Skilled testing—an important part of creating valuable technology—is under attack. We need to rethink the problem, analyze why people resist testing, and create approaches to make it more engaging. Gamification provides one model to help us improve our approach.

The testing craft is sometimes fascinated with high-tech, expensive tools that are intended to help managers keep up to date on what's going on. Yet, sometimes heavyweight tools aren't necessary. Michael Bolton describes how Paul Holland, a senior test manager, uses a decidedly low-tech approach to track and illustrate the testing story.

Modern applications operate in highly integrated environments, and critical systems rely on massive amounts of data that likely contain sensitive information. Discover useful strategies for preparing your baseline, handling interfaces, designing input data, and planning for output results.

Exploratory testing is a popular approach, but many testers secretly worry they might be doing it wrong. Jonathan Kohl addresses those concerns by explaining exploratory testing in ways that testers identify with.