One thing I’ve found that’s helpful to me in my career as a tester is the ability to abstract information from one venue to another. Testers and especially those who do Quality Assurance activities must be reasonably adept at abstracting knowledge from one domain and applying it in another, all the while accounting for those parts that don’t apply in the new domain. There are many ways to look at this but here I want to consider problem solving as a technique. I’m going to look at the technique of problem solving in relation to the domain of combat. My goal is to show how you can translate aspects of the combat domain into your more traditional day-to-day scenarios.
Continue reading Winning Battles, Losing WarsCategory: Thinking
What Can Time Travel Teach Us About Testing?
I have long maintained that testing is ultimately about thinking. A lot of your work is going to be predicated upon spotting incongruous elements (whether in documents or application code), resolving potential ambiguities in what you read or see, and dealing with potential inconsistencies or outright contradictions. Sometimes people will frame problems in such a way that your ability to “solve” or deal with the problem effectively is compromised from the start.
A good way to practice your thinking skills is to apply them in an entirely different arena than software testing.
Continue reading What Can Time Travel Teach Us About Testing?