Why rapid testing?

Most testing classes try to teach you how to test thoroughly. But their idea of teaching is to recite terminology and the names and descriptions of techniques. They don't build skill, and they don't help you break down and tame a realistically complex testing problem. Besides, almost none of us are given the time and resources to execute a "thorough" test process from beginning to end. Rapid testing is a way to scale thorough testing methods to fit an arbitrarily compressed schedule. Rapid testing doesn't mean "not thorough", it means "as thorough as is reasonable and required, given the constraints on your time." A good rapid tester is a skilled practitioner who can test productively under a wider variety of conditions than conventionally trained (or untrained) testers.

The other reason to study rapid testing is your career. Historically, testers have had trouble gaining the respect of developers and other people on a software project. After all, from the outside, the testing activity doesn't look like much. Most of the value of testing comes from how testers think, but even excellent testers struggle to articulate or justify their ideas about how to test. Rapid testing is a personal discipline, teachable and learnable, that allows you to think and talk about testing with confidence. By contrast, a conventionally trained tester generally is limited to complaining about how the requirements aren't fully documented, or about how some other condition necessary for arbitrarily thorough testing has not been met. That behavior rarely inspires respect.

Rapid testing is indispensable when you are asked to test something on short notice, off the top of your head, early in the development process, or when you're in the process of developing test cases and procedures for future use. This approach is also useful even when you're called upon to test more thoroughly, and given the time and resources to do so.

A guide to the course

• Overview
• A practical approach
• Why Rapid Software Testing?
• How does rapid testing work?
• A brief history
• Who is the ideal student?
• Course outline
• Resources for Rapid Software Testing