and testers because testers are also developers, contributing to the product development process. We test-ers are no less skilled than our program-mer friends. Sometimes we are little more skilled than them and that’s why we catch the mistake they make.

Don’t let testers be the 2nd class citizen of product development. Arise and educate the ignorant crowd surrounding you. That is the message I want to convey in this 6th edition of Testing Circus. Jai Ho Testing!

- Ajoy Kumar Singha

[email protected]://twitter.com/ajoysingha


Testing Circus Vol 2 - Issue 3

Where is What?Topic Author Page Number

Editorial Ajoy Kumar Singha 2

Letters to the Editor 5

Test Coverage: How not to miss anything during testing?

Ajay Balamurugadas 6

Cloud Computing Service: A Basic Introduction Basant Narayan Singh 9

Be an Honest Tester Vipul Gupta 13

Promoting Testing in your Organization Rob van Steenbergen 16

Why do Test Tool suppliers have such a good sale? Marcel Hogenhout 19

Automation Assisted Manual Testing Trish Khoo 23

Exploratory Testing From Wikipedia 26

A Fake Tester's Journey A Fake Tester 29

Software Testing News 32

Test Case Writing Practice Naresh Bisht 34

Testers to Follow in Twitter 36

Interview with Darren McMillan 38

QTP Code Corner Jaijeet Pandey 43


Chandrasekhar B N is a 26 year old Software Tester working at Bangalore. He was detected with Blood cancer (Acute Lymphoblastic Leuke-mia - with Ph+ve) in October.

We urge all readers of Testing Circus to donate generously for this purpose.

No donation is small. You can do it online through your VISA/Master Card. (Donors from outside India can do it online) https://donations.cpaaindia.org/

You can write a cheque or send demand draft in the name

"CANCER PATIENTS AID ASSOCIATION " and mail it to:

Dr. Shubha MaudgalExecutive DirectorCancer Patients Aid AssociationSmt. Panadevi Dalmia Cancer Management CentreKing George V Memorial, Dr. E. Moses Road, Mahalakshmi, Mumbai - 400 011Tel: +91 22 2492 4000 / 2492 8775 Fax: +91 22 2497 3599

Please Note: Write Chandrasekhar B N on the back of the cheque.

Testing Circus

Help Chandrasekhar BN, a Software Tester, beat Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

Vol 2 - Issue 3

http://helpchandru.com/

I really enjoyed by reading the article. Its very helpful for me to learn more about Software testing. Could you Please include One More topics in the article regard-ing how to prepare Test Plan, Test Strategy, how to estimate the Time line for New Release Testing and Regression Testing.-Rajasekaran Dhanavel

Hi Raja,Thanks for appreciating our work. We will try to publish topics of you choice in our future editions.-Editor.

—-----------------------

Hello,I went through your Feb’11 magazine. Articles are really interesting. I hope you don’t mind If I ask you one question. In ‘News on Software Testing’ section, it is mentioned that ‘Mumbai has done its Mumbai Testers Monthly Meet in January and Pune will start its Pune TMM in March.‘ I am located in Pune, and I want to attend this meet. By any chance you guys have the some details about Pune meet? At least some email ID /phone number of any person who is associated with Pune TMM.I would appreciate if you could help me with this.-Nika Khaladkar

Hi Nika,You will find the details of Pune Testers Meet at http://pune.indiantestingboard.com/-Editor

—-----------------------

Hello Ajoy and team,Testing Circus is a fantastic magazine. You and your team is doing a great work for the software testing community. I appreciate that you are putting effort to bring out this magazine every month along with your full time job. Hats off to you.-Rahul Sharma

Thank you Rahul for your encouraging words.-Editor

Testing Circus

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Write to [email protected]

Vol 2 - Issue 3


Letters to the Editor

Test Coverage : How not to miss anything

during testing?

- Ajay Balamurugadas


One of my friends asked me a question on Test Coverage and I replied to the best of my knowledge. Please feel free to comment, Question: How not to miss anything during testing?My Answer: Let me try to give a brief answer with lots of assumptions about the context. It is a good question which will reveal a lot about the project. Different stakeholders might have different answers.At the same time, be-aware that not every issue can be found! Not every bug can be found.

Why? Here are some of the reasons:

Difference in Test Environment & Customer Environment The environment used by the customer might be different from the environment used by the test team.

Are you sure you have the same hardware & software combination on your machine as the customer machine?

Lack of Information We have no information on how the customer uses this product! We have information on how the cus-

tomer must use the product but no information on how he uses the product. Note the subtle difference.

Do we collect logs or frequent recordings or any other information which lets us know how the cus-tomer is using the product? Customer bugs reveal information to only a small extent.

Complete Testing We do not test every combination. Complete Testing is impossible.

We do not have time to run every test. Our mission might not be to run all tests.

We do not have resources (machines, testers, money, pro-grammers and tools) to test each & every possibility.

Method of Usage I do not see any customer referring to a document other than help guide (sometimes) to carry out his tasks. He doesn't use a excel sheet to know what he has to do next. He does not skip from one component to another.

Most of the times, he uses the whole system (Software + Internet + Hardware - Printers/Controllers) Agree?

So, if we do not test/use the software like the customer, how can we expect to find the bugs customer finds? Tough question? :)

If we cannot find all the bugs, how can we improve the product? How can we find more bugs (assuming finding bugs is one of the important missions of the project)?


Test Coverage : How not to miss anything during testing?

Here are some of the ways which can help us.

Broaden the Test Coverage Ask yourself – are you focusing on only a part of the product?

Can you expand the coverage by expanding the right tests?

Expanding! = Writing more test cases [Expanding is NOT equal to writing more cases]

Is your testing model good enough? Why not try the Heuristic Strategy Test Model (HSTM) by James Bach. We both can learn to use it to the current project.

Understand the Big Picture Try to understand where the software fits in the big picture.

Ask the right questions to get more information about the proj-ect. How do you know which is the right question? Any ques-tion you ask at this stage of the career is a right question!

As experts say, if you are aware that you can be fooled, it is easy to be not fooled then! I learnt it in one of the Rapid Soft-ware Testing workshops.

Be aware that you can also make mistakes.

Optimise the Testing Effort Are you & your team members working as a single group? Is

everyone aware of each others’ tasks & goals for the project?

Are you aware of the final goal? Can you see where this project is leading to?

Are you sure the tasks are not overlapping? Are you spending most of the time on tasks which contribute to the final goal of the project?

If you answered No to most of the questions, it is high time you optimize the testing effort. I can help you provide project/product specific help (if needed)

Improve Skills We need to constantly improve our skills as a tester to catch

those bugs which evade us again & again.

Observation, Questioning, Critical Thinking, Creative Think-ing, Note Taking, Bug Hunting, Bug Investigation, Bug Advo-cacy are some of the skills important to a tester.

How about improving them?


Ajay Balamurugadas, is a software tester passionate to learn to test any software. He has been awarded scholarship from Software Testing Club and is a brown belt student of Miagi-Do School run by Matt Heusser. He is co-founder of "Weekend Testing". Ajay shares his testing activities and learning through his blog http://EnjoyTesting.blogspot.com and tweets at

http://twitter.com/ajay184f

Cloud Computing ServiceA Basic Introduction

- Basant Narayan Singh

I strongly feel that as the cloud adoption rate increases, the Software Testing services for cloud applications will rise rapidly and might increase the challenges of a software tester. I mean the tester must evolve and realign her/his thinking to the new trend.


What’s common between Gartner’s technology Hype Cycle Report of 2009 & 2010?

Did you answer Cloud Computing at the peak of expectations?

Absolutely correct. Like 2009 Hype Cycle Report, Cloud Computing is still at the peak of inflated expectations for 2 consecutive years. This has lead to a lot of buzz around cloud services. With every Glob-al IT major launching some sort of cloud service, every now & then, the hype continues to grow. Defi-nitely, it’s just the beginning of this emerging trend as every xyz company, big or small, is ramping-up to somehow attach this coveted cloud tag to its profile, either as a provider or as a consumer. But you may ask what is Cloud Computing? Why is there so much buzz about Cloud Computing in the tech-industry?

I strongly feel that as the cloud adoption rate increas-es, the Software Testing services for cloud applica-tions will rise rapidly and might increase the challenges of a software tester. I mean the tester must evolve and realign her/his thinking to the new trend.

I’ll take a completely different route to make you understand what cloud computing is. No theory. I believe we understand better with examples and practical scenarios. These scenarios may help you in understanding Cloud Computing and its need in current circumstances.


Cloud Computing ServiceA Basic Introduction

Feb. 21, 2011. During ICC Cricket World Cup, India

Furious cricket fans slammed organizers of the World Cup on Monday as the official ticketing website crashed amid a scramble for 1,000 tickets available for the final…

---TOI

The official ICC partner for online ticket sell, Kyazoonga, posted the following message on its Facebook Fan Page and other social networks.

We are facing absolutely unprecedented amounts of traffic from all over the world, with hundreds of mil-lions of people hitting at once. Some of you may have trouble accessing the site. It seems that cricket fever has surpassed all anticipations and expectations. Please bear with us as our global network team works on bringing you the tickets you all have been waiting for.

--- Kyazoonga FB Page

Everyday 8:00AM to 9:00AM, Since ? Till Date, On-line Ticket Booking - IRCTC, India

…The bookings & enquiry requests are 6-7 times high-er during the peak hours than the rest of the day. So while the existing infrastructure is well equipped to handle the daylong traffic, it is the peak hour traffic that clogs servers…

---What IRCTC can Learn from redBus Cloud Imple-mentation?

June 2009, China

A Chinese website set up so people can inform on corrupt officials has been inundated with so many visitors that it crashed shortly after launching.

---BBC

Perhaps this example made you smile, or perhaps you are equally worried as well, regarding the level of corruption! No need to worry, because this also signifies a huge number of proactive citizens willing to report it. Look on the bright side.

October 2009, France

A website launched by French first lady Carla Bruni has crashed on its first day - overwhelmed by the number of users trying to access it at once.

---BBC

Online mob. Wish I was even half as popular as her!

What inference can we draw from above server crashes?

These examples of server crashes are but a few among the hundreds happening almost everywhere in the world on a regular basis. What does this indi-cate? Just one conclusion and that is:

The situation can only get worse. Currently, only 25% of world population, i.e., approximately 1.75 billion people have Internet access. Compared to Television and other mass media, it’s still considered an elite medium of communication. If this meager Internet penetration has lead to such a significant number of crashes, what will happen when the Inter-net becomes a mass medium? India and China cur-rently have approximately 15% or less Internet penetration. Even a moderate increase in Internet penetration and usage, say to 50%, will add more than a billion Internet users! Definitely, too many clicks to handle. Going by statistics and backed up by almost double digit GDP growths, they are soon going to add to this number.

Can you prevent the above scenarios?

Most of you will answer:

But will adding more servers solve the problem, or compound the problems of companies/organizations that are already on a tight budget?

Moreover, how many servers do you think will be enough to handle that kind of traffic? Take a guess. 100? 1000? … …

Before you guess, let me provide some facts to help you make a wise guess.

Facebook uses 30,000 servers! (as of October, 2009) and it’s adding capacity on a daily basis. Sounds weird.

unofficial estimate predicts the number of Google servers to be an incredible 1 million in its world wide data centers!

The web sites discussed above are not as big as Face-book or Google but their spike in traffic on that partic-ular day may had beaten these giants! Given these kind of stats, in order to purchase the necessary number of servers, the organizations/entities involved will fork out enough money to make them eligible to file bank-ruptcy protection.

Even if they are financially sound enough to add huge numbers of servers, just remember the following from our above scenarios/case study:

Kyazoonga get this exponential surge in the number of hits once in 4 years.

surge everyday at 8AM to 9AM

gradually reduced to a normal level in a month or so.

only for a week or so.

The above description clearly shows the following trend:

Most of the traffic spikes are predictable and can be planned for. So adding thousands of servers to handle a few days or seasonal spikes in traffic is a humongous waste of resources.

Solution: There’s one model or style of computing (Gartner's phrase) which satisfies the following

Common, Location-independent, Online Utility that is available on Demand.

--- (Chan, 2009)


So, how is Cloud Computing going to help the enti-ties mentioned in our above examples? The simple solution is IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). The entities (website owners, in our scenario) can simply use the services of a specialist IaaS cloud provider for example - Amazon, Rackspace, GoGrid. This model works just like an electricity subscription, in the old days, or a mobile phone or Internet usage subscription in modern times. So it’s subscription based, or Pay-as-you-go. If your demand increases, you simply configure your service to add more infrastructure. Pay-as-you-go ensures you’ll never pay anything extra.

This results in a happy customer, or, perhaps more appropriately, a customer who is delighted to be saving money.

It’s just like a magic, sort of, in a moment time you can configure your servers to scale up or scale down (size-up or size down) based on your need.

This is Cloud Computing in plain English. But Cloud computing is indeed a lot more than what you’ve read here in this article. To know more about it, feel free to download (of course, without any registration hassle) -

http://www.techno-pulse.com/2010/09/cloud-computing-ppt-presentation.html

This document is a summary of article series Cloud Computing Service: A Basic Introduction - 1 (http://www.techno-pulse.com/2009/12/cloud-computing-service-basic.html ) and is shared only for exclusive use by Testing Circus March Edition. Though, you are free to use short quotes with proper credit, you may not republish this article without an approval from the author. - Editor

Basant Narayan Singh is a Day-Dreamer, a Software Engineer by profession, a Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist & an Instrumentation Engineer by education. He loves to de-sign & develop software on Microsoft .Net platform. Basant Narayan Singh writes about cloud computing in his technol-ogy blog at http://techno-pulse.com and can be reached at http://twitter.com/SinghBasant


Be an HONEST Tester!

- Vipul Gupta

www.TestingCircus.com March 2011 - 1 3-

A typical product testing scenario

The final round of testing was going on in full swing in a Product company and the team was under pressure to certify the product for release. The Project Manager was driving the whole efforts and Test Manager was also re-porting to him.

The Project manager was a smart person who, to fulfil his interests, wanted testing team to certify the product with minimal testing and also asked team not to report any issue that they find in the bug management system. This was due to the fact that the development team slipped their deadlines and to release the product on time, it cannot go into bug fixing iterations. The PM definitely did not want to miss the release deadline.

He was playing safe too. On one hand he was pro-gressing to deliver the product to the market, on the other hand he himself was not to loose anything. If the product works successfully, he can claim the praises of stakeholders and if it crashes in produc-tion, he could easily put the complete blame on test-ing team.

As the testing team proceeded further with testing and as the critical areas were being tested, the team found a bug… a critical regression bug that got intro-duced due to the fixes made for another bug. The team was in a dilemma! If they reported the bug, the Project manager will be literally killing them, but if they don’t report the bug, they will get the wrath of the top management in case the customer finds it.

As they were struggling to get out of this situation, the Test Manager came in. Everyone asked him, what to do?

He was very clear in his thoughts and what was expected from the testing process. He said, we are into testing business and we are providing a service to the product team. In case we don’t report this bug, it will be clear that we are not performing our duties.


Be an honest tester!

And as this bug is critical in nature, it is a very high probability that the end user will definitely report it and that will put us in the soup again. It is better to report something earlier than later!

He asked the tester to report the bug in bug manage-ment system. The tester was very much afraid to do so, but then he had faith on his Test Manager and followed the orders. This was more than enough to irritate the project manager. The project manager came in and shouted at the tester for identifying the issue at the last moment as this critical issue definitely needs to be fixed. The project manager went to his room and talked to development team to review and fix the bug. The development team found the possible cause of error and fixed the same.

Now the testing team again tested the issue and the affected areas and found another critical defect, which again was reported and went to development team for fixes. The Project manager was now getting red as each minute was passing as the iterations were increasing and the testing team was not following *His orders!

To safeguard his interests, he wrote an e-mail to all the stakeholders. He mentioned that as the testing team is keeping everyone busy and finding the bugs at the last minute of the release cycle, we need to postpone the release by a day.

The stakeholders called up a meeting and discussed the issues. On analysis, it was found that the bugs reported in the builds are due to the fixes that were being pro-vided by the development team. The testing team had nothing to do with the stage at which the bug was getting caught.

Can you predict what happened at the end?

Few days later, all the stakeholders praised Test Man-ager and testing team in front of the whole group and told that if they released the product with those defects, it might have pushed them into legal battles with their clients.

What is my intention of writing all this?

The testing team often faces pressures like the above one during the product development life cycle, they should always remain persistent in following the mission that is defined for testing. There will be various people on the top who will sometimes try to build pressures on you, but remember the fact that though these will be decisive times for you. Never divert yourself from the mission that you are on! Believe me, doing this, you will not only get self-satisfaction, but will also gain respect of others.

Vipul Gupta leads the Test Engineering R&D at Impetus Labs. As a resident testing expert, he is responsible for innovating test engineering methodologies and designing solutions viz. Test360 Degree (integrated toolset and best prac-tices for mature software product testing), Test Engineering Maturity Model and iLeap (best practices based test automation platform), to meet the upcom-ing trends and demands to overall simplify product testing. As a test architect he is also involved in defining test strategies for various small to large organi-zations. Prior to this he managed several large to medium testing assignments, across different verticals for Impetus’ clients. Vipul is an active contributor to online testing community and a regular speaker at testing conferences in India and US. To know what he is doing, follow http://twitter.com/vipsgupta


Promoting Software Testing in Your Organization

- Rob van Steenbergen

www.TestingCircus.com March 2011 - 1 6 -

I had written on ideas and tips for promoting software testing in an organization in the last issue of Testing Circus. In this issue I am discussing few more tips.

Tip: If someone asks you to give a presentation on testing: always say YES!One of the tips that I listed down in previous issue was - “If someone asks you to give a presentation on testing: always say yes! “The following may happen:

meeting with presentations

colleagues

you can give the test kick-off presentation you've always wanted to present

department within your organization about testing.

Well, always say yes when asked in these situations, or be proactive and say you want to give a presentation.

There are probably even more situations that you can create for yourself where you can promote testing with a positive talk about testing or opportunities to give a presentation to a larger group of people.

Well, the main tip with telling the “testing story” is: do not repeat yourself too much in the various


How to promote Testing in Your Organization

presentations; you should avoid being noticed as: "No, not again the same story.” After telling the story in the same way too much people will not listen anymore.

the mirror or for your friend, even your cat or your dog would be a good audience to practice on.

presentation. And memorize your presentation by heart.

sentations.

And don’t be afraid to give one next week! The sooner you start, the sooner it will show some effect.

Tip: Decorate your walls! Promotional testing tips 2 and 3: Place posters about testing on a wall, place articles about testing from IT magazines walls (the test wall?).

Articles from IT magazines and Internet sites Certainly there are some interesting articles in IT magazines and on Web sites that relate to the types of products that are comparable with the products your

organization creates. The articles you pick should be articles that touch the emotions of your colleagues.

Internet of problems in comparable products that your organization is producing.

wall, that was coming from the free magazine "The testing planet" I printed in A3 and posted on the wall.

trying to get ideas to the development, search the Internet about the five key areas of performance testing!

software problems, get them from the Internet and put them in the wall for the months to come (not all at once, just distribute these over time).

Posters of your test projects against the wall

convert to a nice visio workflow, with nice pictures too? Find the A2 color printer in your organization, make a few prints and put them on the wall.

poster and hang up!

A3 size, with the word "bug" underneath?


Don’t put a picture of your boss on the poster, this is a friendly warning

show anywhere, since many people do not have this process memorized (especially the non-testers can use a reminder).

Check your specific situation in your organization, are there already a lot of posters hanging around, place it on the wall of the development team, or in a manager’s office. For example, I once managed to place the test process on A2 size to the wall of my team manager.

Will this help your mission? Well, nobody knows in advance. A good example is the success story of Google: "Testing on the toilet".

Read this story athttp://googletesting.blogspot.com/2007/01/introducing-testing-on-toilet.html

How to create a beautiful poster yourself? The Internet is pretty loaded with tips and tricks

you have quite a few results where you can find plenty of tips!

In the next issue – Rob will write more on how to promote testing in an organization. Keep reading Testing Circus. - Editor

Rob van Steenbergen is an independent software test consultant from The Netherlands. In the last 4 years he has been involved in infrastructure projects and is working now on a desktop virtualization project where he is testing and coordinating the tests. For more information visit – www.chickenwings.nl

Rob can be reached at http://twitter.com/rvansteenbergen

Why do Test Tool suppliers have such a good sale?

- Marcel Hogenhoutwww.TestingCircus.com March 2011 - 1 9 -

More and more organizations buy, often very expensive, licences for having the opportunities to use test tooling and test automation in their organization.

Test automation makes a great development at this moment and surely can help you simplify or accelerate your testing, or can take care of executing very complex test cases for you. But...

Unfortunately a poorer development is that lots of organizations buy licences from tool providers because of their good Sales Managers, instead of the right reasons: helping them to test more efficient and effective. Sales are very able to have smooth presentation at the customer, with demo's of how well their (test) tools can do "the" work and how quick and simple tests can be automated and then executed. Organizations then take the risk in buying the tools (or licences) and don't really know what to do with it. In most cases, after buying the licences, their test professionals are instructed to do all the testing with these tools from now on, even test types that are not suitable for automation!

www.TestingCircus.com March 2011 - 2 0 -

Why do Test Tool suppliers have such a good sale?

Have new licenses or planning to buy some!? That sounds nice in itself, but now it appears that we are not quite able to deal with all these tools. Take care of "just" to purchase (additional) licenses, we must make sure that, apart from a well-run development process, we implement the tooling / test automation seriously and structured. I notice now at projects or organizations that they deploy the tools and actually not (yet) have the abilities to use them...

A test tool should not be an purpose in itself, but an "aid" that supports one or more test activities, including planning and management, specification, building (initial) test files, test execution and analysis. Even just for the sake of completeness I will briefly explain a structured selection and implementation process of (testing) tools.

Formally, you would have to go through the next selection process, with a structured tool evaluation:

Preparation:Identify and quantify the problem;Consider alternative solutions;Prepare a business case;

Identify terms;Identify required tool features and characteristics.

Selection and Demo:Compile a list of possible tools;Perform a more detailed assessment.

Proof of concept:Perform a competitive test / trial run, and possibly, if necessary:Identify required changes to the testing process;Collect metrics;Determine actual costs and benefits.

Decision (to take):If positive:

Based on a successful evaluation;Negotiate with the tool provider;Buy tool (and / or licenses).

If rejected / failed:Restart process;(If necessary).

Then, a well performed implementation will have the following steps:

Step 1: Plan the implementation process (start with a small project to live up to the business case and to develop a standard approach to use the tool in your organization), by:

Identifying real test architecture;Scripting techniques;Naming conventions;Configuration management of testware;

Step 2: Manage expectations;

Step 3: Provide training (specialists, users), ideally an implementation team is working full time on a pilot project of between 3 and 6 months. Hereby develop a minimum number of roles:

Champion: the driving force behind the implementation;Change agent: planning and managing the implementation (including the pilot project);Tool custodian: responsible for technical support and consultancy.

Step 4: Setting up the tool organization;

Step 5: Pilot in a number of projects;

Step 6: Evaluate;

Step 7: Roll out the tool.

These steps are to prevent inappropriate or unnecessary tools purchased that ultimately end up the "shelf"!

For completeness here is why you would you automate testing?

Saving time (faster testing);Saving money (cheaper testing);Increasing quality (better testing, more complex testing);"Motivating testers" (testers find it nice ...);Regression testing with less effort.

When to automate testing?If many tests must be performed (complex);Many iterations of the same test (regression);The testing process should be structured!


Especially the last bullet is important. First bring structure to the process and only then use tools! In other words, automation of chaos results in computerized automation of chaos! Moreover, first start small and use pilots ...

So please observe the pitfalls:Test automation requires a structured test process;Test automation requires a structured selection and implementation process;Range of test tools is overwhelming, research, expertise and a selection process is necessary.

Summarized; Structure your test process first, by implementing or improve the right policy and strategy in your organization. Remember, automate a chaotic test process will result in an automated chaos...

Contact me (www.marcelhogenhout.nl) if you have any questions on the above or want me to help you with Test Process Improvement, with use market standards like TPI Next, combined with best practices like the "Quality Blueprint" and "Life Cycle Testing".

Marcel Hogenhout is a testing advisor, with 13 years of experience in the software testing industry. Experiences: testing expertise & -design, information analyse, test- & project management, portfolio management, process improvement and community lead testing (@ Getronics and Capgemini). Currently he is Operational Director & Test Advisor @ Praegus, an organization with high potential test professionals with a great focus on test automation, cloud & testing,

test process & -policy and workshops. In 2001 Marcel won a quality reward for an e-test proposition. Besides testing, Marcel is passionate about gadgets, cloud, SaaS, Web 2.0, Google and Social Media. Marcel loves music, movies, swimming and poker. Marcel can always be found at testing events & conferences.

Marcel can be reached at http://www.marcelhogenhout.nl & http://twitter.com/marcelhogenhout


Automation Assisted Manual Testing

- Trish Khoo


Sometimes testing is like pouring a bucket of confetti on a snow leopard. Have you ever tried pouring a bucket of confetti on a snow leopard? Probably not, but now that the thought occurs to you, don’t you really want to know what happens? That’s like testing – you want to know what happens when you do something. But before you can shower the snow leopard with confetti, you have to buy the confetti, steal the bucket, walk to the zoo, distract the guards, break into the leopard enclosure and lure the leopard out with kitty treats. It’s pretty tedious stuff, and all you wanted to do was the fun stuff at the end. Don’t you wish there was a shortcut?

Tenuous metaphors aside, shortcuts to do tedious stuff are full of win and not difficult to set up. If you already use tools to automate tests, it’s just a matter of making some handy methods to do common tasks. Do you already have a test that steals buckets for you? Just modify it so that you can substitute whatever values you need to help you do your manual testing and hey presto, you’re already well on your way to pouring paper on an endangered species.

One simple way to speed things up is to automate data generation. Chances are that in your everyday testing, you often require data in a particular format, or unique data. Each type you have to think up unique data and type it in you waste valuable time and, more importantly, you risk losing focus on your original task.


Automation Assisted Manual Testing

Here's an example of a Ruby script to generate a somewhat unique email address in the format joe+[random word]@example.com:

dict = File.open('DictionaryFile')lines = dict.readlinesemail = "joe+" + lines[rand(lines.size)].rstrip + "@example.com"`echo #{email} | clip`puts email

The script uses a text file which contains a long list of dictionary words. It selects a word at random from the file, creates a string in the format of the email address that I need, and copies the string to my clipboard, ready to be pasted into the form I am testing.

Go faster! Linking data generation to hotkeys

My latest fad is to link up data generation to hotkeys. If you’re using a Mac, you can use the lovely Keyboard Maestro for this. Otherwise if you’re on Windows (like I am), you can use the less glamorous AutoHotkey, which gave my antivirus software a small panic attack when I installed it (which I just ignored, with no dire consequences so far). Once installed, take a look at the tutorial. It’s quite easy to follow.

At my workplace we already had a few little data generation scripts written in Ruby, so it was a simple matter to hook them up to some hotkeys using AutoHotkey, like so:

#w::Run ruby random_words.rb 2#e::Run ruby random_email.rb#c::Run Ruby random_campaign.rb

Respectively, these lines do the following:Windows key + w = Generates 2 random words and copies them to my clipboard.Windows key + e = Generates a randomized email address that will still point to my account and copies it to my clipboard.Windows key + c = Randomly selects a URL from a list of test email campaigns and copies it to my clipboard.

Trish Khoo works as the Test Lead for Campaign Monitor in Sydney, Australia. She writes a testing blog at http://trishkhoo.com, occasionally helps out with Weekend Testing Australia / New Zealand, and organizes meetups for testers in Sydney.

Trish can be reached at http://twitter.com/hogfish



Exploratory testing

Exploratory testing is an approach to software testing that is concisely described as simultaneous learning, test design and test execution. Cem Kaner, who coined the term in 1983, now defines exploratory testing as "a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the quality of his/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."

While the software is being tested, the tester learns things that together with experience and creativity gen-erates new good tests to run. Exploratory testing is often thought of as a black box testing technique. In-stead, those who have studied it consider it a test ap-proach that can be applied to any test technique, at any stage in the development process. The key is not the test technique nor the item being tested or reviewed; the key is the cognitive engagement of the tester, and the tester's responsibility for managing his or her time.

History

Exploratory testing has always been performed by skilled testers. In the early 1990s, ad hoc was too often synonymous with sloppy and careless work. As a re-sult, a group of test methodologists (now calling them-selves the Context-Driven School) began using the term "exploratory" seeking to emphasize the dominant thought process involved in unscripted testing, and to begin to develop the practice into a teachable discipline. This new terminology was first published by Cem Kan-

er in his book Testing Computer Software and expanded upon in Lessons Learned in Software Testing. Exploratory testing can be as disciplined as any other intellectual activity.

Description

Exploratory testing seeks to find out how the software actually works, and to ask questions about how it will handle difficult and easy cases. The quality of the test-ing is dependent on the tester's skill of inventing test cases and finding defects. The more the tester knows about the product and different test methods, the better the testing will be.

To further explain, comparison can be made of freestyle exploratory testing to its antithesis scripted testing. In this activity test cases are designed in advance. This includes both the individual steps and the expected results. These tests are later performed by a tester who compares the actual result with the expected. When performing exploratory testing, expectations are open. Some results may be predicted and expected; others may not. The tester configures, operates, observes, and evaluates the product and its behaviour, critically in-vestigating the result, and reporting information that seems like to be a bug (which threatens the value of the product to some person) or an issue (which threatens the quality of the testing effort).

In reality, testing almost always is a combination of exploratory and scripted testing, but with a tendency towards either one, depending on context.

According to Cem Kaner & James Bach, exploratory testing is more a mindset or "...a way of thinking about testing" than a methodology. They also say that it cross-

Exploratory Testing

Information from Internet!

Wikipedia

es a continuum from slightly exploratory (slightly am-biguous or vaguely scripted testing) to highly exploratory (freestyle exploratory testing).

The documentation of exploratory testing ranges from documenting all tests performed to just documenting the bugs. During pair testing, two persons create test cases together; one performs them, and the other docu-ments. Session-based testing is a method specifically designed to make exploratory testing auditable and measurable on a wider scale.

Exploratory testers often use tools, including screen capture or video tools as a record of the exploratory session, or tools to quickly help generate situations of interest, e.g. James Bach's Perlclip.

Benefits and drawbacks

The main advantage of exploratory testing is that less preparation is needed, important bugs are found quick-ly, and at execution time, the approach tends to be more intellectually stimulating than execution of scripted tests.

Another major benefit is that testers can use deductive reasoning based on the results of previous results to guide their future testing on the fly. They do not have to complete a current series of scripted tests before focusing in on or moving on to exploring a more target rich environment. This also accelerates bug detection when used intelligently.

Another benefit is that, after initial testing, most bugs are discovered by some sort of exploratory testing. This can be demonstrated logically by stating, "Programs that pass certain tests tend to continue to pass the same tests and are more likely to fail other tests or scenarios that are yet to be explored."

Disadvantages are that tests invented and performed on the fly can't be reviewed in advance (and by that prevent errors in code and test cases), and that it can be difficult to show exactly which tests have been run.

Freestyle exploratory test ideas, when revisited, are unlikely to be performed in exactly the same manner, which can be an advantage if it is important to find new errors; or a disadvantage if it is more important to repeat specific details of the earlier tests. This can be controlled with specific instruction to the tester, or by preparing automated tests where feasible, appropriate, and necessary, and ideally as close to the unit level as possible.

Usage

Exploratory testing is particularly suitable if require-ments and specifications are incomplete, or if there is lack of time. The approach can also be used to verify that previous testing has found the most important defects.

Content Source

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploratory_testing

____________________________________________


Make A Single DonationA massive earthquake, the seventh largest re-corded in history, struck the east coast of Japan on Friday 11 March.

The earthquake, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, triggered a tsunami which hit the east coast of Japan with 7-metre-high waves, leav-ing a trail of destruction.

More than 2,000 people have died in the disas-ter and some 2,000 are injured. The number of confirmed dead is expected to rise to around 10,000. The earthquake triggered fires and caused severe damage to buildings, leaving 1.2 million homes without electricity and 1.4 mil-lion without water.

More than 500,000 people have been evacuated and are being housed in temporary centres set up in schools and public buildings where the Red Cross is distributing thousands of blankets.

http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now/Make-a-single-donation/Japan-Tsunami-Appeal

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Julius Caesar was warned “Beware of the ides of March”. This seemed to make a lot of sense to Tanash when he updated his diary for the events that transpired at the project kick-off meeting on March 1 2011.Following his training program and induction from the ear-lier months, Delspe (Tanash’s manager, the Delegation Spe-cialist) assigned the task (delegated, rather) of listing down the all the relevant “Bug Status” fields for the project and present it as part of the project kick-off meeting.

The Participants in the Project kick-off meetingAlmost everyone in “Ele Info Systems” attended this meet-ing. Participants included representatives from develop-ment, project management, HR, financial teams, certification manager, networking team, process team, other project team that interacted with the clients, other team that worked on the same domain, people from marketing and sales team, training department representatives, business analyst team, a set of people who were biding time in a maintenance project, etc.

Looking at the crowd, Tanash felt that most of them attended this meeting only to display their existence. The funniest thing was that out of the 30-odd number of people in this project, only 2 or 3 would be working hands-on in the project.

Apart from the above crowd, the onsite team and client representatives also attended this meeting through a telecon-ference. The unwritten understanding was that the offshore teams would keep the phone in mute, whenever they need to discuss something that they did not want the client to know,

and any questions during this period from the client would be handled by their onsite counterparts. The first 10 minutesThe 1st ten minutes were spent on Introductions. Although everybody knew everybody, everyone went through the mun-dane process of introductions since the company’s process for kick-off meetings mandated this process. Tanash introduced himself as the tester and almost immediately, the process manager questioned the need for test team members to be involved from the beginning of the project. With the phone on mute, people also hinted at high profitability if test team members get involved only at a late stage of the project.

Delspe stated that they do not want to compromise on quality and that’s why they have testers involved from the beginning. Ensuring that the phone was still muted, Delspe also men-tioned to the others that the client was particular on having a tester from beginning, but he’s a low-cost resource and so, it would not affect profitability by all that much. To Tanash, it seemed that quality had been sacrificed for profitability.

Tanash’s definition of StatusesWhen his turn came to speak out, Tanash said --- “Trying to keep the statuses simple, I propose to have only 2 statuses for a defect – Open and Closed. Open would be evidence that the bug is still around in the system, and Closed would be evidence that the bug is not in the system anymore. That’s all, folks!”

Stunned silence all around. Then, everyone started talking.

A Fake Tester’s Diary

Status ReportBy Fake Software Tester

The developers spoke first. They said – “We need to identify defects that are resolved by us, but are not yet tested by the test team. Let’s have a status Fixed!”

The project manager with an eye for metrics spoke next. He said – “We would also need to identify defects which have been opened and not fixed properly by Dev. Let’s have a new status called – Reopened.” And he whispered to Tanash --- “That way, I’d also have a bigger status report. Heh heh!!!”

The Database administrator, who was in a deep sleep, sud-denly woke up. He said --- “What if I cannot re-create the defect on my machines?” Tanash replied --- “But does it ever occur to you that defects are not a figment of our imagination, and that it’s only since they occurred tat we file them in the 1st place?” Giving him an angry glare, the administrator ignores Tanash and tells Delspe “That doesn’t matter. If I cannot re-create it, I cannot fix it.” Delspe plays pacifier and adds a new status called “Non-Reproducible”!

Another developer speaks up. “What if I see a defect which is already logged earlier?”. Tanash says “Then simply close one of the two defects. Life would be much simpler”! Taking a cue from the database administrator, this developer ignores Tanash and tells Delspe “We need to track the number of such defects separately. This would also be a parameter for effective testing”. The process manager nodded his agreement saying “We are a CMMi5 company and cannot afford not to follow CMMi standards.” Tanash says “When 15 testers test a project; duplicate defects would definitely come up. Don’t you think that the simplest thing would be to close them and continue? What I…” The client’s voice on the telephone says “Let’s add a status DUPLICATE!” Nobody questions the client. The sales and marketing folks were heard telling the client “It’s a brilliant idea!” They also went on to add “We are thrilled to see you being so participative in our calls. We are happy to see you treat us as an extension of your company…..” Tanash tuned out!!!

Having been silent for so long and wanting to contribute to the meeting, the onsite counterpart says “We would need a classification for defects so that our client’s would know that a defect has been raised, but not have been looked into yet, since it’s not yet been assigned.” Tanash said “You have to look into each defect based on the priority. Why do you want

to classify what you have seen and what you have not?” Delspe whispered into Tanash’s ear “Since those onsite folks usually don’t know about the project and the clients keep

badgering them for this information.” And a defect status called NEW is added.

The onsite folks talk again. He says “What if I don’t under-stand a defect?”. Tanash says “then, please call me. I am just a phone call away”. The onsite folks tell him “Maybe we may be looking into something of higher priority and may not have the time to call you”. Tanash says “In that case, may be the defect is not that important at all”. The developer says “We cannot come across to discuss every minor thing. Let’s add another status – Need more information!!!” Tanash felt overpowered!!!

Looking up from his blackberry where he was following the cricket world cup scores, the business analyst speaks up now. He says “What if I don’t agree if it is a defect?” An exasper-ated Tanash says “If you don’t agree, then close it!!!” The Development manager thinks and says “I have an objective to have fewer defects. Let’s add another status – Rejected!!!” Delspe simply nods in agreement.

The BA continues “Hey, I want a status to indicate I have not yet looked into the defect. Can we add a status?” Tanash says “But isn’t it your 1st priority to look into defects? Defect


triages can go for a long time, you know”. The meeting manager, having been silent till now, speaks up and says “Let’s add 2 statuses – To be triaged, Being Triaged. Every morning, we'll do a small triage to decide the defects that have to be triaged on that day and add it to the "Being Triaged" bucket. We'll leave the others in the "To be triaged".”. The client speaks up and says “Very innovative and an exemplary suggestion”. And the sales and marketing team sing praises of the client once more, which I am not mentioning here since it is too redundant.

Now the engineering director mutes the phones and speaks up “We need to indicate defects which we will fix in a subsequent release. After the meeting’s over, add another status – Deferred”!!!

The training department representative says “Hey, this de-fect is assigned to a developer. But what if he is yet to fix it?” Tanash says “So? Add a new status To be fixed. That way, everyone would know I am working on this defect, but am yet to fix it. And, also do add 2 more statuses Defect By design, Existing System limitation” The process and metrics managers nod their agreement and say “Excellent idea!!!”

The meeting goes on for some more time and more statuses are added --- Not a Defect, Partially Fixed, Re-assigned, Withdrawn, Redundant, Pending retest, Pending reject, Remind Me Later, Unconfirmed at the start, Won't fix, Works for me, Verified in QA Env”.

Originally the two nominated defect status list now read - Open, Closed, Fixed, Reopened, Non-Reproducible, New, Duplicate, Need more Information, Rejected, To be Triaged, Being Triaged, Deferred, Defect by Design, Existing System Limitation, Not a Defect, Partially Fixed, Re-assigned, With-drawn, Redundant, Pending retest, Pending reject, Remind Me Later, Unconfirmed at the start, Won't fix, Works for me, Verified in QA Env!!!!!

The client says that it’s his lunch time and so, everyone ended the call.

The training manager was heard saying "Wow. Let's draw an enormous defect life cycle diagram and add the defect Life-cycle as a separate course in our curriculum!!!”

The testing manager who loved interviewing was heard say-ing “Hey, that's 1 great bug life-cycle that you've got in here. Now onwards, asking the defect life cycle is a part of our interviews and if anyone gets a status wrong, they cannot become a tester at our company. That way, we would hire

only smart testers!!!”

Exerpts from Tanash’s thoughts… Today, I learnt how we complicate our life to satisfy idiots. I also learnt to create a complex solu-

tion to a simple problem. Bug statuses are created for conven-ience. Why do we let them “inconvenience” ourselves? I understand that I made a mistake suggesting only two stat-ues. But do we really need 27 bug statuses for our project?

And… 35 people spent 1 hour at this call. That means 35 hours of productivity has been lost, but this has been billed to the client. Should not the focus be more on productivity, quality, instead of “Client Satisfaction” and “Profitability”? Where are we headed? Where are these leaders leading us?

Keep reading future issues of Testing Circus to know more!!! Do you have anything to say about fake testing practices? Write to us. [email protected]

By the way, have you seen the blog on fake software testing? Here it - http://fakesoftwaretester.blogspot.com


[A fake Tester’s Diary was first published in Testing Circus January issues. New Readers are encouraged to read the January and February issues to understand the journey of Tanash as software tester. – Editor]


4th NCR Testers Monthly Meet4th NCR Testers Monthly meet was held on 12th

of March in Initto Technologies India in Gurgaon. The meet was attended by more than 40 testers from NCR region. A brainchild of Vipul Kocher, Ajoy Singha and Vipul Gupta, the main objective to start NCRTMM is to build formal/informal platform learning, sharing and solving problems related to software testing.

Few highlights of the meet of the fourth meet. Ajoy Singha opened the talk and invited Ritesh Sinha, Direc-tor – Testing of Initto Technologies to for a welcome talk. Later Mona Thakur of Initto shared few facts and best practices adopted in testing arena in Initto. Lalit Agrawal then presented a topic on the trends of regres-sion testing. Manoj Papneja of FIS Global presented how continuous integration can help automation projects. Manoj’s talk was well discussed and well in-teracted by attendees. This was followed by tea break.

Navneet Sharma then started the key notes on module champion versus reshuffling project resources. He dis-cussed pros and cons of keeping and not-keeping the same person in same project for a long time. Amit Kumar of Tarara Systems then shared his thoughts on what to do and what not to do in software testing. Ajoy Singha of HCL Technologies emphasized the role of software testers outside routine work in office. R Sai of Adobe discussed on what we should learn from our frustrations.

Anju Bala of IBM India and Ajay Sharma of Firstrain discussed how to update regression suite and how to get rid of regression monster using automation tool.

Vipul Gupta concluded the meeting with his closing comments thanking Initto being a good host and Indian Testing Board for supporting the meets going.

NCRTMM has decided to conduct a full day software testing conference on 16th April in Noida. The theme is Agile and Automation – Software Testing Trends. This meet is expected to be attended by celebrated speakers from all over India.

Ofqual blames flawed software testing for 'A' level grading errors

Examinations regulator Ofqual has highlighted three IT problems with the marking system that caused thou-sands of students to receive incorrect GCSE and A-level marks in 2010.

A report from Ofqual has highlighed shortcomings in the way the examination board, Assessment and Qual-ifications Alliance (AQA), dealt with project manage-ment, user acceptance testing (UAT), and software training for its onscreen marking system, used by GCSE 'A' level examiners.

The marking system was extended to support longer, written answers to exam questions. However the project to extend the system to support this did not adhere to project management best practices, according to the examination regulator.

The failure in the system, which was used to mark 3.3 million GCSE and 'A' Level exam papers in the summer of 2010, resulted in 3,353 students receiving incorrect marks and 622 being issued incorrect qualification grades.

Software Testing News

*News in Hindi Script.

*

"AQA could have identified the failure earlier if more effective risk assessment and arrangements for han-dling and reporting problems concerning the onscreen marking of scripts had been in place," said Ofqual.

Isabel Nisbet, chief executive of Ofqual, said: "Factors that contributed to the marking error included limited piloting of the on-screen marking system, a lack of effective risk assessments and deficiencies in the role and training of examiners on the system."

Ofqual also says AQA did not treat the extension of the system as a new project, which meant project manage-ment method, Prince 2 (Projects In Controlled Environ-ments, version two) was not used and project managers and business analysts were not assigned to the project.

The regulator's report outlines a "lack of rigour" around user acceptance testing.

In the report, Ofqual states that the absence of proper user acceptance testing process meant some of the like-ly process errors were not picked up before the system was used in a live marking environment.

"The onscreen marking software for the June 2010 ex-aminations was released later than expected. Testing was undertaken by IT staff rather than the end users. The testing focused on the technical functionality of the marking software rather than looking at the whole process," said the report.

Source - http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2011/02/23/245563/Ofqual-blames-flawed-software-testing-for-39A39-level-grading.htm

Software testing firms shift focus to India

Independent software testing firms are focusing on India to offset sluggish growth in key markets such as Europe.

Thinksoft Global Services announced on Wednesday that it is setting up a sales cum delivery centre at And-heri in Mumbai to expand regional presence. Maveric Systems is also planning to strengthen its presence in Mumbai by bringing in senior management personnel.

AV Asvini Kumar, MD of Thinksoft Global Services, said in a statement: “There are mega plans in India as the BFSI sector in the country is yet to exploit the poten-tial of IT deployment.”

Ranga Reddy, CEO of Maveric Systems, says the com-pany failed to take advantage of the opportunity over the last two years when the Indian BFSI segment was opening up. It is now trying to shift senior management people from Chennai to Mumbai and also in the process of hiring executives to dedicate leadership for the Indi-an market.

Source - http://www.mydigitalfc.com/opportunities/software-testing-firms-shift-focus-india-825


Testing Circus Blog ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

See our blog for discus-sion on software testing topics. Topic that is cur-rently discussed is

“Good and Bad Interview Ques-tions in Software Testing.” Many of our readers have given their opinion already. You can too post your opinion in the form of comments. Let us make the discussion interactive. We will publish the summarized form of the discussion in our magazine’s future issue.

Few responses that we got from twitter so far -@riyajshaikh "What is testing?" Good question if it asked by who has done testing and bad if who had not done ever and still asking. :) @gkpandey Bad - what is the diff between smoke/sanity testing. Good - which understanding of differ between smoke/sanity do you subscribe?@vipsgupta Not only who is asking, but to whom it is being asked also makes it good/bad. What if you ask a fresher about this?

http://testingcircus.blogspot.com/


Test Case Writing Practice

Naresh Bisht has over 3 years experience in Software Testing. He has hands on experience in both manual testing as well as automation testing using QTP and LoadRunner tools. He is currently employed with HCL Technologies, Gurgaon. Naresh has been writing test cases writing column in Testing Circus from the very 1st issue. He is an active contributor in testing activities in NCR area of India.

Naresh can be reached at http://twitter.com/Naresh_Bisht

*Actual Results are written when you get to test the actual ATM Machine.

In this section we will practice to write test cases on various items, objects and applications. We do not claim that test cases written here are exhaustive. It is just to give ideas to testers, beginners on how to approach for writing test cases. Readers are encouraged to share their views on the test cases.

– Naresh Bisht

Requirement - An ATM Machine.

Objective - To generate and write test cases to test an ATM machine.

Sr. No. Steps to Execute Expected Result

Actual Result* Remarks

1Check if ATM accepts only valid (debit/credit/cash) cards.

ATM should not accept invalid, broken cards.

2 Use an expired card. Expired cards and should be rejected.3 Check ATM using other bank cards. Should accept other bank cards as well

4Check the acknowledge message if card is not properly inserted.

It should show the message "Please insert the card properly."

5Check for the text "Select your Language" option after successfull insertion of the card.

Message should appear having different language option like Hindi, English

6Check "Enter your four digit PIN" message on screen.

Message should be displayed on screen.

7Check the message in which it asks to generate the balance info slip at the end of transaction.

The message should be displayed.

8Check content displaying on screen while entering PIN.

PIN should displayed in "*" form.

9Withdraw amount more than maximum allowed limit.

Appropirate message should be displayed to warn the ATM user.

10 Check validations for invalid PINWarning message for invalid PIN should be displayed.

11Check when user enter invalid PIN more than three times

Card should be blocked.

12Check for the different options on screen such as withdraw from the current account or saving account.

ATM screen should display different options like mini statement, balance enquiry, fast cash, cash withdrawal etc.

13 Verify withdrawal amount from ATM.Amount should be equal to amount asked for.

14Check validation for entering invalid amount like Rs.50

ATM only accept amount multiple of 100.

15Check for printed slip after each transaction.

Paper slip should be generated if user selects print statement option.

16Verify the withdrawal amount and balance amount in printed slip.

Both amount should be equal and correct.

17Check for withdraw operation when ATM has insufficient cash.

A message should appear if ATM do not have cash

18Try to withdraw more than the balance available in the account.

Error message should appear if current balance is less than the amount entered by user.

19Does the atm machine warn user when it is out of order.

"Out of Order" message should be displayed if machine is not working.

20Check if cash is not collected by user for 30 sec.

Cash should be taken back by the ATM if the cash is not collected by user with in 30 sec.

21What happens when card is withdrawn or transaction is completed by the user.

Welcome message should be displayed.



Testers at Twitter

Markus GärtnerTester with special interests in Agile methodologies and software

craftsmanship, CSM, black‐belt tester in Miagi‐do school, author,

conference speaker

http://www.shino.de/blog

445 Following

768 Followers

75 Listed

http://twitter.com/mgaertne

Michael LarsenSoftware Tester, Podcast Producer, Instructor, Weekend Testing

Americas Co‐Founder, Husband & Dad, Boy Scout Leader, Snow‐

boarder... pretty much sums it up :).

http://mkl‐testhead.blogspot.com/

170 Following

311 Followers

33 Listed

http://twitter.com/mkltesthead

Shmuel GershonI test software. Stats: 5 kids, 4 rooms, 3 cages, 2 buses, 1 tweet ac‐

count.

http://testing.gershon.info

348 Following

283 Followers

24 Listed

http://twitter.com/sgershon

Phil KirkhamA programmer who got test infected

http://expectedresults.blogspot.com/

345 Following

362 Followers

33 Listed

http://twitter.com/pkirkham


Follow us at Twitter

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DARREN MCMILLAN

Q: How long have you been associated with software testing?And how did you become a software tester?A: It’s been close to four years now, having finished up as a fresh faced graduate from University and falling into the land of software testing by chance, having applied to become a Network Engineer with the company I now work for. I remember it well; I was running late for a university class one morning and was just about to catch the train that would have gotten me to my lecture with minutes to spare, when my phone started ringing. I took the call, missed my train and spent the next ten minutes discussing a role as a tester with the personnel manager of what was then called Graham Technologies. If I’m being honest I wasn’t expecting to take the job, but I went along for the interview in the hope that it would give me some more experience for when a role as a Network Engineer came along.The next day I got a phone call saying I’d been offered the job, cool I thought, but I had another interview lined up for a role I really wanted in the field I’d studied in, so I went along to that and got offered that position as well.So sadly I informed the first company I’d not be taking the position after all. That day I received a phone call from the personnel manager who’d interviewed me for the first role. After about thirty minutes of buttering me up as I’d call it and offering me more money I said I’d give it some serious thought. So here I am nearly four years later as a Software Tester, probably down to money if I’m being honest, but hey! Perhaps it was fate? I’d certainly like to think so, as to me this role has become more than just a nine to five job; it’s a hobby that I love!

Q: By any means, do you regret being associated with software testing?A: I dislike the stigma that some associate with it. I dislike the lack of understanding in our field by non testers and testers alike. Testers just test right? Developers, umm, they write code? Those documentation guys, hmm, well all they ever do

is write stuff. That’s what I and many others want to change. I really do think the community is doing a fantastic job of it already, bringing more of an understanding of what testers actually do to each other. It’s bringing that understanding into a common language which is understood by all that’s the problem. Just now I think we are some way off from that, having about twenty definitions for every discussed technique. The bigger challenge though is bringing an understanding that “testers don’t just test” to the rest of the world. That’s a challenge we can begin to solve in our workplaces by bringing understanding of what the modern day role of a tester is and how it has evolved from traditional views of what a tester should and shouldn’t do.

Q: Do you think software testing is less respected than other departments in IT industry?A: Possibly, but I think most of that is down to ourselves sometimes. Do I think documenters earn less respect than developers? Possibly, but I think that’s down to them as well.If you demonstrate your skills as a testing to others, you’ll quickly earn their respect. If you collaborate with them solving difficult problems you’ll earn their respect. If you take the time to show you care they’ll respect you even more.Here’s a pro tip that will instantly earn you the respect of others, well three tips: Communicate, communicate, communicate! While we’re in there why don’t we toss in another three pro tips: Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate!Seriously, don’t underestimate the power of both, they’ll not only gain you respect, they’ll make you job so much easier. They’ll get you places too!

Q: What will you suggest to people who want to join IT industry as software testers?A: Firstly just like any job I’d ask you to make sure you’d actually enjoy it. Now that’s the great thing about testing,

IIIINTERVIEW WITH TESTERS

Organization – Sword CiboodleRole/Designation – Software Test Engineer

Location – Glasgow, Scotland


we have that open forum to try it out with others via activities such as the Weekend Testing chapters all over the world.Secondly if you find you do like it, share your experiences with others! There must be about two hundred testing blogs around now? People might be scared they’ve missed their chance for an early audience to share their experiences with. We’ll you’ve not! If you’ve got interesting things to say, people will listen! Now you could also reverse that question and ask yourselves “Why do you think people don’t want to join the IT industry as software testers?” How many like me found a love for testing when they didn’t have intentions to be testers in the first place? Well no one’s teaching testing right? How many universities offer dedicated courses on Software Testing?

Q: Where do you see software testing in next five years?A: People think it’ll change a lot! I don’t. Sure new technologies and tools will appear which will make things easier and harder in some cases. However, the role overall I don’t think will change much.I hope that understanding of testing will improve. Hopefully more will recognise that traditional testing methods don’t work in reality and instead work to becoming diverse, multi talented, social creatures that all good modern day testers are.Who knows perhaps in five years time I’ll hire a graduate with a degree in Software Testing?We can’t tell the future, what we can do though is make paths towards a better, brighter future for all.

Q: What qualities will you look for in a candidate when you want to recruit someone for software testing job?A: A good communication skill is a key! A bit of an ego is ok. A bad attitude is a no no! I want team players, who all have their own qualities that compliment the team. They can be as opinionated as they like, just as long as we’re all working towards the same goal.

I’d preferably want you to come to me with your skills on display. If you’ve got a blog and write about your experiences in testing then you’ve probably got my interest already. If you participate in Weekend Testing sessions or can display me some form of testing report and I like what I see you’ll no doubt get an interview.I’m less interested in what you can say and more on what you can do! Anyone can answer questions, but how many can test?

Q: Your weekend routine?A: Weekends for me are family time! A might get onto Twitter a little bit, but apart from that I’ll be spending quality time with my beautiful daughter and her talented mum, who despite everything I achieve or might achieve in the future will always outshine me just because she’s such a wonderful mother.

Q: Movie you would like to watch again?A: I’m a big fan of films! It doesn’t even require a good plot for me to enjoy it, just some action and I’m happy.A film I watched not so long ago that I’d like to watch again would probably be Kick Ass! What an amazing film!I’d probably have to go with “Fallen” though since it’s one of my only favourites that I’ve not watched in a few years.

Q: “I am a social networking site geek” Or “I hate facebook /orkut / twitter”?A: What’s Facebook? Seriously I don’t have one, or want one for that matter. I do love Twitter though!In fact I could write a whole blog about Twitter and how useful it has been in gathering information about testing for me. If I don’t talk to you on Twitter already, look me up and let’s get to know each other! I love getting to know other testers.

IIIINTERVIEW WITH TESTERS


Darren McMillan has been working in the testing field for just over three years now. Having only become aware of the vibrant online testing community in the past year, he is already making big impressions via his web viral blog http://bettertesting.co.ukWith a genuine passion for all things testing he actively seeks to solve the problems others tend to accept. Having quickly made waves in his workplace he is now seeking to share his experiences with others, in the hope that he can help people near and a far. He strongly believes that opportunities are there to be taken & actively promotes self learning to others. When he is not testing or writing about his experiences he enjoys nothing more than some quite family time. A proud father to a beautiful daughter he hopes that from leading by example he’ll encourage her to follow her own dreams. Blog/Site – http://bettertesting.co.ukTwitter Url – http://twitter.com/darren_mcmillan

We need people from all over the world.

Become a Testing Circus Representative (TCR)

Visit our web site for more information.

http://www.TestingCircus.com/TCR.aspx


June 23rd 2011, Stadion Galgenwaard,Utrecht - The Netherlands

Today, 'Test automation' is a much talked about topic in theworld of software testing and quality. The next generation testtools facilitates a faster, better and cost-effective test process.So there is much to gain, but only if we use the right tool inthe right place.

This challenge in the “World of Testing” has led to thefirst edition of the annual Conference for test automationpractitioners and experts on June 23rd:

Test Automation Day 2011!

The program consists of (inter)national keynote speakers,best practices and workshops. In collaboration with anindependent Program Committee, CKC Seminars ensures aninteresting day with lots of Test Automation content.The speakers will contribute to the main theme: “Optimizing the profits of the next generation Test Tools.”

One of the top experts presenting on the Test AutomationDay 2011 will be Elfriede Dustin, Software Engineer at

Innovative Defense Technologies (USA) and author of the book 'Implementing Automated Software Testing: How to Save Time and Lower Costs While Raising Quality' (2009).

In short: This is the 2011 Test Event not to be missed!

Register before April 1st, and receive an early birddiscount of E100,- excl VAT.

A unique chance to visit this conference for only E195,- excl VAT!

Register now at www.testautomationday.nl

First edition | June 23rd, 2011

Conference organization and initiative CKC Seminars | Founding partner Squerist


Testing Circus is everywhere.

Recommend it to your your tester friends.

Problem: Is it possible to shorten the long line of code in QTP?

Solution: Yes it is possible, You just need to define some temp object like below and you would be able to replace long code with short words‘The long sample code1. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway").Link("Train Type Information").Click2. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_2").Link("Train Berth Availability").Click3. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_3").WebEdit("lccp_src_stncode_dis").Set "new delhi"4. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_3").WebEdit("lccp_dstn_stncode_dis").Set "bang"5. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_3").WebButton("Get Details").Click6. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_4").WebRadioGroup("lccp_trndtl").Select "12628NDLSSBC YYYYYYYYA"7. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_4").Link("+KARNATAKA EXP").Click8. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_5").WebRadioGroup("lccp_trndtl").Select "12650NZM YPR YYYNYNYYA"9. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_5").Link("+KTK SMPRK K EXP").Click10. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_5").WebList("lccp_quota").Select "Defence Quota"11. Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_5").WebButton("Get Full Fare").Click

'Define temp objectsSet page1=Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway")Set page2=Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_2")Set page3=Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_3")Set page4=Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_4")Set page5=Browser("Welcome to Indian Railway").Page("Welcome to Indian Railway_5")

'Short Sample Code1. page1.Link("Train Type Information").Click2. page2.Link("Train Berth Availability").Click3. page3.WebEdit("lccp_src_stncode_dis").Set "new delhi"4. page3.WebEdit("lccp_dstn_stncode_dis").Set "bang"5. page3.WebButton("Get Details").Click6. page4.WebRadioGroup("lccp_trndtl").Select "12628NDLSSBC YYYYYYYYA"7. page4.Link("+KARNATAKA EXP").Click8. page5.WebRadioGroup("lccp_trndtl").Select "12650NZM YPR YYYNYNYYA"9. page5.Link("+KTK SMPRK K EXP").Click10. page5.WebList("lccp_quota").Select "Defence Quota"11. page5.WebButton("Get Full Fare").Click

Jaijeet Pandey has over 5 and half years of experience in Application Development, Maintenance and Testing. From more than last 4 years he is involved in automation testing with QTP and Load Runner tools. He is associated with various testing initiatives in NCR region of India. Jaijeet writes his blog at http://jaijeetpandey.blogspot.com

He is currently employed with Birlasoft, Noida. He can be reached at http://twitter.com/jaijeetpandey


NNCCRR TTeesstteerrss MMoonntthhllyy MMeeeett ((NNCCRRTTMMMM)) SSooffttwwaarree TTeessttiinngg CCoonnffeerreennccee

16th April 2011 – Noida, India

Call for Papers In any profession continuous learning is the sure sign of progress. For continuous learning, learning culture has to be in place. The learning culture gets developed either as an individual discipline or as an outcome of organizational environment where learning and application of the learning happens in a seamless manner. With the goal to further learning in the domain of testing, Indian Testing Board has launched NCR Testers Monthly Meet (NCRTMM) where testers come together at regular intervals and teach and learn.

NCRTMM started its meet in December 2010 and has continued its

monthly meets till date. As a part of its monthly meet, NCRTMM has decided to organize a full day Software Testing conference in Noida on 16th April 2011. This conference is focused on exploring innovations, controversies, and challenges faced by the Software Testing community today. The conference brings together theory and experience to propose and evaluate solutions to Software Testing problems. The conference also provides a forum and an opportunity to assess the current state-of-the-art in Software Testing and to chart future directions for the Software Testing community.

Theme for the conference:

Agile and Automation – Software Testing Trends Agile is the buzzword in recent times and the word is used to sell any and everything. Automation is a painful thing where framework is a word used to scare the managers and clients alike. Let us combine this fun or take them separately. Bring your papers that lay bare the mysteries of Agile, Automation and Agile-Automation.

Instructions to the Authors: Papers will be accepted ONLY BY ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION in PPT/PDF format. Please include a cover page containing title, author's name, address, affiliation, e-mail address, telephone number and topic area.

Write to us at [email protected]

Where to submit:

Send your paper to

[email protected]

Important Dates –

Last date of submission –30th March, 2011

Notification of Acceptance/ Rejection – 5th April, 2011

Conference Date – 16th April 2011

Organizing Committee –

- Vipul Kocher

- Vipul Gupta

- Ajoy Kumar Singha

-----------------------------------

Venue – Adobe Towers I-1A, Sector 25A, NOIDA

Website – http://ncr.indiantestingboard.com


Want to write for us?See our article submission guidelines.

Article submission guidelines –

Subject of article can be based on any area of Software Testing. If you want to publish your article on theme based subject please read our announcement of monthly theme published in our site. Article can be submitted without any theme based subject.

There is no minimum and maximum length of article. If you feel the article is lengthy, please divide the article into logically separated parts so that we can print them in a monthly series.

Give a meaningful title to the article. If you want a sub-title as well , then add that in a different line.

Add images/pictures if necessary. If you are using any image/picture which is not yours own work, please include the source. Take care of copyrighted materials.

Send us the article in MS word (doc/docx) format only. Pdf files are not accepted.

Write a short write up on the author(s). Usually 7/8 liners in 3rd person descriptive language.

Include photograph of author(s). Preferred in high resolution .jpeg format. Ideal size would be 50mmX 50mm.

Mention theme and month of article – if applicable.

Send in your article to [email protected] with a subject line “Article for Testing Circus – Author Name – Title of the article”

If you think you can write a column in Testing Circus for at least 6 months, please submit 3 articles in advance. We are open to any idea that may improve the user experience of Testing Circus.

http://testingcircus.com/ArticleGuidelines.aspx

Founder & Editor‐in‐Chief – Ajoy Kumar Singha

Assistant Editors ‐ Brian Osman (Wellington/New Zealand), Gagan Talwar (Mumbai/India), Selim Mia (Tokyo/Japan), Ajay Sharma (New Delhi/India), Ashik Elahi (Dhaka/Bangladesh), Asif Iquebal Sarkar (Bhubaneswar/India)

Core Team – Jaijeet Pandey, Naresh Bisht, Kumar Gaurav, Sunil Godiyal

Publicity Team – Maheepati Tyagi, Amit Agnihotri, Pankaj Sharma

Online Collaboration & Advertisement – Bharati Singha

Technical Team – Debasish Nath, Nasim Ahmed, Rajat Verma

Volume 2 ‐ Issue 3 – March 2011The contents published in this magazine are copyright material of respective authors. Testing Circus does not hold any right on the material. To republish any part of the magazine permission need to be obtained from respective authors.

Testing Circus. Published from New Delhi/India. © Copyright 2010‐2011

Testing Circus Team


What do you think of Testing Circus?

Write to us with suggestions, feedbacks. Our team will try to implement all your suggestions and feedbacks in the future issues of Testing Circus.

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