James Bach LIVE Q&A webinar - PractiTest Webinar Series

In this unique Webinar, Both James Bach and Joel Montvelisky discuss questions regarding Exploratory and Session-Based Testing, from Theory to Methodology. At the beginning of this session, James reads a statement about ET to serve as an introduction into the rest of the webinar. We are copying here the statement as it was a bit cut during the recording of the webinar:

"There are lots of people, the ISTQB people, who spread incorrect and ignorant claims about exploratory testing. The term exploratory testing was coined by Cem Kaner in 80’s. It was popularized by me in the 90’s. I have been teaching it since 1993.

So I will tell you when we said: “exploratory testing” we were talking about testing that was under the control of the tester as the tester was performing a particular test. You can also call it informal testing.

The opposite of testing that is under your control is testing not under your control. We called that scripted testing. Another word for it is formal testing. To formalize something is to stop doing it just any way you want and instead do it in one specific way; the scripted way.

In the early 2000’s we came to realize that whenever humans do testing it always involves unspoken and unwritten knowledge and abilities. These elements are always under the control of the tester to some degree. Furthermore, no testing can be reasonable, acceptable and good enough without these unwritten, unscriptable factors. We know this based on sociology, epistemology, and neuroscience—three fields the ISTQB people don’t talk about.

If all testing involves tacit knowledge and skill, and this cannot be scripted, that means all testing is exploratory testing to some degree.

But testing also involves structures, habits, and biases that constrain our freedom. We may often give up some of our choices in order to achieve a specific goal with our testing. Therefore, all testing is also scripted to some degree.

Let me summarize: Exploratory testing is not something you do in your spare time. All testing is exploratory AND all testing is scripted to some degree. Some testing is very exploratory and other testing is very scripted. So, there is a continuum of formality from very informal to very formal. The question is never “when do you do exploratory testing” but rather “how exploratory is your testing, how scripted is your testing, and why?”

There are pros and cons of being on different parts of the formality continuum. Informal testing allows you very quickly discover many kinds of bugs, but it may be less reliable about doing some specific test. Formal testing allows you to be more confident that you did specific testing, but your testing is likely to be more shallow and more narrow because formalizing is expensive and inflexible.

Although it is not possible to completely formalize and script a testing process, you can completely formalize an output checking process. Most of the so-called test cases that people try to automate are really automated regression output checks. There can be a lot of value to these, and checking is part of testing. But checking alone is not a replacement for the thoughtful and searching process of testing.

Here is an important truth about formal testing. I have done some of the most formal testing anyone has ever done, as part of legal proceedings in a court of law, and I can tell you that all formal testing that is any good begins as informal testing. In other words, exploratory testing is how I create my scripted testing."

Additional resources:
https://www.practitest.com/qa-learningcenter/

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