Researchers have taken a careful look at the way humans think and they have noticed how sometimes people are influenced by a number of factors which cause undesirable bias in the way they take decisions. This research has been applied principally to business leaders and managers, but it also highly relevant to the area of software testing.
This presentation explains in easy terms the principal way in which people think and take decisions. It then goes on to describe the main sources of cognitive bias and how these impact various aspects of software testing, such as:
• Creating risk-based test strategies
• Evaluating the return on investment from testing
• Estimating testing effort
• Performing exploratory tests
• Reporting defects
This presentation is intended for anyone involved in taking decisions in testing. In other words, all of us! You will gain valuable insights into everyday software testing situations where cognitive bias can influence decision-taking. Understanding these situations will help us limit their impact on our projects and their team members.
The presentation was first given at the Danish Software Testing Conference in June 2015. Feedback received was very positive and above the average for the conference. much of the research in based on work performed by Nobel Prize winner, Daniel Kahneman.