Creating Test Charters
Case Study:
I am creating charters at the moment (which will be used in sessions with the team). I am thinking about adding some hints of what could be checked but I have mixed feelings about it cause I am worried that it will give people already too much of a direction. Any thoughts on that?
Ex: Explore the api endpoint user With different combinations of the userId To check that it behaves as expected. Hint would be: Different length of userId.
Recommendation:
The point of a charter is for them to explore, and for them to ask if they need guidance. To replicate the real world, sometimes there is documentation, sometimes there isn’t. Teaching them to ask is more helpful than giving it to them beforehand. If they don’t ask, that is a lesson in itself. “Did you ask anyone how it should work? What is the expected functionality? How should this work? What do I know? What do I not know, and maybe find out or at least find out about later?” If they don’t ask anything then “did you consider asking for help to understand the application/functionality” is a very powerful lesson. (Not “why didn’t you ask”, that’s not so helpful).
-- Mike Ruttenberg
Recommendation:
Perhaps split it: using charter to give some focus (explore xyz) and having a cheatsheet or other document availble to look into to let them generate ideas on their own
-- Ide Koops
Recommendation:
I actually dont think there is anything wrong with giving as much info as possible in the Charter. For me its there to make people think about the feature they are investigating. Encourage the yourself and the tester to use the intuition, their tester "Spidey senses" above all set peeps free to interrogate the feature under test.
-- Brian McRoberts
Recommendation:
The charter should give all the guidance with the freedom to explore
A great way to frame it! And what’s cool about “guidance and freedom’ is it sets someone up for discovering what they might never have imagined. I’m reminded of how useful a constraint or boundary or frame can be – particularly in a creative endeavor such as testing. And how excellent it is when we go off-charter just a little bit to turn those discoveries into future charters to pitch with the next round of exploration opportunities.
-- Simon Tomes, Co-founder of TestBuddy.
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