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Stephen Hill's Discussions

Exploratory testing vs. Senior Management: selling it to longstanding sceptics

Paulina, I suggest that you keep involved with the work the testers are doing - especially on the first day - to direct them down the 'exploratory' route. There is quite a mindset shift from scripte…

Replied Jul 17

Exploratory testing vs. Senior Management: selling it to longstanding sceptics

As a Quality Management Systems auditor I would second James' comments on this. It is very easy to show a planned, structured and evidence-based approach to Exploratory Testing and this satisfies all…

Replied Jul 17

Exploratory testing vs. Senior Management: selling it to longstanding sceptics

Paulina, You have already had some excellent advice from people here but perhaps I can share my recent experience and it may help you out. A long-running project came into test and there was a lot…

Replied Jul 17

Two questions about your testing work

Hi Joel, Good questions and I'll give my answers below: 1. As a tester, what area(/s) of your work are causing the greatest personal stress? For me it is bridging that gap between what people think…

Replied Jul 9

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Latest Activity

Stephen Hill replied to Paulina K-Nugent's discussion 'Exploratory testing vs. Senior Management: selling it to longstanding sceptics'

July 17

Stephen Hill replied to Paulina K-Nugent's discussion 'Exploratory testing vs. Senior Management: selling it to longstanding sceptics'

July 17

Stephen Hill replied to Paulina K-Nugent's discussion 'Exploratory testing vs. Senior Management: selling it to longstanding sceptics'

Paulina, You have already had some excellent advice from people here but perhaps I can share my recent experience and it may help you out. A long-running project came into test and there was a lot of pressure to test the product in a matter of a f…

July 17

Stephen Hill replied to Joel Montvelisky's discussion 'Two questions about your testing work'

July 9

Stephen Hill commented on Tony Bruce's event 'London Tester Gathering - 15th July - New Venue'

I'm hoping to get to this one Tony! Depends on schedule for Friday 16th July at the moment. I'll let you know as soon as I can.

June 16

Stephen Hill might attend Tony Bruce's event

London Tester Gathering - 15th July - New Venue at The Shooting Star

July 15, 2010 from 5pm to 11pm

London Tester Gathering - 15th July - New Venue Hello All, The next LTG is on the 15th July 2010 and will be at: The Shooting Star. 125-129 Middlesex Street 0207 929 6818 http://tinyurl.com/29t87r2 Closest tube is Liverpool St The plan: We have t…

June 16

Stephen Hill replied to Shivani's discussion 'ISTQB Exam Information ?' in the group ISEB / ISTQB

Hi Shivani, Which exam are you doing? The Foundation certificate? I did a three-day course when I did mine five years ago and also used Software Testing: An ISEB Foundation as a study aid. I can also recommend Foundations of Software Testing: ISTQB…

June 8

Stephen Hill replied to ElizaF's discussion 'What should be automated?'

Hi Eliza, Great questions. From my perspective I use automated tests to achieve things for which manual testing would be ineffective. For example testing the performance of an application under load requires a high level of tool support. Besides th…

June 7

Stephen Hill replied to Mairi Jamison's discussion 'Some questions about various QA topics...'

Mairi, I recommend learning Selenium and tools like SoapUI (which is similar to JMeter) however the main thing, in my opinion, is to understand the testing challenges that each of these tools are trying to resolve. As an experienced tester you can…

May 24

Stephen Hill replied to Markus Deibel's discussion 'Getting paid for becoming certified?'

Markus, Certification programmes are going through quite a few changes at the moment which make ISTQB the more attractive of the two available schemes in the UK. However, I am becoming increasingly dubious about the actual value of the ISTQB schem…

May 11

Stephen Hill replied to Anne-Marie Charrett's discussion 'Disaster Stories'

Perhaps to encourage people to think about the actual processes being supported by the software they are developing and testing, I can think of no better example than Heathrow Terminal 5. Numerous failures: from staff not being given enough 'familia…

May 6

Enid Zheng replied to Stephen Hill's discussion 'Hints, Tips and Advice offered' in the group ISEB / ISTQB

Hi Stephen, Thank you very much for sharing. I am thinking to take the exam too, but acturally have no much idea about this exam. Do I need attend some classes to pass it ? Is there any materials or books can be used to help? Thank you very much.…

May 5

Stephen Hill commented on Stephen Hill's blog post 'Test Managers' Forum - 28 April 2010'

Thanks for commenting. I didn't realise there was music on Dynatrace's website having only viewed it at work! James and the Giant Peach? Now that takes me back: I loved the book as a child! When I get breathing space from my current project I too wa…

May 3

ElizaF commented on Stephen Hill's blog post 'Test Managers' Forum - 28 April 2010'

Thanks for posting this, very interesting reading and extreemly relevant to my current phase of testing. I went to have a look at the dynatrace website but it has the twin horrors of flash and music which brought "SHHHHH!!!" from the small people o…

May 3

Stephen Hill replied to Tony Simms's discussion 'Real examples of Bad Bug Reports please.'

When Microsoft launched Windows XP they gave us wider title bars and task bars. Many people switched off 'XP-mode' and reverted back to the Windows 2000-style interface at the time. Testers needed to think about two different interface designs when…

April 30

Stephen Hill added a blog post

Test Managers' Forum - 28 April 2010

This is a copy of a posting I made on my Wordpress blog, http://pedantictester.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/uk-test-management-forum-28-april-2010/ My first visit to the Test Managers’ Forum on 28 April was a positive experience for me. There were six…

April 29

Profile Information

About Me:

I have been testing regularly for the past 8 years going from not really knowing what I was doing (other than following scripts) to managing testing within the organisation.

I currently work for a company which produces software available as a desktop tool, programmers' interface and as a web service. Testing all these different products requires me to know a great deal about the different application domains mentioned and their various nuances.

Although the industrial sector I work in is a niche industry I thoroughly enjoy my job. I am passionate about testing and ensuring our products are 'right' when they go out of the door.

I am certified to ISEB Practitioner Test Manager and Test Analyst levels. It has been good meeting some of you at SIGIST conferences.

Are you...?

happily employed

Twitter profile

http://twitter.com/Stephen_J_Hill

Professional Profile (e.g LinkedIn, Xing)

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/stephen-hill/14/17a/3b

Experience in years...

6 - 10

Do you specialise in any particular area of Software Testing?

Mainly system, integration and UAT test levels. No particular other area of specialism

Stephen Hill's Blog

Test Managers' Forum - 28 April 2010

This is a copy of a posting I made on my Wordpress blog, http://pedantictester.wordpress.com/

My first visit to the Test Managers’ Forum on 28 April was a positive experience for me.

There were six sessions on the programme with three running concurrently either side of a break. The project work I am involved with at the moment involves a requirement to measure the performance o… Continue

Posted on April 29, 2010 at 7:00pm — 2 Comments

SIGiST Conference Report: 11 March 2010

I went to the SIGiST conference in London yesterday and, as usual, got a lot from the day. It was nice to meet a fellow STC member but it would have been good to see a higher representation from the Club.

The opening keynote speech by Wayne Mallinson was very thought-provoking focussing on avoiding waste in our development processes. The concepts were originally developed for the manufacturing industry and the main example given was Toyota. Given the difficulties faced by Toyota recentl… Continue

Posted on March 12, 2010 at 12:21pm — 1 Comment

ISEB Test Analyst Practitioner - Done it!

Well they say the best laid plans of mice and men often go askew - I really had intended to post more about the course, revision and subsequent exam but in the end time got the better of me.

I went on an accredited course 18 - 20 November and got lots of notes. It really is worthwhile going on the course if for no other reason than to get more experience with using the formal test design techniques 'properly'.

One of the anecdotes from trainer centred on a discussion that had taken place where… Continue

Posted on December 14, 2009 at 2:55pm — 1 Comment

Preparing for Practitioner 2

I feel I am making some progress. I have been listing out test techniques and the categories they fall into to help with the instant recall part of the exam. I found when I did Test Management that a good starting point for my answers was to jot down lists that I had memorised to use as headings. For example I did this for a Test Policy so I could differentiate between what should be in a test policy and what should be in a test strategy. Since that approach worked well for me last time I am goi… Continue

Posted on November 10, 2009 at 12:39pm —