Blog

As I've mentioned here before, RBCS is serious about helping gaming companies improve their testing. We have been helping gaming companies and game testing companies improve their testing for almost two decades. Game software is about the same size as the movie industry, which makes it one of the most important sectors of the US economy.

Why does testing matter? Simple. When you test better, you deliver a higher quality gaming experience to your players. When your players have a better gaming experience, they come back.

If you're building or testing gaming software, and you want to test better, deliver higher quality, and thus build player loyalty, contact us. Not only can we help you improve your testing processes through consulting and expert services, we can also help you improve your testing skills with our complete line of ASTQB accredited training courses. Not only is RBCS serious about game testing, so is the ASTQB, as you can see on their dedicated game testing web page. So, let us know today how we can help you.

Yes, I am coming to Europe in June. Check out some of the details in this video. You can meet me at one of the following events:

• June 1: Private white-box testing tutorial (sorry, not open to the public, but available for your company, too).
• June 2-3: Testing Stage 2017 conference 
• June 6-8: ISTQB Advanced Security Tester, in partnership with imbus
• June 12-14: ISTQB Expert Test Manager Strategic Module, in partnership with Masterfield
• June 19-21: Black-box Bug-a-thon and Software Test Estimation at the Software Testing Forum

I hope to see you there! If you want to arrange a private training or consulting session while I'm there, contact us today.

If you've never attended a live RBCS training course before, here's a sample of what you're missing. This week, we ran our ASTQB Agile Tester Foundation course. In this course, as with all RBCS live courses, in addition to detailed explanations of the topics and lively discussion, we have lots of collaborative exercises. That means working as a team, just like in a real Agile project, to solve testing challenges.

This week, we started by selecting a user story from the release backlog, grooming it to get the size right, and defining testable acceptance criteria:

Next, we did some iteration planning to identify some of the issues with testing this user story:

Then, we did a quality risk analysis for a few of the acceptance criteria associated with the user story:

We also covered assigning story points to a user story, including using the results of the risk analysis to inform the estimation process:

Now, with iteration planning complete, it's time to design tests for the user story. We used equivalence partitioning to address issues with valid and invalid payments:

Finally, we created specific tests cases for some of the test designs, using the results of our risk analysis to decide how to prune the potential set of tests:

The most dangerous kind of bad idea is the one that sounds reasonable. Bad ideas that sound stupid stand little chance of implementation, but bad ideas that sound reasonable often carry the day, with disastrous results. If you are having trouble dealing with bad ideas about software testing and quality, or having trouble making sure that you aren't coming up with bad ideas about software testing and quality, contact us. We can help keep you, your test team, and your whole organization out of the crocodile pool.

Lots of people give top 10 lists, but only the very brave will give a bottom 10 list! Let’s face it though: Smart people sometimes do dumb things. Smart testers and test managers are no exception. In this RBCS classic webinar (part 1 and part 2), I discuss things I've done and things I've seen other smart test professionals do that, upon close reflection, turn out to be big mistakes. Remember, any fool can learn from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. If you need help avoiding (or undoing) testing mistakes, contact us for help.

If you're sick of going around and around in circles on your software testing or quality improvement projects, let us know. We can help. Since 1994, we've been helping clients large and small around the world improve their testing and the quality of the applications, software, and systems.  Contact us today to find out how we can help you. No project or budget is too large or too small.

Seems that lately a lot of companies and organizations are making news for all the wrong reasons. Their systems are getting hacked. These hacks can lead cause embarrassment, stock price drops, legal liability, and job losses for the responsible parties. Here at RBCS, we can help you avoid these unpleasant scenarios Listen to my brief message here, then contact us today for more information about our Advanced Security Tester course.

I gave a keynote speech at Austria's Software Quality Days 2015 conference, and you can catch the video on our YouTube channel now. This talk isn't going to give you urgently-needed ideas you can use today, but it does offer a chance to reflect on where technology is taking us and what it means for testing and quality in the future.

In this "pop culture meets software engineering trends" talk, I discuss the broader implications of the IoT, including refrigerators, autonomous cars, and more. How does human thinking about technology, expressed in myths, art, and movies, inform our thinking about IoT and where technology is going? Was Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep Phillip Dick's answer to Isaac Asimov's I, Robot series, and whose vision is closer to where we're going? What are the testing and quality implications of software everywhere, connectivity always, and the "if we can dream it we can build it" world that we now live in?

Watch this webinar for a thought-provoking talk. It won't make you more efficient in your job today, but it just might help you think about where your job will be in five years.

Here's a story from a client's Test Manager. Maybe you can relate?

"A program manager stopped me in the hall and said: 'Tell your testers they're finding too many defects.'  My response: 'I think you're talking to the wrong person. The development manager's office is down the hall on the right.' It took him a minute, but he got my point."

A lot of tester interviews start with questions like, “So, how would you test this pen?” Really great, if you happen to be in the pen-making business and rely on inspector-based quality control rather than modern manufacturing methods. Really silly if you are testing modern software and systems.

However, here’s a realistic alternative, one that actually explores something interesting with testers and how they approach testing.

Check out this video of this elaborate clock in Prague. Cool, huh? Well, imagine you had to test this clock.

Notice, if you were doing black-box testing, you wouldn't care if the logic was based on software or was entirely mechanical. The expected behavior is the same. However, what if you were doing white-box testing? Code and servo-motors work in an entirely different matter than gears and springs.  A good black-box testing can explain how to test the clock’s behaviors. Tester with good black-box and white-box abilities can not only explain how to test the clock’s behaviors, but can also explain how testing a mechanical clock like this one would differ from testing an electronic version of the same abilities.

Feel free to use this video and this mental exercise to interview testers, if you’d like. You’re welcome!