S1.E16: Test Case Design and combinatorial testing

It's easy to overlook exploratory testing. But is that wise? Could incorporating exploratory testing slow down your processes, or will it uncover hidden issues that your automated tests miss? In this episode, we dive deep into these questions and more with a special guest, Szilard Szell, a seasoned DevOps transformation lead and test coach. Szilard joins us to diagnose common testing issues teams face, like missed defects despite solid automated pipelines or the struggle to report after exploratory sessions. He brings years of experience from various industries, offering invaluable insights into blending DevOps with exploratory testing. Topics we’ll cover: Symptoms that indicate your team may need exploratory testing. Why traditional testing methods may not cut it in a CI/CD world. How exploratory testing and automation go hand-in-hand. Practical advice on making DevOps and exploratory testing work for any team. Szilard also shares his thoughts on the cultural shift necessary to embrace DevOps, the power of continuous learning, and key metrics for measuring DevOps success. Join us for this insightful conversation, and learn how to make exploratory testing an essential part of your team’s journey toward faster, higher-quality releases.

🎙️ Special episode alert! 🎙️ Today, it's Sérgio's turn in the hot seat! 🌟 In this episode, Sérgio, an amazing Solution Architect at Xray, shares his many career experiences and stories in the software testing industry. 🛠️💡 From test management tool features to what a Solution Architect does outside of work, this episode is packed with QA knowledge and insightful experiences. Plus, enjoy a round of rapid-fire questions that will definitely make you laugh (and think)!

🎙️ Special episode alert! 🎙️  We're thrilled to share an exclusive episode featuring one of our hosts: Cristiano Cunha! Cristiano is more than a Solution Architect at Xray, he's also a passionate enthusiast for software testing and automation. 🛠️💡 Get ready to hear stories and insights about Cristiano's career experiences. But that's not all - get ready for a round of rapid-fire questions that promise to bring out some laughs. 😄 Tune in now to dive into Cristiano's adventures in QA!

Do you have frequent issues in your build/deployment process? Are you unsure whether certain tasks can be automated? Jenkins enables teams to automate many tasks related to the software development process, including compiling, testing, packaging, and deploying. Today we have a special guest, Kohsuke Kawaguchi, the creator of Jenkins. Did you know that Xray provides support for easy integration with your favorite CI/CD tools, including Jenkins? The integration can work in both ways: triggering a pipeline from a Test Plan/Execution or pushing the results from a job in the pipeline. Learn more about the Jenkins integration here: https://hubs.li/Q01R-h120

Are your automated tests taking too long? Do you have a lot of instability in your executions (flaky tests)? All these are symptoms that you are not addressing test automation best. That's where atomic testing comes in as a way to rethink how we approach automated testing so that we can validate what is produced and make it faster, reliable, and independent. In this episode, we have Nikolay Advolodkin, our guest QA Therapist, to assist us with these symptoms. Nikolay is a frequent conference speaker and the creator of ultimateqa.com and a youtube channel about automation. Did you know that with Xray, you can adopt the atomic testing approach, allowing you to link those tests to the requirements and bring visibility of them to the entire team? Learn more about test management with https://hubs.li/Q01qBdZd0

Are you struggling with flaky tests and unsure of what framework to adopt for web testing? We need e2e tests to be faster, stable, and reliable, is Cypress delivering all this? Let's find out. Our guest QA Therapist in this episode is Filip Hric. Filip has a lot of experience in testing and is a Cypress ambassador. Using a tool or a framework to enable UI tests is important and so is the choice of framework. Xray integrates seamlessly with Cypress and brings visibility over the results in Jira so you can easily import results and share them with the rest of the team. Learn more about the integration between Xray and Cypress here: https://hubs.li/Q01Qm57Z0

Are you unsure of what framework to adopt for web testing? Tools such as Playwright, backed by Microsoft and a big community, are a great option. Today we have guest Debbie O'Brien who is Senior Program Manager at Microsoft,  where she advocates for better testing with Playwright. Did you know that with Playwright, you can implement cross-browser testing and easily upload the related results to Jira using Xray? With the enhancements that are available in the JUnit reporter, testers can easily link a test method to an existing Test in Jira or even link it to an existing story and thus implement full traceability. Learn more about the integration between Xray and Playwright. https://hubs.li/Q01PvqFG0

Do you know how to approach API validations? API testing helps improve the overall quality and reliability of our software by identifying bugs and errors in the code early in the development process, allowing developers to fix them before they become bigger problems. To help us with this topic we have guest Diogo Rede. Diogo is a Solution Architect and Test Advocate with deep experience in testing and automation. Did you know that Xray can help you manage and streamline your API testing efforts, ensuring that your application's APIs are thoroughly tested, secure, and meet the intended requirements? Learn more about API Testing with Xray here: https://hubs.li/Q01Nm6jR0

Do you feel a bit lost whenever trying to decide what tests to perform? Testing techniques can help us increase coverage, reduce risk, and handle human resources, infrastructure, and time constraints. In this episode, we'll talk with Joel Oliveira, a frequent speaker at conferences and meetups who works at Celfocus, where he is a Senior QA Manager. Did you know that Xray Enterprise supports more advanced scenarios whenever you aim to provide a high level of coverage with a very limited number of test cases? With Xray Enterprise, you can generate optimized test scenarios using state-of-the-art pairwise algorithms. This means better use of your time and your infrastructure. Test more of what matters with less effort. Learn more about Xray Enterprise: https://hubs.li/Q01MXJVY0

How do we go about testing systems, without missing any critical scenarios or creating redundant ones? To assist us on this topic, we have a special guest with us, Ivan Filippov. Ivan has worked for several years with teams helping build efficient test models that can be used to expose important defects. Did you know that Xray Enterprise comes with Test Case Designer which is a comprehensive modeling tool where it's possible to define parameters and values, and enforce system-under-test rules. The Test Case Designer also helps you create a manageable set of test scenarios and make sure that most combinations of values are covered early on in the test suite, so that most risk is addressed upfront. Learn more about Test Case Designer here: https://hubs.li/Q01FRLzZ0