Have you ever noticed that a lot of testing-related discussion revolves around quality, process and tools, but very little about what actually happens when a tester sits down at their computer and executes tests? Many testers in the trenches feel like they have little direction and support when it comes to doing their day-to-day jobs. Exploratory testers often feel they have even less direction and structure in their work since they don't rely much on pre-scripted test cases. They also struggle with how to record exploratory testing results in a way that satisfies internal processes or a regulatory body. Enter session-based testing.

Created by James and Jon Bach almost ten years ago, session-based testing is a simple management technique that provides structure to exploratory testing. Session-based testing focuses on recording and describing what you did when testing, rather than pointing to test cases and expressing coverage based on whether the tests passed or failed. Session-based testing can be a powerful management, testing guidance and knowledge-sharing tool with applications beyond exploratory testing.

In this talk, we will look at session-based testing, and different interpretations of it that can be applied to your own testing context. We won't just talk about session-based testing; we will also work together with a new session-based testing tool called Session Tester.