Context is a living, breathing thing

Two quick anecdotes to share here:

Anecdote #1: We Contribute To Other People’s Context

Some time ago I asked a colleague to set up some test data for me. He went the extra mile and gave me multiple users with different sets of permissions. He built a template that I could execute multple experiments from and that template has been reused dozens of times since. My colleague chose to make my life easier. He understood that he was a variable in the context of my work. I often find myself talking about context as an inanimate object. That’s faulty. Context is always changing and our ability to track and roll with those changes is imperative to our testing work.

When we write bug reports, session reports, or any other artifact, we’re impacting the way that our product and programming counterparts see the product. We choose whether to make their lives easier or harder. Let’s make that choice actively.

Anecdote #2: Other People Contribute To Our Context

A programmer, a product representative, and I were discussing a story and I asked this question:

Are we talking about the language or the spirit of the story right now?

If we don’t level set with our teams, we can’t possibly make productive decisions. I hear competing narratives about the usefulness of user stories:

• They’re the starting point for a conversation
• The AC are a complete set of what we expect to happen

So, as the tester I don’t only have to ask context-based questions of the system under test, I also have to ask those questions of my team members.