Teaching Exploratory Testing in Mob

Exploratory testing, unlike scripted testing, is not defined in advance and carried out precisely according to plan.

Idea of Exploratory Testing in Mob is that all people from the group work on the same thing, at the same time, in the same space, on the same computer. Mob testing can be viewed as an expansion of Pair approach, an Agile technique where two people work together, sharing a single computer and taking turns at the keyboard.

Each team member has a role. Roles can be driver, designated navigator and navigators. The main goal is that for an idea to go from your head to the computer it must go through someone else’s hands. Driver should only have hands on the keyboard, without thinking. The Navigators discuss the idea of testing some functionality and guide the Driver in creating notes in mind map tool or bugs. The Driver listens to the Navigators and must trust them. After particular time determined by the team, each team member gets new role after rotation. Each team members has a possibility to work as the Driver for a short period of time. It is expected that mistakes can be corrected without egos in play.

Benefits of this kind of working are building habits and transferring skills over passing knowledge. Mob testing can bring a lot of skills such as:

• Speaking about testing in strong-style,
• Working better in a group,
• Working away from confirmation bias, being active,
• Building a map of an application (MindMup is one of mindmapping canvas)
• Learning the purpose and features of an application: GUI-based and API-based
• Finding and isolating bugs
• Introducing new tools.

Mob Testing is about getting the best out of the team. Developers can be included for the first time in tester’s perspective, from a different mindset and in the future, can easily test their own code. Different people see different things. Something that was not observed by the testers, can be noticed by developers or some other team members.

The usual concerns are wouldn’t we get more done individually. The answer is that team with team members at different positions can see more than one individual. It is very important to adopt a principle to always treat each other with kindness, consideration, and respect. Best ideas win when your work is over credit which you can earn. The approach can build psychological safety.