Key Points

• Business oriented approach to test development
• Pitfalls of the traditional mechanical ways to develop tests
• Practical ways to apply scenarios as an alternative

Presentation Abstract

It is far from easy to develop good tests. Translating requirements one by one into test cases isn't always good enough. You can end up with an unmanageable volume of boring tests, that lack effectiveness in finding complex and hidden problems. Based on experiences in numerous projects around testing and test automation a number of techniques will be presented that can improve the process of test development. They are grouped around the theme "Soap Opera Testing". Applying them can not only lead to a better manageable test set, it is also a more motivating and creative way of developing tests.

The idea behind soap opera's is that you use real business examples for your tests in the form of scenario's. But, comparable to soap opera's on television, they are condensed and, if appropriate, exaggerated. In this way you can find out if a system can cope with complex business situation and, even more important, it motivates end users to make nice test cases (it is more fun).

This theme has been presented in the States as keynote for Star East 2000 and has raised very positive evaluations from the audience.

About the Speaker

Hans Buwalda is project director at CMG, a leading European information technology services group. He is responsible for new developments around the TestFrame approach for testing and test automation of which he is the main architect. The approach has been started by him in 1994. In 1996 he presented the main ideas for the first time to an international audience in a speech called "Testing with Action Words, abandoning record and playback". Since then the method is being used in an increasing number of countries and Hans has become a frequent speaker at industry conferences, tutorials, and workshops.