Learning To Look Beyond: Three Common Biases in Testing

How does bias in your testing processes affect your testing efforts? Without a doubt, bias has a huge impact. Awareness of even a small batch of biases can go a long way to improving your skills as a testing professional. Charlene Granadosin and Charlotte B. discuss this in their talk: This is What a Tester Looks Like. Here are three common biases in testing you need to be aware of.

Confirmation Bias

Have you ever had a developer tell you that it works on their machine? And in that exchange have you insisted that it doesn’t work? Well, in this case, you both have confirmation bias. Both parties have used their personal experience to influence how they approach their testing efforts and results.???

Congruence Bias

What happens when you try another approach to discover bugs? Sometimes our congruence bias gets in the way and we jump to conclusions having used just one test approach. If you’re only focused on automating some test cases, what might you discover if instead, you run an ad-hoc or goal-driven exploratory testing session??

Bandwagon Effect

Sharing ideas is important and it can feel good to do so. Yet more often than not an idea is quashed by a “but we've always done it this way” or a “but it’s always been that way.” Yet doing something just because others do it can get in the way. Without realising, we might choose to agree just to fit in with the rest of the group. What impact might this have on your test process improvements? What happens when you attempt to use a new risk-based approach to guide you yet end up conforming to what’s always been done??

Learn more! Charlene and Charlotte provide advice and practical tips on how to address these biases and more during their fascinating and engaging talk: This is What a Tester Looks Like.

And don’t forget, early bird tickets to TestBash UK 2023 end soon. You don’t wanna miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn and connect with fellow testing professionals in person. Grab a ticket. ???

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