Agile, Iterative, or Waterfall? Automated, or Manual? Scripted, or Exploratory? Unit-level, or User-level? Scenario or Domain? Black-box, White-box, or Grey-box? This tool, that tool, or the other tool? These are just a few of the questions people ask when they are trying to improve their testing. It may surprise you to know that I start out by answering all of them with the same word… “Irrelevant.” That’s right, when it comes to improving the value and effectiveness of your testing, I believe those are completely irrelevant questions to start with. I believe the right questions to start with are: What is my testing mission? What about my testing is important to the managers and executives who are choosing to pay my salary (or consulting fee)? How can I add value to the software, the project, and the business through testing? When you start by figuring out the answers to these 3 questions, the answer to most of the other questions about processes, methods, tools, techniques, and procedures become obvious. This session discussed how to determine what your testing mission really is, how to determine what testing brings real value to your project and your company, and ultimately how to increase your confidence that the testing you are doing at any moment during a project is valuable and will be valued by the stakeholders who matter most.

1. Mission Over Method: Scott Barber Chief Technologist PerfTestPlus, Inc. Created for: STP Conference Mirage Resort and Casino Las Vegas, NV 19-21 October, 2010 What Really Makes Your Testing Valuable

2. Scott Barber CTO , PerfTestPlus, Inc. [email_address] www.perftestplus.com Co-Founder: Workshop On Performance and Reliability www.performance-workshop.org Co-Author: Beautiful Testing oreilly.com/catalog/9780596159825 Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications www.codeplex.com/PerfTestingGuide www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735625700

10. Scott’s Critical Incident Example from my days as a U.S. Army LT: Mission: Secure hilltop 42 NLT 0545 tomorrow. Commander’s Intent: It is my intent that the supply convoy safely cross the bridge spanning the gorge between hilltop 42 and hilltop 57 between 0553 and 0558 tomorrow. Do you know your testing mission? Do you know the “Commander’s Intent”? Can we find out?

11. Yes we can!

12. Value Proposition Step #1 Update your Mission over Method

16. Re-educate Step #2 your stakeholders Mission over Method

19. Step #3 Actively seek what information will to which stakeholders Provide Value Mission over Method

20. Use your active listening skills Validate and demonstrate interest Probe, educate, and learn Summarize priorities and value statements Repeat with other stakeholders, make comparisons, prototype, quantify, etc. Return with testing mission statement, value proposition and/or conflicting interests/priorities Embrace and communicate changing interests/priorities ACQUIRE Information

21. Stalled? COPE in PUBS

22. Common user activities Resource hogs or complex processing Even if these activities are both rare and not risky SLA’s, contracts and other stuff that will get you sued What the users will see and are mostly likely to complain about; what is likely to earn you bad press New technologies, old technologies, places where it’s failed before, previously under-tested areas Don’t argue with the boss (too much) Still confused? FIBLOTS

23. Stay the Course Step #4 Mission over Method

28. Questions