I test, therefore I am

A couple of days ago I had a thought going “While testing, I’m not just testing the software under test. What else am I testing?”

It quickly became clear to me that it’s not only things within the box but also thoughts and ideas that we test. So I started the following list, the reason behind it being that if I’m aware of something I can focus on it and test it. I may think of additional heuristics that may help me test this particular part and find risks, bugs, issues and information.

What do we test? 

• The application
• The operating system, anti-virus and other unrelated software running in the background
• (Test) environments and infrastructure
• Ourselves, our
  • Models, thoughts and ideas
  • Capabilities
  • Skills
  • Knowledge
  • Oracles
  • Biases
  • Feelings
  • Assumptions (thanks to Thanh Huynh)
• Needs – Testers vs Customers vs Business (thanks to Dan Billing)
• Our processes
• Our document structure, content and formatting
• Our peers, test partner or debrief partner
• Relationships with
  • Software and hardware
  • Project and non-project colleagues
  • Customers

If you can think of anything else, please add a comment and I’ll add it to the list!