I Used To Get Derailed by Testing Myths & Legends. This Is What I Do Instead.
Chasing valueless certifications. Rage quitting. Overstaying in a job.
Just some of the mistakes I've made over the years. Like when my Product Owner insisted "Nobody would ever do that!", so I didn't test a particular set of inputs for a POST request...
We went live and💥!
That's when I learned to get curious!
Whenever you hear a potential myth get curious!
Otherwise, you may blunder and repeat my mistakes.
Curiosity is a trait many of us possess but it's easy to ignore. Don't!
When your spidey-sense tingles follow these steps:
1. Stay alert and don't get flustered.
It's easy to be ambushed by testing myths & legends in the wild.
For example:
Before hiring - "You need this ISTQB certification to get hired" (need?)
Before testing - "How long will it take to test?" (or is it a question of how much testing can be performed before a deadline?)
During testing - "We can't test without test cases" (customers report bugs with test cases. Interesting.)
After testing - "Why didn't you find that bug?" (how else can we handle bugs?)
Yibambe! Your teammates probably don't think about testing as much as you.
2. Honour the truth in their story.
You're probably the testing expert on the team but don't dismiss your teammate's experiences. Try this instead:
Explore - What led to their beliefs? What made the belief reasonable in that context?
Use open questions - Frame questions with "Who", "What", "Where", "When" and "How". Avoid "Why" if possible.
Use active listening - Listen to understand!
Remember everybody is at least 2% right, so find it!
3. Show them another perspective.
Forget who's right and wrong! Instead, explore the past and present contexts.
Use their language/metaphors to reframe the situation.
Do they realise what lead to success/failure before?
Co-create experiments to test each other's opinions.
If I'd spent a few minutes using these during my API testing, I could've avoided a lot of trouble!