One of my favorite quotes is:
It's not that I'm so smart, I just stay with the problems longer. --Albert Einstein
This idea has been central over the years as I have worked on understanding what it is that we call "Exploratory Testing". It's not a haphazard smart clicking thing, but it is learning deeply while testing.
We do our best work in Exploratory Testing when we stay with the problems longer. When we follow through things others let go, and investigate. When we dig in deeper until we understand what those symptoms mean for our projects.
Luck - or rather serendipity, lucky accident - does play a role in testing. As we spend time focusing on coverage, we give our systems a chance of revealing information we did not plan for. Sometimes, but rarely, that happens as soon as we get started. Sometimes, but rarely, that information is so valuable it is worth our entire year's salary. That's a myth, and this post is motivated by a colleague who is using that myth to sell a training course I now categorize as snake oil.
In a profession where we seek what is real and what is not through empirical evidence, falling into promises like "I teach you how to find a bug worth your entire year's salary in an hour" are just as bad as the excessive promises tool vendors do on test automation.
In words of a super-successful golfer:
The more I practice the luckier I get -- Arnold Palmer
Spend time to be lucky in Exploratory Testing. A gamble-based approach to exploratory testing is off and encourages the idea that thoroughness isn't the goal. Serendipity is real, and it becomes real by staying with the application longer and using test automation to extend your reach in all kinds of directions.
And yes, I too have found a significant bug in an hour after joining a project. That says NOTHING about me and my abilities as an exploratory tester, and a lot about the project. Let's change projects so that they make us need to be a lot less heroic and a lot more investigative.
