Sirius Ruminations

Good morning, class. Today, we are going to learn a new word – Heuristication. Heuristication is a state of sophistication in dealing with and applying Heuristics as an element in an overall test methodology.What does Heuristication look like? How can you identify it? Well, in order to answer those questions, first we have to understand what heuristics themselves are.

Another chapter in the continuing saga of my personal quest for good heuristics.

Over the past few weeks, I have been working with James Bach on my BCRIT certification. Through that process, I have identified my use of heuristics as a good area for potential growth, and so I try to spend some time each day actively thinking about this. For those not familiar, a heuristic is a key word or phrase that encapsulates some larger idea, and triggers you to apply some strategy or behavior in your testing. You try to pick heuristics that will be easy for you to remember, something personal or interesting. Something amusing is always a good choice, James’ “Dead Bee” heuristic being a good example.So over the same time period, my daughter Sarah and I have been doing some reading and study of satire, and it’s use in comics and cartoons. We have looked at the work of Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Chas Addams (The Addams Family), and their use of animals and human caricatures to point out incongruent behavior in society. So the other day, Sarah brings the Sunday funnies to show me this cartoon. (The cartoon was Pearls Before Swine, I don’t know the authors name, and the panel ran several weeks ago. That is about the best I can do for giving proper credit) The cartoon depicted two kids discussing Ol’ Yeller, one who had seen it several times telling the other who had never heard of it what it was all about, and that it was showing at the local theatre. After hearing the story of how the young boy eventually has to put his own dog down, he says “Wow, I bet everyone in the theatre was bawlin about that”, to which his friend replies “Yeah, what other reaction could you possibly have?”

Recently, three unrelated events have given birth to a new idea in my head, and I wanted to share it with you. So, to properly set up the background, the three unrelated events:  At the recent CAST, James Bach presented a keynote, “Against Certification”. During that presentation, one of the things he did was to review some of the “Body of Knowledge” documentation upon which such certifications were based. As he reviewed this documentation, one of the things I was struck by was an underlying pattern of motive driving much of the documentation. That motive was the ability to predict, manage, and control the SDLC. Much of this “Body of Knowledge” for test certification was obviously written by managers, not testers.

The right tool, for the right job, at the right time