Test Modelling and Coverage
by Paul Gerrard, Gerrard Consulting, UKSeptember 25, 2019
Full day course
Paul Gerrard is a consultant, teacher, author, webmaster, programmer, tester, conference speaker, rowing coach and publisher. He has conducted consulting assignments in all aspects of software testing and quality assurance, specialising in test assurance. He has presented keynote talks and tutorials at testing conferences across Europe, the USA, Australia, South Africa and occasionally won awards for them.
Educated at the universities of Oxford and Imperial College London, he is the Principal of Gerrard Consulting Limited, the host of the UK Test Management Forum and a business coach for Enterprising Macclesfield. He was the Programme Chair for the 2014 EuroSTAR conference in Dublin and for the 2017 ExpoQA conference in Madrid.
In 2010 he won the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award and in 2013 he won the inaugural TESTA Lifetime Achievement Award. He won the ISTQB Testing Excellence Award in 2018.
Full Course Outline
Testing is a process in which we create mental models of the environment, the program, human nature and the tests themselves.” Boris Beizer said that in 1990, but the idea that testers use models is much older than that. For almost everything humans do – that involves complexity – we create models to simplify, to scope, to mechanise, to understand.
Models are an essential part of being human. To take a few steps requires us to understand the configuration of all of the larger bones and joints of our bodies and the tensions in around 100 muscles. Our brains must understand all this, send an orchestrated set of nerve impulses to all these muscles to take a single step and calculate, calibrate and recalculate second by second – but much faster than that.
It takes huge processing power to control mechanical robots that simulate human movement. Humans simply don’t have that power, so we must simplify, through mental models. Modelling is essential, innate and human. Our brain is a superb modelling engine. As developers and testers, let’s use it to our advantage.
In this course, Paul explores how we think as testers and how we use models to simplify, scope and explain what we do. Consider how our understanding of a problem is in effect, a model. Our approaches to testing are models. We explain what we do as testers as meaningful models – to stakeholders.
Paul will demonstrate and explain how successful test design and execution automation is based on models too.
Learning Objectives
Some hard questions - How much testing is enough? Who is responsible for testing? When should testing stop? What is the value of testing anyway? Using models to make your case.
Exploration, Modelling and Testing - Models Pub Quiz, Where do you use models, A New Model for Testing, Fallible sources of Knowledge, All testing is exploratory, Exploration and modelling
Characteristics of models - All models are wrong, some are useful, Models simplify, Models hide complexity, Models and scope, Models and perspective; relevance to stakeholders, Value of models
Modelling and Coverage - Some Simple Models, What does coverage mean, ‘Traditional’ test design techniques, Diverse half-measures, How do we choose our models, How do we choose our coverage target?
Tools and Model-Based Testing - How tools can help, Demo/discussion of NIST ACTS tool, Demo/discussion of CA Agile Requirements Designer, Other tools
Practicalities - What models do you currently use? What falls through gaps? What overlap/duplication exists? Problems you face in test selection? How do you decide how much testing is enough? How do you justify what you decided? How do you present your plans, test designs, results?
NOTE: Minimal experience is required for participants in the tutorial. Only a smartphone is required, as some of the exercises are online.
08:30 - 09:00 Registering
09:00 - Start
10:45 - 11:15 Coffee Break
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch
15:45 - 16:15 Coffee Break
18:00 - End
То registering please contact us at [email protected]
Course price: 350 EUR
Discounts
The discounts apply separately and they cannot be accumulated.
All prices are exclusive VAT.
ATTENTION: Limited number of seats available for the selected course!
