We could define test velocity as the speed at which we cover the software in order to final risks to quality. If we spend time looking deeply into the […]
What we’ve been up to at Excelon!
With things slowing down a bit, our Managing Director, Matt Heusser, has been out and about a little more, and we have new material. Given it’s been awhile since we’ve […]
Currency Converter
This is a test exercise. U. S. Dollar amount Canadian Dollars Mexican Pesos Euros Equivalent in … Validate Reset Calculate Set to 5 The time is?
More on the “Attack on the Testing Role”
About a month ago I took a slide from James Bach’s Orcas Island Training and posted it to twitter. The internet became very upset, I suspect more from the writing […]
We’re going to Orcas Island
“The shoemakers children have no shoes” may be a common expression, but it is common because it is true enough, enough of the time. The mechanic’s car is a beater […]
What have we been up to?
It’s been a busy few months at Excelon. The New York Trip, a brief European tour, Justin went to Boston for STPCon, thanksgiving, lots of writing – actually lots and […]
Footprints in the Sand
I came across a lot of ideas in graduate school. Some, like Test Driven Development, Extreme Programming and Scrum skyrocketed my career forward. Others were models – a way of […]
What Are People Saying About TestRetreatNYC?
In the three days since we announced TestRetreatNYC in August, we’ve sold half the tickets. Many of the folks attending the conference are coming back; they been to Test Coach […]
The Software Testing World Cup
Imagine a world test competition, held over the internet, on your continent, in a time zone that is reasonable for you, on a Saturday, with local judges you know and […]
New Articles — and an announcement

I just got back from interop, the conference for emerging technologies that connect business – from data center to cloud to switches, servers, and software. It was an incredibly busy […]
Four Testing Strategies
I’ve spent a good deal of time lately thinking about how we frame the problem of software testing – and how we solve it. It impacts how we see the […]
The Wikitest Framework
UPDATE: I want to do a post on the importance of limiting ambiguity and making sure you have as much meaningful consensus as possible – a counterbalance to my last […]
100% Test Automation
A recent post I put out to the Agile-Testing List: The original poster asked:> I have been asked to work out a system to make a 100%> automated testing solution […]
The Nine Forgettings
“If you measure the wrong thing, and you reward the wrong thing, don’t be surprised if you get the wrong thing.” — Lee Copeland Lee’s talk is about 34 minutes […]
Explaining Exploratory Testing
I’m a big fan of exploratory testing. I believe it can be a much more effective method of software testing than hard-coded automation or manual scripts, both of which suffer […]
Extreme QA?
Back in 2002, James Canter and Liz Derr wrote a paper on “Extreme QA.” While I don’t agree with everything in the article, and I think their use of the […]
Is it a DSL or an API?
One of the “new new” things in developer-centric testing is using Ruby to create customer acceptance tests in a unique, domain specific testing language. Chromatic takes a humorous look at […]
Lighting Talks Web Page Up –
I am now officially in recruiting mode for lightning talks to ST&PCon, and have added a web page about lightning talks – here.
Greased Lightning (Talks)
Lightning Talks are ten five-minutes talks in a sixty-minute slot. As a speaker, I enjoy them because they sharpen my mind. There’s no time for an introductory joke, no long […]
Testing Philosophy II –
About every four months, Shrini Kulkarni convinces me to drop the term “Test Automation” from my vocabulary. After all, testing is a creative, thinking process. We can automate some steps […]