Great resources for software testers I recommend. Do you know a great resources that should be here? Let me know by submitting it via this form.
(Last update 9 November 2024)
What is testing -.- Becoming a (great) tester -.- Hiring (testers) -.- Testing Skills -.- Test Design -.- Test Ideas -.- Heuristics -.- Test Strategy -.- Oracles -.- Context-Driven Testing -.- Rapid Software Testing -.- Exploratory Testing -.- What exploratory Testing is NOT -.- Session Based Test Management -.- Pair Testing -.- Agile & agile testing -.- Test Improvement -.- Testability -.- Regression testing -.- Test Estimation -.- Reporting -.- Standards & certification -.- Complexity & Cynefin -.- (Social) Science -.- Thinking -.- Learning -.- Visualisation -.- Automation -.- Learn to code -.- Speaking tips -.- Tools -.- More link collections -.- Uncategorized beauties -.- My favorite blogs
Testing & What is Testing:
- 10 most common questions asked about software testing answered by Lee Hawkins:
- Why is software testing important?
- How does software testing impact software quality?
- When should software testing activities start?
- How is software testing done?
- Can you automate software testing?
- Is software testing easy?
- Is software testing a good career?
- Can I learn software testing on my own?
- Which software testing certification is the best?
- What will software testing look like in 2021?
- Testing is… by Michael Bolton
- What is a tester? by Michael Bolton
- Excellent Software Testing by Ingo Philipp
- What is testing? by Jean-Paul Varwijk (aka Arborosa)
- Open letter to EuroStar organizers: testing introduction by Rikard Edgren
- Phased vs Threaded Testing by Aaron Hodder
- Testing explained by Karen Johnson
- Software Testing? What? Why? by Alan Richardson
- Perfect Software and other illusions about testing (book) by Jerry Weinberg
- Testing Computer Software – Cem Kaner, Jack Falk, Hung Q. Nguyen
- Testing vs checking by Michael Bolton
- Testing and checking refined by James Bach
- Open lecture on Software Testing (video) by James Bach
- Why testers should look for problems and not defects by Michael Bolton
- How to get what you really want from Testing (slides) by Michael Bolton
- Beautiful Testing (book) by Tim Riley, Adam Goucher
- Foundations of Software Testing: A BBST Workbook (book) by Cem Kaner & Rebecca Fiedler
- The Art of Software Testing (book) by Glenford J. Myers
- Quality Software Management (vol 1 – 4) – Jerry Weinberg
- State of Software Testing (video) by Fiona Charles & Jerry Weinberg
- Proving Our Worth: Quantifying the Value of Testing (video) by Lee Copeland
- How to Talk to a CIO About Software Testing (If You Really Have to…) (video) by Keith Klain
- To The New Tester by James Bach
- What Do Testers Do by Tony Bruce
- Software Testing as a Martial Art (book) by David Greenlees
- Dr. Strangecareer: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the software testing industry (In testing Trapeze #14 April 2016 ) by Keith Klain
- Reinventing Testers and Testing to prepare for the Future by Patrick Prill
- 8 reasons why software testing is harder than development by James Willett
- Software Testing Definitions and Models – How and Why to Create your own Definition by Alan Richardson
- 10 Commandments for Ethical Software Testers (video) by Fiona Charles (slides are here)
Becoming a (great) tester:
- To The New Tester by James Bach
- Testers: Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business by Michael Bolton
- New to software testing? Read this… by Ben Kelly
- How to Train Up a New Software Tester by Claire Reckless
- Becoming a World-Class Tester by Ilari Henrik Aegerter
- Heuristics for recognizing professional testers by Huib Schoots
- Resources for a Beginner Tester by Helena Jeret-Mäe
- What makes a good tester? by Joel Montvelisky
- Flying tester by Allen Johnson
- So, You Want To Be a Tester? by Jeff Nyland
- A testers syllabus by James Bach
- Responsible tester by James Bach
- No More Second Class Testers! by Johanna Rothman
- How to get started in software testing – a few resources by Rob Lambert
- The Difference Between Professionals and Amateurs by James Clear
- What I expect from my testers by Kristjan Uba
- How do I become a great manager? by Jurgen Appelo
- Also see the Testing Skills and learning section on this page
- Testing Education: Curriculum by Erik Brickarp
- Black Ops Testing Videos by Tony, Alan, Steve & James
- Why would I need excuses? by Tony Bruce
- How do you become a great tester? by Katrina Clokie
- How to practice software testing by Erik Brickarp
-
10 ways software testers can win autonomy and earn respect by Jennifer deJong Lent
-
Smarter Testing Through Smarter Testers (video) by Christin Wiedermann
- The Power of Doubt – Becoming a Software Skeptic (paper) by Zeger van Hese
- The Danger of the Technocrat Tester by Jeff Nyman
Hiring (testers):
- How to Find, Interview and Hire Great Software Testers by Simon Knight
- EuroStar Webinar “Hiring Professional testers by Huib Schoots
- Heuristics for recognizing professional testers by Huib Schoots
- To The Hiring Managers and Recruiters (of Software Testers) by Rosie Sherry
- Recruiting Software Testers by Cem Kaner
- Writing job description for testers (part I and II) by Thomas Ponnet
- Hiring Geeks That Fit (book) by Johanna Rothman
- Finding the Geek Who Fits by Johanna Rothman
- Agile Hiring: It’s a Team Sport by Johanna Rothman
- Irrelevant interview questions? by Michael Bolton & Rex Black
- How Can We Interview Testers Better? by Michael Larsen
- How We Hire Engineers – Part 1: Our screener – Part 2: Culture Contribution by Brian White
Testing Skills:
- WHOSE – Skills book
- Trying to Teach Testing Skills and Judgment by Rikard Edgren
- A new level of testing? by Huib Schoots
- Heuristics for recognizing professional testers by Huib Schoots
- Two Futures of Software by Michael Bolton
- Building a thinking portfolio by Karen Johnson
- Off the top of my head – Some skills & personal qualities that a tester can benefit from by Fiona Charles
- Exploratory Testing Skills and Dynamics in RST Appendices by James Bach & Michael Bolton
- A testers syllabus by James Bach
- Responsible tester by James Bach
- Breaking the Tyranny of Form – Part 1 by Fiona Charles
- Omega Tester: Testing with a Team of One by James Bach
- Test Jumpers: One Vision of Agile Testing by James Bach
- Driving While Driven: The Way of the Skilled Tester – part 1 – part 2 (video) by James Bach
- Modeling: Many Models – Better Test Ideas by Rikard Edgren
- Modeling: How I use modelling in software testing by Anne-Marie Charrett
- Modeling: Modeling Testing by Jeff Nyman
- Thinking skills: Critical Reasoning for Beginner
- Thinking skills: Critical Thinking: Basic Questions & Answers
- Thinking skills: Cynefin for Developers (and testers) by Liz Keogh
- System Thinking: Russell Ackoff (video)
- Problem solving: Solve problems with experiments
- Test Framing: Test framing by Michael Bolton
- Note taking: An Exploratory Tester’s Notebook by Michael Bolton
- Note taking: Why Productive People Take Better Notes by Drake Baer
- Asking Questions: The Art of Asking Questions (video) by Karen Johnson
- Asking Questions: Richard Feynman on Why Questions
- Storytelling: Telling the testing story – Storytelling for testers (Dutch) by Huib Schoots
- Storytelling: Once upon a time (video) by Alex Schladebeck and Huib Schoots
- Strong-style pairing: Being a navigator in Strong-style Pairing by Maaret Pyhäjärvi
- Modelling: Some models are useful (video) by Fiona Charles
- Leadership: Test leadership heuristics workshop (video) by Fiona Charles
- Estimation: NoEstimates
- Communication (using words more carefully and precisely): The Rapid Software Testing Guide to What You Meant To Say (video) by Michael Bolton
- Vince Lombardi on the Hidden Power of Mastering the Fundamentals by James Clear
- Technical and Non-Technical Testing Skills by John Stevenson
- Getting Ahead By Being Inefficient on Farnam Street
- Also see the social science section on this page
- Also see the thinking & learning section on this page
Test Design:
- A Practitioner’s Guide to Software Test Design (book) by Lee Copeland
- The Little Black Book on Test Design (free ebook) by Rikard Edgren
- How to break Software (book) by James Whittaker
- Essential Test Design (cheap ebook) by Tobbe Ryber
- The Domain Testing Workbook (book) by Kaner & Hoffman
- Bug Advocacy: A BBST Workbook (book) by Kaner and Fiedler
- How Not to Design Pairwise Software Tests by Justin Hunter
- Modeling Scenarios using Data by Fiona Charles
Test Ideas:
- How to come up with test ideas by Erik Brickarp
- Heuristic test strategy model
- ET dynamics
- The Little Black Book on Test Design
- Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet (original by Elisabeth Hendrickson et al.)
- Test Heuristics Cheat Sheet (updated version by Ministry of Testing)
- Falsehoods programmers believe
- About addresses
- About names
- About time
- About emails
- Awesome falsehoods (many lists)
- Inspired by this blog by Elizabeth Zagroba
- Software Testing Mindmaps by Test Insane
(webarchive of original website) - Touring Heuristic
- You Are Not Done Yet (checklist)
- Checklists by Rahul Parwal
- Software Quality Characteristics (UK) or Software Kwaliteit Kenmerken (Dutch) or find more translations here.
- Testing Mnemonics
- 10 sources of Testing Ideas
- Several Checklists
- 8-layer testing model
- 36 days of web testing
- Checklist: How To Generate Test Ideas
- Test Requirement Catalog – Generic Clues, Developer Version
- 37 Sources for Test Ideas
Heuristics:
- The Essence of Heuristics by James Bach
- Heuristic Test Strategy Model by James Bach
- Heuristics for Understanding Heuristics by Michael Bolton
- All Oracles are Heuristic by Michael Bolton
- An Engineer’s Quest for Universal Method (video) by Billy Vaughn Koen
- Testing Mnemonics Listing by Lynn McKee
- Test Mnemonics by Del Dewar
- Stopping heuristics: When Do We Stop a Test? by Michael Bolton
- When Do We Stop Testing? One More Sure Thing by Michael Bolton
- Collecting domain-specific test heuristics by Katrina Clokie
- Software Testing Heuristics & Mnemonics by Karen Johnson
Test Strategy:
- Creating a Test Strategy by Huib Schoots
- Ask Me Anything: Test Strategies by Huib Schoots
- Risk Analysis by Michael Bolton
- What Should A Test Plan Contain? by Michael Bolton
- A Question About Test Strategy by James Bach
- Great example of test analysis to create strategy by Rikard Edgren
- DEWT5 Report: test strategy by DEWT
- Heuristic test strategy model by James Bach
- Explaining Heuristic Test Strategy Model in Two Minutes by Michael Bolton (video)
- Test strategy primer by Joep Schuurkes
- A new model for test strategies… (An update to the Heuristic Test Strategy Model) by Dan Ashby
-
Test Strategy – Next Level by Rikard Edgren
- Test Strategy Checklist by Rikard Edgren
- Lightweight characteristics testing by Rikard Edgren
- What Should A Test Plan Contain? by Michael Bolton
- Basics Revisited: Test Strategy by Fiona Charles
- Make Risk Based Testing a Reality (video) by Fiona Charles
- Thinking Strategically About Testing (video) by Fiona Charles
- Mind, Map and Strategy (video) by Fiona Charles
- Unburdening Testing – Finding the balance point for test documentation (video) by Fiona Charles
- Teststrategie met behulp van heuristieken: een praktische aanpak voor iedereen! (Dutch) by Huib Schoots
- Mindmapping: A killer way to increase your test coverage by Prashant Hegde
- How To Use Mind Maps To Develop Clarity With Your Software Testing Strategy by Elizabeth Zagroba
- RiskStorming – Maping Risks with TestSphere by Marcel Gehlen
- RiskStorming online
- Also see the Test Ideas and Visualisation sections on this page
Oracles:
- FEW HICCUPPS by Michael Bolton
- Oracles from the Inside Out by Michael Bolton
- Part 1: Introduction
- Part 2: Experience, Mental Models, and Feelings
- Part 3: From Experience Directly to Conference
- Part 4: From Experience to Inference
- Part 5: Oracles as References as Media
- Part 6: Oracles as Extensions of Testers
- Part 7: References as Checks
- Part 8: Successful Stumbling
- Part 9: Conference as Oracle and as Destination
- What’s Comparable: part 1 & part 2 by Michael Bolton
- Testing without a map by Michael Bolton
- The Oracle Problem and the Teaching of Software Testing by Cem Kaner
- Heuristic Test Oracles by Doug Hoffman
- Black Box Software Testing – Test Oracles by James Bach & Cem Kaner
- BBST – Lectures: Oracles by Cem Kaner part 1 – part 2 – part 3 (video)
- Recognizing a problem in eBay’s iPad app by Chris Kenst
- Revealing Oracles by Anne-Marie Charrett
- Collected blogpost on Oracles by Michael Bolton
Context-Driven Testing:
- Context Driven Testing
- Context-Driven Testing (Video) by James Bach
- What is context-driven testing? by Cem Kaner
- The Viability of Context-Driven Testing: An Interview with Keith Klain
- Lessons Learned in Software Testing (book) by Cem Kaner, James Bach, Brett Pettichord
- The Dual Nature of Context-Driven Testing by James Bach
- How Do I know I am Context-driven? by James Bach
- If it’s not Context-Driven you can’t do it here part 1 – part 2 (video) by Michael Bolton
- Ik ben een context-driven tester! Joh? Echt waar? Nou en? (Dutch) by Huib Schoots
- Testing vs Checking by Michael Bolton
- Testing and checking refined by James Bach
- What being a context-driven tester means to me by Scott Barber
- The “Jedi Knights” of Context-Driven Software Testing by Mike Brown
- CAST 2011 keynote “Context-Driven Testing” by Michael Bolton
- The Thinking Tester, Evolved (Video of CAST 2012 Keynote) by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- There Was Not a Breach; There Was a Blog (video, excellent experience report) by Ben Simo
Rapid Software Testing:
- Rapid Software Testing by Satisfice
- Rapid Software Testing by Developsense
- Premises of Rapid Software Testing by Michael Bolton – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3
- Rapid Software Testing – skilled software testing unleashed by Zeger van Hese
- Rapid Software Testing – a context-driven test approach By Kristoffer Nordström
- Rapid Software Testing vs Rapid Software Testing by Pascal Dufour
- How I got to Rapid Software Testing… by David Greenlees
- Rapid Software Testing Visualisation by Edwin Kwan
- Rapid Software Testing, Under starters orders by Daniel McNamee
- We Attended RST because we Want to Grow our Testing Skills at eBay by Ilari Hendrik Aegerter
- More Thoughts on My Rapid Software Testing Class with James Bach by Teri Charles
- Rapid Software Testing – a Review by Kevin McKay
- James Bach geeft Rapid Software Testing-training by Robert Lourens (Dutch)
(Exploratory) Testing:
- Explore It? Explore It! (video) by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Explore it! (book) by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Exploratory testing 3.0 by James Bach & Michael Bolton
- Test cases are not testing: towards a culture of test performance by James Bach & Aaron Hodder
- Test cases are not testing: towards a culture of test performance (video) by James Bach
- Breaking the Test Case Addiction by Michael Bolton
part 1 – part 2 – part 3 – part 4 – part 5 – part 6 – part 7 – part 8 – part 9 - Exploratory Testing Explained by James Bach
- What is Exploratory Testing? by James Bach
- Understanding Exploratory Testing (video) by James Bach
- Exploratory Testing Index by Maaret Pyhäjärvi
- No more Fooling around (video) by Michael Bolton
- Telling your exploratory story (video) by Jon Bach
- Pathway Exploratory Testing by Marcel Gehlen
- Exploratory Testing is not a test technique by Henrik Emilsson
- What is Exploratory Testing? by Paul Carvalho
- Exploring Exploratory Testing by Andy Tinkham and Cem Kaner
- Exploratory Testing Dynamics by James Bach, Jon Bach and Michael Bolton
- Resources on Exploratory Testing, Metrics and Other Stuff by Michael Bolton
- On Scripting by Michael Bolton
- Exploratory Testing collected stuff by James Lyndsay
- There are Plenty of Ways to Manage Exploratory Testing by James Lyndsay (webinar)
- Exploratory testing in an agile context by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Breaking Down (and building up) Exploratory Testing Skill by Jon Bach
- Tacit and Explicit Knowledge and Exploratory Testing by John Stevenson
- Papers on ET by James Lyndsay
- Demystifying Exploratory Testing by Jonathan Kohl
- Structures of exploratory testing by Michael Bolton
- An exploratory tester’s notebook by Michael Bolton
- Evolving Understanding of Exploratory Testing by Michael Bolton
- Testing, Checking, and Convincing the Boss by Michael Bolton
- Telling your exploratory story by Jon Bach (video)
- Tips for writing better charters by Michael D Kelly (video)
- Rigorous exploratory testing by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Coding QA Podcast on Exploratory Testing Part 1 and Part 2 by Michael Bolton
- Getting started with exploratory testing part 1 – part 2 – part 3– part 4 by Jonathan Kohl
- Interviewing the program by Michael Bolton
- Documenting exploratory testing by Jonathan Kohl
- User profiles and exploratory testing by Jonathan Kohl
- Exploratory testing on agile teams by Jonathan Kohl
- Explaining Exploratory Testing Relies On Good Notes by Robert Lambert
- Does Exploratory Testing Have A Place On Agile Teams? by Johanna Rothman
- 10 ways to do ET badly by Tony Bruce
- BBST stuff on ET by Cem Kaner
- Both Sides of the Coin – Exploratory Testing vs Scripted Checking (video) by Rosie Hamilton
- Exploratory Testing – Collected resources by Ministry of Testing
- Logging: Exploratory Tester’s Friend by James Bach
- Exploratory Testing IS Accountable by Michael Bolton
- ET with subtitles (video) by James and Jon Bach
- The test case – an deconstruction by Joep Schuurkes
- What is this Exploratory Testing Thing? by Tony Bruce
- Exploratory Testing for Complex Software; Lessons from Cloud Foundry by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Tree-Type Notes in Exploratory Testing by Xiaomei Tai
- A retrospective critique of an exploratory testing session by Alan Richardson
- Of Testing Tours and Dashboards by Michael Bolton
- The Testing Pendulum: Finding balance in exploration by Katrina Clokie
What exploratory Testing is NOT:
- Series of blog post on “What Exploratory Testing Is Not” by Michael Bolton:
- Part 1: Touring
- Part 2: After-Everything-Else Testing
- Part 3: Tool-Free Testing
- Part 4: Quick Tests
- Part 5: Undocumented Testing
- What Exploratory Testing Is Not by James Bach
Session Based Test Management:
- Session Based Test Management by James Bach
- Session Based Test Management by Jon Bach
- Lessons Learned in Session-Based Exploratory Testing by Paul Carvalho
- Session-Based Test Management and How We Made it Work (video) by Djuka Selendic
- A Journey in Test Engineering Leadership: Applying Session-Based Test Management by Djuka Selendic
- SBTM is not ET by Paul Carvalho
- Adventures in Session-Based Testing by James Lyndsay
- You can use the Session Based Test Approach all the time by Peter “Simon” Schrijver
- Session Based Test Management – The MindMap by Ministry of Testing
- Session Based Test Management – Collected resources by Ministry of Testing
- Managing Heuristic Exploratory Testing Based on MindMap by Pekka Marjamäki
- Benefits of session-based test management by Katrina Clokie
- Reporting session based testing by Katrina Clokie
- Session Based Testing in an Agile Project (podcast) by AST
- Session Based Testing in Agile/DevOps Environments by Lalitkumar Bhamare
- Session types by Peter “Simon” Schrijver:
Pair Testing:
- Pair testing by Katrina Clokie
- Using srong style pairing and coding by Katrina Clokie
- The pairing experience foundations by Maaret Pyhäjärvi
- Being navigator in strong style pairing by Maaret Pyhäjärvi
- What is pair testing? by Jake Bartlett
- Pair testing by Ralph van Roosmalen
- Pairing With Developers: A Guide For Testers by Lisa Crispin
- Many advantages of pair testing by Peter Schrijver
- Pairing by Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon (Paul Seaman and Lee Hawkins)
- Mobbing resources
Test Improvement:
- Test improvement in an agile/CDT environment by Huib Schoots & Joep Schuurkes
- Test Sphere by Beren van Daele
Agile & Agile testing:
- Modern Agile
- Badass Agile
- What makes agile testing different? by Huib Schoots
- What is Agile Testing? The Evil Tester’s Guide To Agile by Alan Richardson
- How can I work with agile development? by J.B. Rainsberger
- How Agile Changes Testing – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 by Johanna Rothman
- Minimum Reading List for an Agile Transition by Johanna Rothman
- Agile Does Not Equal Scrum: Know the Difference by Johanna Rothman
- The RST agile testing quadrants – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 (video) by Michael Bolton
- A tester’s view on James Bach’s presentation ‘The REAL Agile Testing Quadrants’ by Calum McHaffie
- What’s More Important: Being Agile or Creating Value? (video) by Johathan Kohl
- Testing in an agile software development team? (video) by James Bach
- Agile Testing (video) by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Testing Lessons from Extreme Programmers (video) by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Agile Testing & Test Management (video) by Johanna Rothman
- AST Webinar: Growing Specialist Skills in Agile Teams by Katrina Clokie
- Agile testing activity checklist – John Stevenson
- Test Jumpers: One Vision of Agile Testing by James Bach
- I Prefer This Over Thatv by Elisabeth Hendrickson
- Generic Testing Personas by Katrina Clokie
- Pair Testing by Katrina Clokie
- Sharing testing with non-testers in an agile team by Katrina Clokie
- Test Strategy Retrospective by Katrina Clokie
- Agile à la Spotify by Joakim Sundén
-
Seven Agile Best Practices by Esther Derby
- Self Assessment Tool for Transitioning to Agile by Johanna Rothman
- Beyond Method – Using Systems Thinking to Deepen Your Mastery of Agile by Tobias Fors
- Making Sense of Complexity by Dave Snowden
- Role of testers in Agile Environment by John Stevenson
- How to help your agile team succeed by Sharon Florentine
- Pitfalls of Agile Transformations by Mary Poppendieck
- Why People Don’t Instantly Buy Into Agile Methods: A Catch-22 by Jerry Weinberg
- Testing in Continuous Deployment (video) by Kristian Karl
- Continuous Delivery Testing Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- Agile Impressions and Errors with Jerry Weinberg by Agile for Humans
- Agile Impressions (book) by Jerry Weinberg
- Six Rules for Change (video) + podcast by Esther Derby
- Improve Team Collaboration by Co-creating a Team Poster by Bart Bouwers
- Product Owners and Learning by Johanna Rothman – part 1 – part 2 – part 3
- Books Worth Reading about Leadership, Scrum, Product Management and Agile by Dominic Krimmer
- Book list for Product Owners by Yves Hanoulle
- Agile Self-assessments by Ben Linders
- Continuous Testing in DevOps… by Dan Ashby
- Removing a Tester… by David Greenlees
- Rock Solid Software Testing Without Hiring an Army (video) by Trish Khoo
- Tester in an agile team: a necessity or dispensable? by Maaike Brinkhof
- Is BDD testing? Outside in development and testers by Mark Winteringham
- My perfect Agile Team (or, how agile *can* work) by Nicola Sedgwick
- The 8 Stances of a Scrum Master (video is here) by Barry Overeem
- Why This Opportunity Solution Tree is Changing the Way Product Teams Work by Teresa Torres
- Spotify doesn’t use “the Spotify model” and neither should you by Jeremiah Lee
- Story slicing:
Testability:
- Heuristics of testability (video) by James Bach
- Heuristics of testability (slides) by James Bach
- Heuristics of software testability by James Bach
- Testability – blogpost by Michael Bolton
- Testability vs. Wtf’s per minute by Markus Gärtner
- Putting your Testability Socks On by Adam Knight
- A Map for Testability by Adam Knight
- My own personal Testability experiment! by Danny Dainton
Regression testing:
- Anti-Regression Approaches by Paul Gerrard – Part 1, 2, 3, 4
- Regression Obsession (video) by Michael Bolton
- Regression mnemonic: RCRCRC by Karen Johnson
- Things Could Get Worse: Ideas About Regression Testing by Michael Bolton
Test Estimation:
- Why is testing taking so long by Michael Bolton
- Test effort estimation getting it wrong by Pradeep Soundararajan
- Test project estimation the rapid way by Michael Bolton
- Test estimation is really negotiation by Michael Bolton
- Project estimation and black swans by Michael Bolton (also read part 2, 3, 4 and 5)
- Thoughts around test estimation by Aaron Hodder
- Test Estimation and the Art of Negotiation by Lynn McKee & Nancy Kelln
- Estimating projects history of failure by Jerry Weinberg
- Predicting the Unpredictable: Pragmatic Approaches to Estimating Cost or Schedule (book) by Johanna Rothman
- NoEstimates
- Estimating Complexity by Liz Keogh
Reporting:
- Pass vs. Fail vs. Is There a Problem Here? by Michael Bolton
- How is the testing going? by Michael Bolton
- Test Reporting Part 1: Why pass vs. fail rates are unethical by Michael Bolton
- Test Reporting Part 2: Braiding the stories by Michael Bolton
- Test Reporting Part 3: Delivering the news by Michael Bolton
- Testers Tell A Compelling Story by Connor Roberts
- Delivering Information vs. Delivering Meta-Information by Elizabeth Zagroba
- A low tech testing dashboard by James Bach
- How to give a professional test report by James Bach
- I think we have an issue – Delivering Unwelcome Messages (video) by Fiona Charles
- Bug Severity vs. Priority by Fiona Charles
- Surveying the Terrain by Fiona Charles
- Use your stand up to make testing visible by Katrina Clokie
- Hitting the mark with test reporting by Richard Robinson
What to learn more about storytelling? Have a look here.
Standards and certification:
- Collected links on ISO 29119 and the #STOP 29119 petition
- My Thoughts on Testing Certifications by Karen N. Johnson
- Agile Certifications Are Actively Destructive by Allen Holub
- Testing standards? Can we do better? by James Christie
- Why I am not certified by James Bach
- Against certification by James Bach
- What the certification sales lady said… by James Bach
- Common Languages Ain’t So Common by Michael Bolton
- Why I Am Not Yet Certified — EuroSTAR Presentation by Michael Bolton
- Certification and Its Discontents I by Michael Bolton
- Certifiable – Fighting the fights worth fighting… by Keith Klain
- Testing Qualifications – Certification revisited by John Stevenson
- The Cost Of Certification And Professional Exlusion by Duncan Nisbet
- Best practice is boerenbedrog (Dutch) by Ronald Meijers
- Certificates Are Evil (But We Can Make Them Good) by Jurgen Appelo
Complexity & Cynefin:
- Cynefin and Software Testing by Ben Kelly
- Introduction to Cynefin by Dave Snowden
- Cynefin for Software Testers by James Christie
- Cynefin In Software Testing by Duncan Nisbet
- Software Testing and Cynefin by Joseph Larson
- Cynefin for Developers by Liz Keogh
- Using Cynefin to Solve Problems While Navigating Uncertainty by Kim Ballestrin
- Cynefin Dynamics– Dave Snowden
- Freedom Through Constraints – Dave Snowden
- Embrace Complexity, Scale Agility (video) by Dave Snowden
- Navigating Project Uncertainty – An Explorer’s Toolkit (video) by Kim Ballestrin
- Codefin, or the fine art of knowing what to do and when and why (video) by Geza Mihala
(Social) Science:
- What testing can learn from social science – Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Video by Huib Schoots
- The Psychology of Software #Testing (ebook) by John Stevenson
- Tacit and explicit knowledge (book) – Harry Collins
- Thinking fast and slow (book) – Daniel Kahneman
- You’re not so smart (book) – David McRaney
- A Guide to Logical Fallacies: The “Ad Hominem,” “Strawman” & Other Fallacies Explained in 2-Minute Videos
- The invisible Gorilla (book) by Christopher Chabris & Daniel Simons
- Cognitive bias cheat sheet by Buster Benson
- Qualitative Data Analysis: a userfriendly guide for social scientists (book) by Ian Dey
- Critical Thinking: a user’s manual (book) by Debra Jackson & Paul Newberry
- What we forget about the Scientific Method by Allan Kelly
- An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (book) by Jerry Weinberg
- Thinking in systems: a primer (book) by Donella Meadows
- Are testers ethnographic researchers? by John Stevenson
- What You Believe Might Not Be True (Part 1) by John Stevenson
- Danger: confirmation bias by John Stevenson
- Combining Qualitative & Quantitative Research by Laura Klein
- Research Methods: Participant observation
- Qualitative Evaluation checklist by Michael Quinn Patton
- Critical & creative thinking
- Software Testing a Social Science (slides) by Cem Kaner
- Testing Through The Qualitative Lens (slides) by Michael Bolton
- Curing Our Binary Disease (slides) by Rikard Edgren
- But how many test cases? by James Christie
- Reponse to How many test cases by James Christie by John Stevenson
- The human element by John Stevenson
- The coding manual for qualitative researchers by Johnny Saldana
- What we can learn from Russel L. Ackhoff by Aleksis Tulonen
- Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions (book) by Dan Ariel
- The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home (book) by Dan Ariel
- The Machinery of the mind (video) by Daniel Kahneman
- Making Smarter Decisions (video) by Daniel Kahneman
- Nassim Taleb and Daniel Kahneman discuss Antifragility (video)
- The irrational tester (video) by James Lyndsay
- Qualitative research coding and software testing by John Stevenson
- Qualitative research coding and mind maps by John Stevenson
- Your logical fallacy is
Learning:
- Secrets of a Buchaneer Scholar (book) by James Bach
- Becoming a Software Testing Expert (video) by James Bach
- 11 Steps Towards Deliberate Practice by Lukas Kyska
- Testing Dojo’s by Markus Gärtner
- Testing Challenges (helpful in testing dojo’s)
- Black Box Puzzles by James Lyndsay
- Weekend Testers
- BBST – Testing Education website (Kaner, Fiedler & Associates)
- BBST – videos (Altom & Kaner)
- The nine forgettings (video) by Lee Copeland
- Six thinking hats for testers (video) by Julian Harty
- How Challenging Each Other Helps the Craft by James Bach
- Transpection Session: Inputs and Expected Results by Michael Bolton
- Transpection Tuesdays by Erik Brickarp
- Transpection Tuesdays Still Going Strong by Helena Jeret-Mae
- Vince Lombardi on the Hidden Power of Mastering the Fundamentals by James Clear
- 7 Secrets Top Athletes Can Teach You About Being The Best At Anything by Eric Barker
- The 37 Best Websites To Learn Something New
- Do schools kill creativity? (video) by Ken Robinson
- 70/20/10 Model
- Learning how to learn (video) by Barbara Oakley
- Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects (MOOC)
- 8 Lessons on Learning: How to Develop a New Skill (Without Giving Up) by Yoni Dina – Part 1 – Part 2
- How to Acquire Any New Skill in 20 Hours or Less by Josh Kaufman
- How To Become An Expert by Dr. Mani
- 30 Tips for Learning Any Skill Faster by Marelisa Fabrega
- ROI on learning hour by Llewellyn Falco
Thinking:
- How Thinking Works (video) by Dr. Derek Cabrera
- How to think, not what to think (video) by Jesse Richardson
- Models: Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (109 Models Explained)
- Thinking skills: Critical Reasoning for Beginner
- Thinking skills: Critical Thinking: Basic Questions & Answers
- A Field Guide to Critical Thinking by James Lett
- Critical Thinking For Testers with Michael Bolton by Eric Jacobson
- System Thinking: Russell Ackoff (video)
- Systems thinking made clear (video) by Russell Ackoff
- Think 101x, The Science of Everyday Thinking (Online course)
- Think 101x (video collection)
- Critical & creative thinking
- Thinking fast and slow (book) – Daniel Kahneman
- Tacit and explicit knowledge (book) – Harry Collins
- Unpacking tacit knowledge – Gary Klein
- Tacit and Explicit Knowledge and Exploratory Testing – John Stevenson
- Critical Thinking: a user’s manual (book) by Debra Jackson & Paul Newberry
- You’re not so smart (book) – David McRaney
- A Guide to Logical Fallacies: The “Ad Hominem,” “Strawman” & Other Fallacies Explained in 2-Minute Videos
- Cognitive bias cheat sheet by Buster Benson
- An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (book) by Jerry Weinberg
- Cynefin for Developers (and testers) by Liz Keogh
- Calling Bullshit (videos)
- Fundamental Concepts for Better Problem Solving by Damian Synadinos
Visualisation:
- Thinking Visually In Software Testing by Alan Richardson (video)
- How to create a visual test coverage model by Katrina Clokie
- Visual Test Models & State Transition Diagrams by Katrina Clokie
- Three examples of context-driven testing using visual test coverage modelling by Katrina Clokie
- Mind Maps and Automation by Katrina Clokie
- That’s not the map I had in mind (meaning, imprecision and taxonomy of visual test models) by Aaron Hodder
- Visual Test Models by Leah Stockley
- Visual Test Design – Rob Sabourin
- Whiteboarding for Testers, Developers and Customers too by Rob Sabourin
- Drawing to learn – Sketching for testers by Ruud Cox
- Visualisation by Huib Schoots
- Mindmapping 101 by Darren MacMillan
- Thinking and working visually for software testers (Let’s Test 2013 – 1/2 day) by Jean-Paul Varwijk & Huib Schoots
- Thinking and working visually for software testers (Nordic Testing Days 2014 – full day) by Ruud Cox & Huib Schoots
- Hand-Sketching: Things You Didn’t Know Your Doodles Could Accomplish by Laura Busche (Sketchnote by Ruud Cox)
- Sketching & Drawing Lessons
- The Sketchnote Podcasts by Mike Rohde
Automation & Tool aided testing:
- Test Automation University
- Automation in Testing
- What’s Wrong with Manual Testing? (video) by Michael Bolton
- Three free programming courses for testers by Richard Bradshaw
- A Context-Driven Approach to Automation in Testing by James Bach & Michael Bolton
- On Green by Michael Bolton
- On Red by Michael Bolton
- Why I still like pyramids by Marcel Gehlen
- Software Test Automation: A Real World Problem by Cem Kaner
- Cost Benefits Analysis of Test Automation by Douglas Hoffman
- Can Automation Aid Manual Testing? An Interview with Jonathan Kohl
- Test Automation Snake Oil by James Bach
- Using strong-style pairing and a coding dojo for test automation training by Katrina Clokie
- The Digital Divide and Test Automation (video) by Katrina Clokie
- Your Tests Aren’t Flaky, You Are! (video) by Richard Bradshaw
- Flawed Approach to Regression Testing (F.A.R.T) Model by Richard Bradshaw
- Why was this check created? by Richard Bradshaw
- Who tests the checks? by Richard Bradshaw
- How Often Do You Really Fix A “Failing” Automated Check by Richard Bradshaw
- How To Get Started With Automation in Testing with Richard Bradshaw (Podcast)
- Automation in Testing with Richard Bradshaw (Podcast)
- Can Automation Do Actual Testing with Richard Bradshaw (Podcast)
- Test automation – the bitter truth by Viktor Slavchev
- Tester Augmentation, Not Test Automation by Josh Meier
- A Model of Automating by Alan Richardson
- When do we prefer manual testing over automated testing? By Alan Richardson
- Some thoughts on the future of test automation by Bas Dijkstra
- On becoming a test automation craftsman by Bas Dijkstra
- So What Do You Do If You Don’t Do Testing?! (video) by Sally Goble
- Integrated Tests Are A Scam (video) by J.B. Rainsberger
- How I would approach creating automated user interface-driven tests by Bas Dijkstra
- Implication of emphasis on automation in CI by Martin Jansson
- Test Automation Canvas by Katrina Clokie
- Tackle the hard problems first by Bas Dijkstra
- Automation – What bugs me by Paul Seaman
Learn to code:
- Become a Programmer, Motherfucker
- Codecademy
- Cousera:
- Learn coding by playing a game: CodeCombat
- Selenium Documentation
- Selenium WebDriver API Introduction in Java – Richard Bradshaw
- Three free programming courses for testers by Richard Bradshaw
- Learn to Code Free Resources (video) by Jessica Rose
Speaker tips:
- Speak Easy – Speaker mentoring
- How to get started with conference speaking by Rob Lambert
- How to write a compelling proposal by WAAA (We Are All Awesome)
- A View from the Chair by Michael Bolton
- Speaking at Conferences by Lisi Hocke
- Conference Submissions – a Personal View by Paul Gerrard
- A Four Week Approach to Creating Abstracts by Richard Bradshaw
- How to Get a Paper Accepted at OOPSLA by Kent Beck
- What Your Conference Proposal Is Missing by Sarah Mei
- Conference proposals by Jean-Paul Varwijk, Huib Schoots & Derk-Jan de Grood
- Guidelines For Submitting Talks & Workshops To TestBash by Rosie Sherry
- Tips for new speakers: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 by Bill Matthews
- An extensive list of what helped me present by Erik Brickarp
- Tapir Fever: A heuristic on conference speaking by Bolette Teglbjærg
- How to run a good workshop by Scott Berkun
- How to Evaluate a Workshop by Fiona Charles
- A TED speaker coach shares 11 tips for right before you go on stage by Kate Torgovnick May & Emily Ludolph
- Public Speaking Skills for Quiet People (video) by Michelle Dickinson
- Tips for Presenting Online by Alan Richardson
Tools:
- Perlclip by James Bach
- What tools should I learn by Mark Winteringham
- Simple Test Data generators:
More link collections:
- Testing Feeds by Ministry of Testing
- Free Learning Resources For Software Testers by Paul Walters
- Software Testing Hotlist – Resources for Professional Software Testers
- Publications by the Test Eye
- Writing and resources by Michael Bolton
- Testing quotes websites by Rob van Steenbergen
- Challenges, Puzzles & Games by Katrina Clokie
- I started listing resources & guides by Tony Bruce
- Mobile Testing Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- API, Web Services & Microservices Testing Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- Continuous Delivery Testing Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- Accessibility & Usability Testing Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- Security Testing Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- Testing for Non-Testers Pathway by Katrina Clokie
- How they test (How companies test their software)
Uncategorized beauties:
- We all need to become critical testers (TedX talk) by Tanja Vos
- The Art of Bugging: or Where Do Bugs Come From by Jerry Weinberg
- Managing Teams Congruently by Jerry Weinberg
- Tips on leadership by Johanna Rothman
- How to read more books by Toby Sinclair
- 19 secrets of consulting that changed my life by Adrian Segar
- How to Think about Efficiency in Software Testing (video) by James Bach
- Zappos is offering severance to employees who aren’t all in with Holacracy by Quartz
- What Agile Teams Can Learn From World of Warcraft (video) by Alexandra Schladebeck
- Still No Silver Bullets (video) by Esther Derby
- Change by attraction – Listening by Esther Derby
- Making testing fun (video) by Andy Zaidman
- An Epic List of Great Team Building Games
- The 5 dysfunctions of a team by Patrick Lencioni (video)
- The power of vulnerability (video) by Brené Brown
- Practical Tools for Playing Well with Others (video) by J. B. Rainsberger
- Myths And Patterns Of Organizational Change (video) by Linda Rising
- 3 pearls of entrepreneurial storytelling (video) by Michael Margolis
- The tribes we lead (video) by Seth Godin
-
Re-thinking IT (video) by John Seddon (also see: http://www.systemsthinking.co.uk/)
-
Antifragile (video) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
- Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose by Daniel Pink
- What is leadership? (video) by David Marquet
- Why Executives See Software Testing as #EpicFail By Scott Barber
- 50+ Book Summaries To Help You Stay Relevant by Toby Sinclair
- Ken Robinson on Passion (video)
- How great leaders inspire action (video) by Simon Sinek
- Why we do what we do (video) by Tony Robbins
- Are we in control of our own decisions? (video) by Dan Ariely
- How to truly listen (video) by Evelyn Glennie
- Want To Improve? Start With Respect by Gil Zilberfeld
- No Estimates, Let’s Explore the Possibilities (video) by Woody Zuill
- What Are You Measuring In Your Life? by James Clear
- A Culture of Trust by Arie Litovsky
- Systems Thinking in Seven Images by Derek & Laura Cabrera
- 10 top writing tips and the psychology behind them by without bullshit
- Talks on how games can improve your life by TED
- Doen is de beste manier van denken (Dutch video)
- How to Have a Good Conversation (video) by Celeste Headlee
- Work (How to give an A) (video) by Benjamin Zander
- What do you do? As a Tester, when you are asked for ROI calculation by Alan Richardson
My favorite blogs:
- Developsense – Michael Bolton
- Satisfice Blog – James Bach
- Quality Intelligence – Fiona Charles
- Evil tester – Alan Richardson
- Quality Remarks – Keith Klain
- A Tester’s Journey – Lisi Hocke
- Hiccupps – James Thomas
- Friendly Tester – Richard Bradshaw
- The testing curve – Joep Schuurkes
- Rhythm of Testing – Pete Whalen
- How do I test? – Pekka Marjamäki
- Toby Sinclair
- Esther Derby
- Beaglesays: A Nose For Testing – Paul Seaman
- Question Able – Lena Pejgan
- Testing Curator – Matt Hutchison
- Angie Jones
- Trish Khoo
- Anne-Marie Charrett
- Mike Talks
- Testing Thoughts – Paul Holland
- Thoughts from the test eye – Rikard Edgren, Henrik Emilsson, Martin Jansson
- The Pain and Gain of Edward Bear – Helena Jeret-Mäe
- Katrina the Tester – Katrina Clokie
Do you know a great resources that should be here? Let me know by submitting it via this form.
Hi!
Great resource hub!
I am also interested in knowing if any statistical models are available here for predicting certain testing activities like Time to Complete, Effort to Complete etc.
Thanks!
Hi, statistical models to predict testing activities? There might be, but I do not believe in them…
What do you mean by complete? When is testing complete? Can it ever be complete? Michael Bolton wrote a beautiful blogpost “When do we stop a test?”. Also read the blogpost by Pradeep Soundararajan “Test effort estimation: Getting it wrong before getting it right“. You might want to have a look at the links about test estimation on this page.
Hi Huib,
yes, great list. before, i was creating my own.. then i saw yours and i am going to use as my starting point
cheers,
Hi Huib,
A great list of resources! Turns out I’m slowly making my way through the same books as yourself.
There’s a few other resources in there I hadn’t seen – I’ll be adding them to my list when I finally get round to publishing it!
Duncs