Context Driven Testing can be defined by a is a set of values about software testing that recommends a continuous and creative assessment of the software testing activities based on the current knowledge about the situation and the value of the tests for the organization.
The Context Driven Testing web site is a great resource for all people intrested in ths software testing approach. It proposes a list of the seven basic principles for context driven testing:
- The value of any practice depends on its context.
- There are good practices in context, but there are no best practices.
- People, working together, are the most important part of any project’s context.
- Projects unfold over time in ways that are often not predictable.
- The product is a solution. If the problem isn’t solved, the product doesn’t work.
- Good software testing is a challenging intellectual process.
- Only through judgment and skill, exercised cooperatively throughout the entire project, are we able to do the right things at the right times to effectively test our products.
You will also find on this web site illustrations of the principles, the relationship between context driven testing and other testing approaches like Agile testing, and examples of its usage. Finally, this resource contains great material and ideas about the philosophy of testing in the blog posts that are available on it. It is a resource that I will recommend to every software tester that wants to go beyond a pure “mechanical” approach to software testing.
Visit the Context Driven Testing web site: http://context-driven-testing.com/