Test Design at a glance

All students who sign up for the Test Design course must have successfully completed the BBST® Foundations course.

This course introduces a large collection of testing techniques and then presents in detail a subset of them that covers a varied sample. By the end of the course, you will have practical experience with function testing and tours, risk-based testing, spec-based testing, scenario testing, domain testing and multivariable testing.

Course Details:

Fully Online

3 weeks of classes

1 week for exam

Registration

 Apr 23 – May 20, 2023

Instructors:

RAY OEI

OANA CASAPU

JOHN MCCONDA

Price: 750 Registration closed

More info

In context-driven testing, we choose techniques well-suited to serve the needs of the current context. This requires knowledge of and skill with many techniques. It requires understanding, for each technique, what kinds of problems are more readily exposed by the technique and what other kinds are better hunted with another technique. It requires understanding, for each technique, what skills, what knowledge, what resources, what schedule flexibility are necessary for using the technique, and if these are limited, what other technique might do almost as good a job for less. Without knowledge like this, testers can pay lip-service to context-driven testing, but they won’t know what to do.

BBST Test Design is a survey course. It presents a large number of test techniques at a superficial level—just enough to give the student a sense of what is possible. Then it focuses on a few techniques that are very different from each other, helping students develop some practical experience with each. The course suggests two frameworks for comparing and contrasting techniques and provides a large collection of references. These can help a student who is trying to decide how to test a particular product scan through the large set of possible techniques and pick a few for more detailed evaluation.

Here are the objectives of this course:

Gain familiarity with a variety of test techniques (Remember)

Learn structures for comparing objectives and strengths of different test techniques (Understand)

Use the Heuristic Test Strategy Model(Bach) for test planning and design (Apply)

Use concept mapping tools for test planning and specification-based analysis (Analyze)

Function testing (Apply)

Risk-based testing (Analyze)

Specification-based testing (Analyze)

Domain testing (Create)

Scenario testing (Understand)

Multi-variable testing (Apply)

By this time you probably are familiar with interactive grading. In case you have not yet opted for it, we encourage you to give it a try.
As Cem Kaner defines it, interactive grading is “a technique that requires the student to participate in the grading of their work”. This provides an opportunity for the students to better demonstrate what they understood from the course material, and to get helpful feedback directly from the instructor on what to improve and how.

We think that interactive grading encapsulates the essence of formative assessment, by focusing on the learning experience of the student, not on the grade. For more info on interactive grading, please read Cem Kaner’s post here.

An important note is that during interactive grading, your grade on the exam cannot go lower than in the case of an evaluation where you receive written feedback. The session can only help you demonstrate more knowledge and thus increase your grade. With this weight lifted off from your chest, it is worth mentioning that our focus is on the learning experience during the course, and not on the grade.

For this course, as you are accustomed already, you will use multiple resources to study:

the video lectures and slides

the assignments and labs in the Canvas platform

the required and recommended readings

The assignments are based on all these resources. This means that you will need to use them all in your learning in order to successfully accomplish the tasks for the course.

Instructors

Cem Kaner

BBST Instructor and Content owner
As a Professor of Software Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, Cem Kaner’s research was focused on software engineering, primarily software testing, software metrics, and computer law & ethics.

His career is centered around a consistent theme: enhancing the satisfaction and safety of software customers, users, and developers.

Alexandra Casapu

BBST Instructor
Alexandra Casapu specializes in exploratory testing using heuristics and testing techniques adapted to context. She enjoys coaching and mentoring other testers, shaping teams, and company-wide testing approaches, as well as doing hands-on testing.

She is currently Principal Quality Engineer at Native Instruments, and co-founder of GISCollective.
In her free time, she enjoys programming, reading, and practicing critical thinking skills.

Ray Oei

BBST Instructor
Ray Oei is currently CTO at Gamgee Netherlands BV. coaching, mentoring, and managing all techies. He has been active in the IT field for over 33 years, of which several years as a trainer and coach.

He is a founding member of DEWT (Dutch Exploratory Workshop on Testing) and has been a speaker at several test conferences. He is greatly interested in the human factor of testing as well as the challenges in investigating software in different contexts. He enjoys teaching and helping people learn more about the beauty of testing.

Ru Cindrea

BBST Instructor
Ru Cindrea is a senior test consultant and managing partner at Altom. With over 20 years of experience, she believes all testing is exploratory and applies this mindset to complex testing challenges and when building test automation frameworks. Her focus has mostly been on testing mobile applications and embedded systems, as well as on automating game testing, where she is one of the main developers of the open-source AltUnity Tester tool. She has been a BBST instructor for over 10 years and she has been working on developing the BBST materials and practical assignments that draw from her past project experiences.
Oana Casapu

Oana Casapu

BBST Instructor
Oana Casapu has been working as a tester, test manager, and project manager on a variety of projects for over 18 years.

Her focus lately has been on contributing to the testing community. Together with her fellow testers, she organizes monthly meetups in Cluj-Napoca and facilitates events for the Tabara de Testare community.

JOHN MCCONDA

JOHN MCCONDA

BBST Instructor
John McConda is a career tester, starting with his first internship in 2000 at JD Power in Los Angeles. He is currently the Quality Engineering Technology Leader at Moser Consulting. John began instructing for the BBST courses in 2008 and loves teaching and mentoring in the Software Quality field. He also co-organized the Workshop on Regulated Testing in 2006 and still facilitates the workshop twice a year at STAR conferences.

Whenever he gets free time from his wife and five kids, John enjoys playing guitar, writing songs, and studying theology.