Pinta Education Blog

Our environment influences most things we do. Testing is no different. What we do can be influenced by: Our stakeholders – their needs, wants, and desire to contribute both in funding and business insights Our team members – their skills, knowledge, experience, motivation, etc. Business domain…

Test completion activities take place at the end of a period of testing. They can include: Dealing with unresolved defects, change requests or product backlog items Archiving of testware Shutting the test environment down to an agreed state Considering process improvements based on lessons le…

The tests are run once the planning, analysis, design, and implementation are completed. Test execution: Can be manual or automated Can involve continuous testing through automation (normally as part of continuous integration) Can include pair testing Compares actual to expected outcomes wit…

Here we get ready for test execution. This includes: Getting the test data required to run the tests Putting the test cases in the right order for execution (such as logging on, creating an account, then purchasing a train ticket), into a test procedure or script Possibly grouping the procedur…

In test design the test conditions are broken down into test cases (inputs and expected outputs) or test charters. This involves: Designing and prioritizing test cases – such as ‘input ticket number’, ‘expect seat number to be generated’ Design the test environment – this could include mobiles…

During test analysis, the test basis (e.g. the requirements, user stories, or code) is analyzed to: Identify testable features – such as checking that a seat on a train can be reserved Define and prioritize the associated test conditions, based on risk or business priorities – such as checking…

As with any project (even going on holiday) planning is required for its eventual success. Test planning typically considers the goals to be achieved, and the process to be used to achieve them. There is a concept of a blue-sky approach, where each project starts with confidence that things will g…

1. “Absence of proof is not proof of absence”. This is true here. Testing is about evidence. We say what we saw and can extrapolate to provide an indication of confidence in the software quality, or otherwise, but we cannot say that all bugs have been found. 2. In testing we do not try t…

Most people will be aware of software issues.  Here we want to show the trail of events.  Software does not malfunction by itself – we humans are involved. We are all probably aware of our own fallibilities – we might be tired, inexperienced, rushed or facing something more complex than…

For many people, testing is about assuring the quality of a system, making testing and quality assurance (QA) the same. Whilst the focus on quality in testing is welcome, testing forms a part of QA, not the whole. Testing is a form of quality control – does it do what it should and if not, what s…

In this blog we consider how testing can assist the other disciplines within software development. Project goals – This can include the number of story points to be completed for a project. Other goals could include preventative measures such as carrying out static testing; refactoring code early…

Let us remind ourselves about the distinction between a defect and a failure – the failure is what we observe in testing; the defect may be the cause of the failure. If we are testing a document (in our context either a requirement of some kind, or source code), then we find the defect at source…