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Pradeep Soundararajan, Satisfice Inc., USA Pradeep loves testing challenges and is a dedicated student of the craft. He is a student and colleague of James Bach, Jerry Weinberg, Michael Bolton and Ben Simo. He coaches, consults, speaks, writes on software testing and problem solving.Pradeep has served several software products and services organizations ranging from start ups to decades old multi billion dollar shops in India. He offers a wide range of services from testing, consulting, managing, coaching and mentoring. He has tested over 100 products and is an invited speaker at international conferences, organizations and premier institutes.He writes a blog Tester Tested! ( http://testertested.blogspot.com ) and welcomes people to get in touch with him through pradeep.srajan@gmail.com
Great testing stories from India ( Created by NOT following any "Best Practices" )When I was 4 years old, I used to eat sand (not because my mother didn't like me eating sand nor for the reason of poverty but as a child, I think, I liked exploring sand as another food option for me) . It was my mother who helped me know my act of eating sand during child hood and referred to me as 'naughty' during childhood.
I could eat sand without knowing it was called 'sand' and I could be naughty without knowing I was called 'naughty'.
When I started my career as a tester and found the first few bugs, I was told by a senior to do more such "negative testing" to find more such bugs. I asked him, "What is negative testing?" and he replied, "Whatever you did to find these bugs is negative testing".
I could do negative testing without knowing that someone refers to what I am doing as 'negative testing'.
Years later, I blogged that I still didn't understand what negative testing means but ideas of what it could be.
It took me a couple of years to learn that I do many things without knowing how someone calls it and then learned from others how some parts of the community I live in calls it.
All these stories indicate that we might be doing great things without knowing it. What is important to us is doing great things and not necessarily knowing the names but it is good to know the names of the great things we do when we intend to communicate with other people.
Anything that works great for me could make you fail badly. For instance, I can live a 100 years eating curd rice and pickle but you may die falling sick of it OR what medicines that could save me from a headache could kill you because although the common problem we might have is headache the actual root cause is different .
If you disagree to it, 'best practices' fit you well.
If you agree to it, then I am sure you understand why doctors prescribe different medicines for the same person, the next time he /she gets a headache.
In this presentation, you would hear some of the great stories of Indian software testing that fortunately I was a part of and played a role in helping teams achieve the success. What might surprise you is the fact that those teams who did not follow 'best practices' tasted success that teams who claim to follow 'best practices' dream to achieve.
If you are going to listen to these stories in my presentation, I warn you to be aware that you cannot see the same success if you try doing things we did.
Welcome to context driven testing!
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