Phil Kirkham on Atomic Spin

How to Prepare a Career Talk About Testing for 200 High School Sophomores

I'll soon be giving a career talk about testing to 200 high schoolers. Reviewing how I moved from developer to tester helped me form some concrete advice.

Exploratory Testing

Lessons Learned from Customer Usage

Getting your app into the hands of customers as soon as possible is highly recommended. Here are a few stories that illustrate the utility of user testing.

Exploratory Testing

Creating a “Testing is Fun” Mindset and Learning from Bugs

We strive to create quality software and learning from mistakes can help us avoid similar issues.This also helps encourage a 'testing can be fun' mindset.

Growing as Makers

I’m Biased, and So Are You

Cognitive bias can't be avoided, but an awareness of your biases means you can use the advantages of them in your favor and lessen their negative effects.

Exploratory Testing

What I Learned About Myself & My Software Testing Habits from Presenting to New Hires

During Q&A time, I got some good questions about how and why I test that I continued to think about afterward. Here are my answers.

Growing as Makers

Cutting the Ends Off the Roast

Don't be afraid to ask, "Why am I doing this?" and "Why am I doing it this way?" Otherwise, you'll miss the opportunity to make things better.

Exploratory Testing

Exploratory Testing a Long-Running Project? Switch it Up

When I'm testing a long project, I find myself following the same paths to get to the new features and functionality. Here are six ways I switch it up.

Exploratory Testing

More Ways to Test – 9 Situations to Test the Strength of Your Mobile App

What else is there to test on a phone app when you've tested the functionality? Put it in these nine situations, and see how it responds.

Exploratory Testing

A Very, Very Lightweight Test Plan

Even on an Agile project, think through your testing at the start can help you be prepared, focused on the right areas, and testing for the right risks.

Exploratory Testing

3 Ways to Give Directions to Exploratory Testers Who Are Working from Home

I need to focus my testing on the most critical areas of an application. So how do I stay aligned with developers when we can't meet face to face?

Exploratory Testing

More Ways to Test – Nightmare Headlines

Is your assumption that your app will work perfectly and that all the services it connects to will never go down? It's time to rethink that.

Exploratory Testing

More Ways to Test – Learning from Fairy Tales

When testing software, you have to be creative. One of the best sources of inspiration is fairy tales — specifically "Goldilocks and the Three Bears".

Phil Kirkham

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