Come, ninja testers…

I was lucky enough to spend three days recently taking James Bach’s Rapid Software Testing course in Adelaide, as well as a personal pre-course one-on-one workout.

I am a regular reader of James’ blog, have read his book, and having read through the RST course slides was really, really curious to see how the exercises supported the materials. I must admit, I was also mildly curious to see how the exercise I’d worked on with Michael Bolton (and James, by proxy) had taken form in the course. A quick glance at the course outline prior to attending told me that I had tried a few of the exercises already, having been lucky enough to have Michael give me a brain-beating at the 2005 STANZ conference. I had already applied two of the exercises in in-house training sessions I had run at my previous employer, so was looking forward to learning not just about testing, but also about being a tester trainer.

What surprised me most during the course, was how the same exercises, with minor changes, could easily become exercises that tested totally different aspects of the tester skill set. Despite having seen some of the exercises before, all but one demonstrated quite different learning outcomes.

It was easy at times to feel that the exercises were ‘unfair’, particularly as I stood in front of the class with my Mysterious Black Spheres. It was easy to feel that the situations into which we were put were so devoid of context as to not reflect any real-world situation. But that was precisely their point: To provide environments in which our regular, unconscious approaches to software testing can easily let us down. The next learning step needs to take place outside the course, as we work towards making our unconscious skills part of our conscious thought, and hopefully be ready for anything.

James talks about how he encourages his friends to attack him at any moment, like Cato attacking Inspector Clouseau. After taking his course, you’ll be waiting for the testing Ninjas to leap out and test your mettle.

James should be back in Australia in June. Keep an eye on Softed’s site for future dates, or register your interest. You will almost certainly finish the course with a new perspective on testing, and what a testing career might mean. In the meantime, read the RST materials, watch James’ ‘Becoming a software testing expert’ Google video, and start taking notes about the day-to-day testing magic that you work.