Two hats you must wear when testing software

After nearly 30 years of working in the software testing industry, I keep coming back to the two hats that you must wear when testing.

1. Checker hat (think train conductor)

2. Explorer hat (think Indiana Jones)

Both hats are important when testing but for different reasons.

The checker hat is when you are checking that the change does what it is supposed to do. You look at the requirements or the conditions of satisfaction and check what’s described there works. You get some test data, you edit it in the way it tells you to edit it and then you check the database for the expected changes. Boring and predictable, but gives everyone a very nice warm feeling that they have done what’s needed. This is what everyone thinks when they think of testing.

That’s not where the bugs are though….

The explorer hat is what you wear when you spend time looking around the change. A really large file here… a backslash there… 30th Feb 2030 in here…. This is where experience counts to know which rocks to turn over, where the bugs keep hiding in your particular forest. This is where creativity comes in. This is where most of the bugs are found. Just like a real forest though, you can spend a very long time turning over rocks. That makes this hat unfashionable. Your team will badger you to get on with it. Your manager will discuss the amount of time you spend on a ticket with you. You will feel like Indiana Jones, alone in the jungle.

But this is where the bugs are to be found…

Don’t let them take away your explorer hat!