Past Presentations
You can find an extensive list of presentations and courses that I've taught, including the slides and speaker notes for many of them, here.
Coming up—let's meet!
Check out my schedule, and drop me a line if you'd like to get together when things change and I'm in your part of the world—or if you'd like to meet and chat online. If you'd like me to work with you and it doesn't look like I'm available, remember that my clients' schedules are subject to change, so mine is too. Finally, note that some conferences offer discounts—and even if they don't advertise it, maybe we can work something out.
April 26, 2021
Online
For the STAREast Virtual Conference, the return of Critical Thinking for Testers, a one-day workshop on... critical thinking for testers. Read a description of the class here; and you can get registration information here.
April 27, 2021
Online
The STAREast Virtual Conference continues with X-Ray Vision for Testers, a one-day workshop on analysis. More information about the class here; register here.
May 4 and May 6, 2021
Online
The Craft Conference, is based in Hungary and presented worldwide online. The conference is hosting my one-day Rapid Software Testing Focused: Strategy workshop, split into two half-days, Tuesday and Thursday. It's scheduled for afternoons in Europe, which can also work for some early risers in the Americas. Details on the sessions here; register here.
May 11, 2021
Online
For the first time, the EuroSTAR folk will be presenting EuroSTAR Summer Tutorials. Who cares if May is a little early for summer? I'm Canadian; by May we've earned it. The topic on the table is test reporting the Rapid Software Testing way. : What’s the Story? Powerful Test Reporting. This is a one-day tutorial set for European time zones. Information on the class here; register here.
May 25-28, 2021
Online
Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom teleconferencing. This class will take place during morning and mid-day hours for people in Europe and the UK; in the afternoon for people in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and India; and in the evenings for people in Asia. Read about RST here; the details of the RSTE class are here; and you can register here.
June 2, 2021
Online
Commited is a testing community in Ukraine. They'll be hosting an evening session of A Context-Driven Approach to Automation in Testing, available to its Pro members. The class runs from 19h00 to 22h30 Eastern European Time. A description of the class is here; register here.
June 21-24, 2021
Online
Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom teleconferencing. This class will take place during morning and mid-day hours for people in North and South America; and in the evenings for people in Europe, the UK, and Middle East. An overview of RST is here; dive into the details of the class here. Register now for the class.
July 5-8, 2021
Online
Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom teleconferencing. This class will take place during morning and mid-day hours for people in Europe and the UK; in the afternoon for people in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and India; and in the evenings for people in Asia. Read about RST here; the details of the RSTE class are here; a registration link is here.
July 14, 2021
Online
A 90-minute "Ask Me Anything" session for a private client in the United Kingdom.
July 15, 2021
Online
A one-hour session on testers' résumés (or CVs) for a private client, a recruiting firm in the United Kingdom.
July 19-22, 2021
Online
A private session of Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom for a corporate client in Toronto.
July 26-29, 2021
Online
A private session of Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom for a different corporate client in the Toronto region.
August 3-6, 2021
Online
Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, for New Zealand, Australia, Asia, and the Pacific. This flight of the class is scheduled to start at 2:00pm in NZ; noon on the east side of Australia, 10:00am in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc.; and 7:30am in India. Read about RST here; the details of the RSTE class are here; a registration link is here.
August 16-19, 2021
Online
A private session of Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom for a the same corporate client as the week of July 26.
September 7-10, 2021
Online
A private session of Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom for a corporate client, with participants in New York and the UK. Online training is not the same as in-person classes, but there is the advantage of being able to be in two places at once.
September 13-16, 2021
Online
Rapid Software Testing Explored Online, presented via Zoom teleconferencing. This class will take place during morning and mid-day hours for people in North and South America; and in the evenings for people in Europe, the UK, and Middle East. An overview of RST is here; dive into the details of the class here. Registration link coming soon.
Test case is a noun, test is a verb.
Test case is the means, test is the objective.
A test case is a recipe used by the tester(chef) to test(cook).
Test case is the script; tester is the actor; test is an act.
A tester can test without a test script.
The most important of all three is the tester, as the test is as good as the tester.
[…] post was triggered by thoughts following on from a Michael Bolton tweet and blog post making analogies to explain that test cases are not […]
[…] The Test Case is Not the Test […]
Absolutly right! … and nobody wrote in test case: “Now you should galumphing for 1 hour to find some bugs” 🙂
Exactly. And likewise, “How many recipes do you have” doesn’t tell us anything about your cooking skill.
It’s a sacrilege to say something against them or be placed in a different light. Somehow this emphasis on test cases is encouraged by tools also, for example TFS. It seems that some pseudo-managers are won over by the simplicity of this management, meaning testing by just counting test cases.
[…] • ?????????-???????????: test case – ??? ?? ????. […]
[…] • ?????????-???????????: test case – ??? ?? ????. […]
[…] of steps (and because of that it can’t be done by a machine – more about that later). A test case is not a test. At best, it is a test guide or idea. There is no way a “test case” could ever be […]
Absolutely right! … and nobody wrote in test case: “Now you should galumphing for 1 hour to find some bugs”
Michael replies: Yes. It would be a good idea to do that (although it might be helpful to be clear on what “galumphing” means; so here’s a reference).
In my view, a Test Case is the unit of measurement of the effectiveness of a Test. Segregating a Test into Test Cases can help us determine the Test Coverage. A Test tends to be generic whereas a Test Case is specific.
Michael replies: People might think that way, but I can’t agree.
With repsect to your first sentence: if a test case is a unit of measurement, what is the scale for the unit? Is a test of six steps and three evaluations to be counted the same way as a test of 24 steps and one evaluation? Before you answer, notice that “step” and “evaluation” suffer from the same scaling problem: is moving the mouse and clicking the button one step or two? Is selecting a check box a step? If it is, is typing a single keystroke in a field a step? Is typing 16 keystrokes into a credit card field a single step? Does that step include pressing Tab to go to the next field, or is pressing Tab a new step? What if the test case is composed simply of a set of data values—inputs and outputs—with no steps specified at all? For something to be a unit of measurement, you need a model such that units are commensurable. That’s hard enough to do when you leave out the cognitive aspects of the test, but how are you going to claim a “unit” when you add in the tacit stuff&mash;that is, what we’re observing and learning that is not explicit; the stuff at the very heart of the test.
That’s a problem with treating a test case as a unit of measurement at all; even as a unit of effort. But there’s a deeper problem: there’s no intrinsic link that I can see that makes a test case a unit of measure of effectiveness. That seems like a pretty wild leap.
With respect to your second and third sentences: I’d say there are other, more specific ways to describe our testing and our coverage. I agree that describing our coverage is important, but I don’t think you’re talking about test cases here in the way that most people talk about them. In Rapid Software Testing, we think of a test condition as “something that could be examined in a test, or that could influence the outcome of a test”. It seems to me that a test case covers many conditions—and here again some are explicit and some are tacit; some anticipated, and some only recognized after the fact. To the degree that you’re talking about conditions, rather than cases, I would find it easier to agree with you.
“PowerPoint slides is not a conference talk” smile words 🙂
[…] https://www.developsense.com/blog/2017/02/the-test-case-is-not-the-test/ […]
[…] Michael Bolton “The Test Case Is Not The Test” https://www.developsense.com/blog/2017/02/the-test-case-is-not-the-test/ […]