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Here comes a universal recipe that I often hear on software release projects that are planning outsourcing of functional testing responsibilities. Take an experienced test designer to define test cases. Then take several clickers to do the execution based on those pre-defined test cases and you are done with your testing team. A clicker is meant to be a human being, literate and having some user experience with GUI based applications. Assuming that instructions are well written, the person will click through GUI based tests reasonably well. No need for…

Testers often debate about testers' place in the world of software engineering and the world's perception of testers. Both well known names ([1], [2]) and the broader community ([5], [6]) contribute. We (testers) often get frustrated, deffensive, when non-testers say that testing doesn't need thinking, that it is only about pressing buttons, that experience or qualification are not imporant. Basically that anyone could do it. In a response, we try to define ourselves ([3], [6]), suggest ways to deal with non-testers ([4]), educate them ([1]) or trying to challenge ourselves ([5]). The more I…

We argued in a previous article that independent testing is about the way testers act and the quality of information that they provide, rather than about the way they are organized or governed. Organization and governence still tend to have a crucial impact on independence. That's perhaps the reason, why some of defined standards approach testing independence from the point of view of the organization ([1], [2]). I prefer to talk about organizationally or governence-wise separate testing rather than independent testing in this context. Here is why. (more…)

Testing independence is being referred to in various ways: organizational independence of a test team on other teams within a company, independence of a testing service  vendor on other vendors, or testing as an independent engineering or scientific discipline. This blog site intends to refer to software testing as a business function and its in/dependence on other business functions (e.g. software development or other, even non-technical functions). Let me hence, share my perspective on independent testing from this angle and contrast it with outsourcing testing services, given that I see…

Be welcome on profiq's blog! profiq is a software engineering company that was established in 2010 and is owned by former Sun engineers. We enjoy working on development and testing of core systems such as platforms, frameworks, server-side applications and developer tools, that's why we ended up establishing an engineering focused company and that's why we started to write this blog too - going a step beyond our regular business needs. So, who you will hear from:   Nemanja Lukic - Madrid engineering director Rasta Kanocz - Prague CTO Slavomir Katuscak…