What are some of the formal approaches used for exploratory testing? Continued...

Charter states the goal and the tactics to be used.

A charter can be simple one to more descriptive giving the strategies and outlines for the testing process.
Charter summary contains
- Architectural the charters i.e. test planning.
- Brief information or guidelines on:
1.)Mission: Why do we test this?
2.)What should be tested?
3.)How to test?
4.)What problems to look for?
5.)tools to use
6.)Specific test techniques or tactics to use
7.)What risks are involved?
8.)Documents to examine
9.)Desired output from testing

Session Based Test Management(SBTM)

Session based test management is a formalized approach that uses the concept of charters and the sessions for performing the exploratory testing. A session is not a test case or bug report. It is the reviewable product produced by chartered and uninterrupted test effort. A session can last from 60 to 90 minutes but there is no hard and fast rule on the time spent for testing. If a session lasts closer to 45 minutes, we call it a short session. If it lasts closer to two hours, we call it a long session. Each session designed depends on the tester and the charter. After the session is completed, each session is de-briefed. The primary objective in the de-briefing is to understand and accept the session report, provide feedback and coaching to the tester. The de-briefings should help the manager to plan the sessions in future and also to estimate the time required for testing the similar functionality.
The de-briefing session is based on agenda called PROOF.
Past: What happened during the session?
Results: What was achieved during the session?
Outlook: What still needs to be done?
Obstacles: What got in the way of good testing?
Feeling: How does the tester feel about all this?

A session can be broadly classified into three tasks:
- Session test up: Time required in setting up the application under test.
- Test Design and execution: time required scanning the product and test.
- Bug investigation and reporting: time required finding the bugs and reporting to the concerned.

The entire session report consists of session charter, tester name, data and time started, task breakdown, data files, test notes, issues, bugs.