I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the last blog post teleporter exercise, specifically what approaches I noticed.

Gauge the confidence of the engineer who developed the prototype
At first it may seem like a joke to the casual onlooker, but this is a critical step many testers do to assess the risk of the project. Part of asking the engineer to go first might be viewed in the Scrum world as separating the chickens from the pigs , or who has skin in the game. It was interesting to me how many people were interested in getting good data from the programmer now versus the past when Agile wasn't well known and wasn't often practiced. I thought this was an exciting change.


Cartoon from www.implementingscrum.com

Understand the Context (Situational Awareness)
Did you notice some of the distinct points of view that came out early on? Some people wanted to know as much as they possibly could before running even one test. Others were ready to jump in and get their information FROM the tests. I have a few theories on why this is, and I think it depends on the project which approach is better suited for adding value to the project. This is where the People before Process part of the Agile Manifesto is powerful. Ideally, to me, a tester is able to adjust based on what they find out. They will do what they can to advocate for good coding practice and coverage on the code, but will not be stopped by the lack of it if it is a situation where it doesn't exist. I think it is good to have a preference, but adaptability is a skill I admire in a tester. Opinions will vary, and that is just my preference.

Seek Info
You'll notice a few different ways this is done. Some people asked me more about the people who were involved, the client, the head honcho, and the engineer. Others asked me about the design for the machine itself. Some asked about the budget and timeframe. Others asked about hiring experts to help them collect more info.

Define Success
Far fewer testers went this route, but I did notice those who did were people I know have lots of industry experience. This is something I try to do for every project.

Question Ethics
Far fewer testers did this. I think that one reason is I framed this exercise as something in fantasy and most people were playing along. I don't think the testers would risk a human life in real life if they didn't ask, but there is something interesting about those who did.



Props
First off, overall my favorite questions were from Thomas Ponnet. The way he thinks about risks is helpful and taught me something new.

Most original for bringing up a very practical alternative for the demo? And a great backup? Rob Lambert who suggested we hire a magician if we can't get the prototype safe enough. This is what many companies do in practice, showing screenshots and videos when features aren't really ready yet. So long as you are upfront that it is a concept, not what is happening full on right now, it is pretty industry standard.

Anne-Marie and Chris had some good questions to test assumptions about what the teleporter is.

Simon Morley and Skarlso both had good ideas for edge cases and confidence that they COULD test it.

MaikNog came up with some questions about assumptions for validation, so philosophical questions like how do we test for a soul?

Michael Bolton for best questions to quickly establish situational awareness.

James Bach,  and Matthew Heusser for the best ethics questions, while Markus Gaertner refused to test until some of these ethical matters were cleared up.

Mark Vasko and Peter Haworth-Langford for the best human related questions (User Focus).


So, what did you notice? Who won? I think I won as I got some interesting ideas and experience playing testing games. Ideas for future games? Might you run one on your blog?