BBST foundations revisited

This is a more in-depth review of the BBST foundations class I took from October, 16th to November, 14th.  Actually this blog was supposed to have three major paragraphs dealing with the general experience, how heuristics help me as a product owner and a comparison between BBST and ISTQB foundations, but I think that the latter two topics each warrant a post of its own, so that this blog post will deal with the general experience beyond the plain figures.

The class itself is an online class provided by the association for software testing (AST). You have to join AST to actually enroll for the class. But membership and class fee are really in the affordable range, even if you have to pay them on your own. The class is divided in 8 parts. 6 lessons and the two part exam phase. The requirements of an online class differ slightly from attendance style courses and massive open online course (MOOC) environments are pretty common nowadays. AST uses Moodle for the BBST foundations course, a platform I was first introduced at university a decade ago. Well, seems not too much has changed. Well, it probably has, but I didn’t notice it and the strong dislike I had back then hasn’t really changed. Having attended an openHPI course early this year has shown me how much better MOOCs can be toolwise. And I really want to put the emphasis on toolwise here. Anyway, all the information was available in moodle and all the course work was conducted there as well. This actually included all the communication as well, which was handled in the moodle forums. No external tools whatsoever were used, at least not for general course meetings.

The course started out with a general introduction phase and a basic introduction the topic in the first week. And the pace was really forced afterwards. In the first week it was enough to spend a few hours for the week, but afterwards I really (had to) put some hours in there. Usually about 2-3 hours on working days and 3-4 hours on the weekends, resulting in roughly 15 to 20 hours a week. You really have to make sure that you have that time spent next to working and that precious little thing called spare time. That is actually an experience others have made as well, as Beren van Daele pointed out in his blog posts about the foundations course a month later and as Stephan Kämper, who is a teacher for these courses, pointed out to me at the Agile by Nature conference, which I visited during the first week of this course, as well (which really would have been more strenuous if it had taken place during the 2nd or 3rd week).

Learning included watching teaching videos, doing quizzes and probably most importantly collaborating for answering questions or doing tasks in a group. So be prepared to give and receive feedback, which is actually recurrent theme for the course. And this isn’t just giving a pat on the back, but rather giving honest feedback and actually explaining why you graded a work with a certain mark. This is something I have done all of my coaching life, so it wasn’t that much of a topic for me, but I really feel that it was harder for other people. Talking about feedback: all of the feedback – by teachers and fellow students alike – is given via forums. The medium itself is a little more prone to misunderstandings as you don’t have direct feedback loops. Intercultural aspects will play a role as well, as the students will come from all over the world. Teacher feedback was a bit less personal than I hoped and sometimes a bit on the generic side, but then again teachers are not employed fulltime and the time limitations for students apply for teachers as well.

So would I recommend the class? Absolutely! But make sure that you

•  have enough time to spend
• are cool with online classes
• are willing to provide and receive feedback

Many of the ideas presented can be found on the web, but this course provides them in a condensed form. And more important: you really have to put those ideas directly into use, which is a huge differences from just reading about that. A lot can be gained from interaction with other students and their points of view. So student participation and their activity level is certainly something that contributes to the class. The course did not radically change my whole attitude towards testing, but rather tweaked certain concepts, especially as far as oracles in general and using heuristics as a product owner are concerned.