James Whittaker

I met James Whittaker last night at a EuroSTAR event. 

He did a presntation called "10 Minute Test Plans" and it waas great. 

Main points:

• Tradition test plans are not fun to write and not fun to read.
• Worry about 80% of stuff to test and the the other 20% will get covered eventually by doing such things as Exploratory Testing
• Include what is important: the attributes, components and capabilities
• Carry out attribute component capability analysis
• Use an only planning tool (Testify) which also assists in a risk analysis to be carried out
• User Stories and Exploratory tests can be created based on attributes in the plan
• Establish a sub-set of attributes
• Create some pictures showing TRENDS; using metrics can be dangerous
• Everyone in software development/test can get pleasure from looking at the trend graphs

After the presentation I met him for a drink along with everyone else that was at the meeting.  He was really nice to talk to and his views on testing are refreshing.

I am very happy!