Testers' Island Discs Ep46 - Lee Hawkins

In conjunction with the Ministry of Testing’s Exploratory Testing Week, we welcome our Antipodean friend Lee Hawkins onto the island for a discussion about exploratory testing: Do we all understand what it is? Do we all do it? How do we estimate how long it will take? And how do we showcase the results of these activities?

With both guest and host bringing experiential stories which delve back into the 1990s, we chat about ways for new testers to become familiar with ET, the need for senior testing figures to share more about how they test, and whether automation has a place in supporting exploratory activities.

In perhaps the most musically on-point episode of the podcast so far, Lee shares his love for the many different and less-well-known facets of the band Status Quo, and we learn that they are not confined solely to music.

This episode is sponsored by Provar: Struggling with the complexities of building and maintaining tests given the impact of localization (running tests that work for various languages, time zones, etc.)? Learn more about simplifying test automation for global companies in this complimentary white paper: https://bit.ly/32xyIri

Podcast Links:

Ministry of Testing - Exploratory Testing Week

Leanpub: An Exploration of Testers

AST: Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester

World Time Buddy (Cross-timezone meeting planner)

YouTube: Jonathan Coulton - Mandelbrot Set

YouTube: Status Quo opening at Live Aid, 1985

YouTube: Bula Quo trailer

Wikipedia: Exploratory Testing

James Bach & Michael Bolton: Exploratory Testing 3.0

Agile Manifesto

Ministry of Testing: Websites to Practice Testing

TestBash Australia 2018: Adam Howard - Exploratory Testing Live

YouTube: Neil’s Let’s Explore! Video series

YouTube: Sam Connelly Let’s Test paired exploratory testing series

YouTube: Simon Tomes’ TestBuddy Conversations series

James Bach & Michael Bolton: Testing and Checking Refined 

[PDF link] Tea Time with Testers, March 2021 (featuring Rob Sabourin’s “Simple Experience-Based Test Estimation” article)

Francis Rossi autobiography - I Talk Too Much

YouTube: Douglas Adams telling the “biscuit story” to David Letterman

Association for Software Testing on Twitter (@AST_News)

YouTube: Lee’s exploratory testing discussion with Simon Tomes

Lee on Twitter (@TheRockerTester)

Lee’s website

Dr Lee Consulting

Dr Lee’s Status Quo website

Regular Links:

Listen to and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud

Sign up to be a guest on the show

Testers' Island Discs playlist on Spotify

Testers' Island Discs reading list on Goodreads

Follow us on Twitter