Exploratory testing is a form of unscripted testing that mixes concurrent learning with rapid, iterative test design, and test execution. Done well, exploratory testing helps you intentionally and quickly discover the important problems in your software. So, how do you actually design tests on-the-fly, taking into account the current, known risks, input from stakeholders, and the limits on time and resources? Paul Carvalho shares practical models, tips, and guidelines he uses to design exploratory tests. Paul shows you a model that breaks down any system into its basic, testable components; and a model to help you visualize your testing strategy across five important dimensions. He also shares proven tips on how to reduce the number of test ideas to the most important ones-those that are most likely to find important bugs.

With rapid application development environments and sometimes daily product releases, test cases can be an unnecessary burden on testers. Test cases are expensive to write, often fail to adequately describe interrelationships, and are ineffective for whole-team collaboration. Brett Leonard explains how you can employ software models to replace test cases as your main vehicle for test design, execution, and reporting. Using real-life examples from testing a business-to-business networking application, Brett explains two types of models to accelerate your test efforts: the simple Straight-Line Model approach and the more robust Uniform Customer Modeling language. By planning and executing tests from models, you will quickly gain an understanding of the software under test and have a new tool for collaborating with developers and all project stakeholders.

In each round of the party game Limbo, you set the bar lower and lower. Players must dance under the bar with only their feet touching the floor. When it comes to bugs, we also want to set the bar lower and lower as the project progresses–fewer bugs is always better. Lisa Crispin explains how agile teams address defects, and how you can apply an agile approach even in a "traditional" environment. Explore different approaches to deal with defects–from "fix and forget" to employing a traditional defect tracking approach. Lisa describes insights we can gain from defects, such as the missing features they might represent and development improvements they suggest. Learn new ways to "lower the bar" on bugs in your projects and take away novel ideas for taming your backlog of defects. Discover ways your team can work together to minimize or eliminate bug reports altogether.

The latest development technologies–web services, SOA, SaaS, cloud computing, agile practices, and more–have increased our ability to rapidly implement new systems to support ever-changing business needs. At the same time, testers are expected to create suites of tests that exercise systems from end-to-end, testing all parts of the system together. Ruud Teunissen explores ways to create and maintain end-to-end tests that are representative of the full application landscape. This testing has to be in PLACE: Production-Like, Automated, Continuous running, and End-to-end. As with any set of tests, you must look at the environment, tooling, data, and both manual and automated scripting. In addition, with PLACE testing you must drill down in the end-to-end chain to determine the root cause of problems and point toward the required resolutions. In fact, it's not just testing; it's a much broader evaluation approach.