Being Taught to Report

This evening I attended Ask Me Anything - Test Reporting with Elizabeth Zagroba hosted by Ministry of Testing. As expected it was rammed with nuggets of wisdom. Here's a handful:

Test reports are not necessarily the end. Give enough detail that your work can be understood and perhaps questioned and then the conversation can start.
Test reports are not just for others. You can use them to clarify your thinking, understand your coverage, step back and choose where to go next.
The reaction to your test reports is important. If no-one's listening, perhaps you need to change something. Better still, ask what your stakeholders want to hear from you as well or instead.
If you're not sure whether something makes sense to report, ask someone you trust before reporting it.
One style of report does not fit all uses. Format, content, length, style, and so on can all vary depending on the context.
You can report during testing as well as afterwards. Externalise your thoughts for yourself or those you're working with.

Elizabeth also mentioned the Rapid Software Testing story format for reports. I take a version of that as a good basic default, and I cast it like this:

What I did
What I found
Risks and value

Value might be stuff that stakeholders particularly wanted to know has been covered, risks will include new uncertainties uncovered in this work. Things I didn't do, but which could be relevant, will go into the risks section.

Comments

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