ISTQB – Foundation – Tutorial -1.1 – What is testing?

Fundamentals of Testing – The most basic but important part of the foundation level examination. the below points marks the 5 fundamentals.

1.1 What is Testing (K2)?

1.2 Why is testing necessary?

1.3 Seven testing Principles

1.4 Test Process

1.5 The Psychology of testing

1.1 What is Testing? (K2) –

Testing has a wide range of understanding and definitions, the common one is the tester executes the steps of an application flow and check the actual behavior of the application is working as expected as per the requirement, finding bugs, there are few other things to consider as well, as provided below:

STLC starts with static testing, the document gathering like any work product (Requirement, Specifications, User story) created in the STLC. testing done form the requirement phase, the review helps in preventing the defects even before the development is started Many other activities other than test execution in STLC.

Objectives of testing:

Find defects – By writing and executing the test cases on the application under test and find maximum defects as possible.

Gain the confidence on quality – By executing the positive scenarios QA team will have the confidence, until we have confidence, we cannot give go ahead on the release.

Note: Ask for extra time if any critical info is not covered, to avoid product failure in the market that may incur losses like business or human lives etc..

Providing information – Provide status on the progress, typical defects and fix status and artifacts that covered all critical areas so the decision/ go-ahead can be taken by the Management, stake holders for release.

Preventing defects – more information in terms of review of the work products, getting involved on early stage, testers can find more defects on early stage can help in minimizing the defects during the future phases of app releases.

Review of Work products – reviewing the docs like Requirements and specifications even when they are in draft status, can be called as static testing as well.

Verify all the requirements are met and none is missed – its the base and important part , by using all the test techniques so dev team has delivered on all requirements.

Reduced risk level – critical parts covered by the test cases so the risk is reduced and measures if a risk is suddenly pops up!

Comply with legal or regulatory requirements and standards – in Business Requirement these info has to be mentioned – ex: other than functional there may be may other requirements to be taken care of, there are few non functional requirements as well. A tester should be using a diff approach while validating a Banking application or a ecommerce or a security based application.

Classification of Testing

Static – Documents created as a part of STLC, and do not involve any execution ( flow charts, algorithms, Business Requirements, Specifications) once the static testing is done, documentation for the levels of testing can be initiated. this process is called Review

  1. Formal Review
  2. Walkthrough
  3. Technical Review
  4. Inspection

Dynamic – test execution of application under test – can be called as Levels of testing

  1. Unit
  2. System
  3. Integration
  4. UAT etc..

Debugging and testing

Testing – Done by the tester, to identify the defect.

Debugging – Done by the developer, to analyze the defect, finds the root cause and remove the root cause(FIX)