Rapid Software Testing (RST)

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Rapid Software Testing, developed by James Bach and Michael Bolton

• Are you finding it difficult to assess how much time and effort you’re going to need to test effectively?
• Are you overwhelmed by or uncertain about approaches to test planning, design and execution?
• Are you working in an environment where certain people aren’t following “the rules”?
• Are you having trouble finding the right balance between planning, documentation, and testing?
• Are you interested in learning skills and techniques that will help you to become a better tester?
• Are you finding that “industry best practices” are infeasible and a poor fit for your organization?
• Do you want to get very good at software testing?

About the Course
Rapid Software Testing is a 3-day, hands-on class that teaches testing as a sophisticated thinking art. Rapid testing is a complete methodology designed for a world of barely sufficient resources, information, and time. This class presents an approach to testing that begins with developing personal skills and extends to the ultimate mission of software testing: lighting the way of the project by evaluating the product. The approach is consistent with and a follow-on to many of the concepts and principles introduced in the book Lessons Learned in Software Testing: a Context-Driven Approach by Kaner, Bach, and Pettichord.

The philosophy presented in this class is not like traditional approaches to testing, which ignore the thinking part of testing and instead advocate never-ending paperwork. Products have become too complex for that, time is too short, and testers are too expensive. Rapid testing uses a cyclic approach and heuristic methods to constantly re-optimize testing to fit the needs of your clients. The Rapid approach isn't just testing with a speed or sense of urgency; it's mission-focused testing that eliminates unnecessary work, assures that everything necessary gets done, and constantly asks what testing can do to speed the project as a whole.

One important tool of rapid testing is the discipline of exploratory testing—essentially a testing martial art. Exploratory testing combines test design, test execution, and learning into a seamless process that finds a lot of problems quickly. If you are an experienced tester, you'll find out how to articulate those intellectual processes of testing that you already practice intuitively. If you're a new tester, hands-on testing exercises help you gain critical experience.

If you outsource development or testing...
We have taught this class all over the world to offshore and outsource organizations on behalf of clients who want their testers to do a better job of testing without needing detailed test procedures. The rapid testing methodology is about getting a lot of value for the testing dollar (value that simply can't be reproduced by throwing untrained bodies at the problem) so that your top management won't see testing as a rote activity that any stranger can do as well as you can. Even if you outsource, you will need a core team of testers back at headquarters who can rapidly test products to check the “testing” done by outsource firms.

If you are burdened with clerical requirements...
We have taught this class in organizations pursuing the CMM and organizations subject to FDA and other regulatory requirements. Rapid testing is about thinking. As long as the project owners still want you to think well and find important problems quickly, this is a class that applies to you. However, we do advocate a lean form of test documentation, to the extent you can possibly trim it. We also teach session-based test management, which allows you to measure and document exploratory testing in a manner compatible with more “formal” process cultures.