Counting those Test Cases

So we are working through a test strategy for a big software rollout at work, change of ERP for those of you that are interested.
As you will have read in my earlier posts we have a consultant in to help us with this, He's done a great job of highlighting some pitfalls we have overlooked, and suggested some thing that we really need to be considering. However he also has a huge amount of work in his overview for writing test cases, writing test scripts , then running those test scripts. I have challenged him on this, I have suggested that we would be much better of if we used Exploratory Testing, and get the SME's (subject matter expert) to use this rather than us writing thousands of test cases which, mostly will need rewriting as soon as the business gets a good look at the software and changes a load of stuff, like they normally do.
He seemed bemused that I'd want to take this approach on such an important project. I did my best to explain the benefits of the context driven approach, but I'm new to the whole thing, so we will see how well I do when we attempt to restructure the plan today.
Any pointers on how to sway people are gratefully accepted.

So that Consultant Test Manager.....

Well he's been in for a week today, we have bombarded him with info, he's taken a fair chunk on board, not done much questioning though, not sure why. I am sure it's not because we have covered all angles.
I should get a chance to see his strategy doc either today or monday, from what I have gathered so far it's going to revolve around the factory school approach. So he's looks like he'll be suggesting a more longer time frame, or higher resource requirement.
So hopefully in the next couple of days i'll get the time to talk through with him about an alternative approach, he does seem open to the ideas of exploratory testing, and context driven testing, he's just nervous about it in a project as I don't think he's ever taken that leap.

We'll see how that goes.

He is thankfully highlighting the risks for the business about what we are doing, and how much work is involved, so we should be viewing those more seriously now we have a paid for opinion on the matter, more on that another time.


What have i learnt from this week so far, just because they have years of experience, doesn't make them a better tester than someone who has a better understanding of the context.
That experience has helpful insights but it can also carry over problems from their experiences.

we'll see how the next week goes.

Doug

Starting BBST software testing course

Just a quick post to say that i'm on a Training course run by BBST and it's very exciting, work have agreed to pay for the online BBST course foundations of software testing. And I must say I'm really looking forward to it. I will be posting up how it's going after its started later this month. but from the intro in the textbook it's looking to be a great course.

I'm very much hoping to improve my knowledge about testing, and my practical expertise, and given the course seems to have plenty of practical exercise as well as lectures it should do the job.

Doug