Justin Rohrman recently added ten more skills from the WHOSE workbook into the AST WHOSE wiki. This brings us to a current total of 20 skills; all based on real experience, with descriptions of the context the skill was used in, and suggestions for where to go to learn more independently.

In the “Foundation” series by science fiction author, Isaac Asimov, a group of people came together to work on a project to document all knowledge accumulated; crossing cultures, crossing countries, crossing planets and galaxies. This project was the Encyclopedia Galactica.

Our project is smaller, more focused. We want to produce a living list of skills used by software testers that include real stories describing the context where the skill was used. This project won’t grow very quickly if it is only worked on by the AST BOD, or WHOSE workgroup, or Education Committee. The project depends on the community of testers where the knowledge lives.

We are sharing a featured example each month. For April, we are looking at Identifying Logical Fallacies.

Logical fallacies appear around us and disrupt logical thinking. This entry is an example of where the author was able to develop the skill of identifying fallacies. This skill helped the author coach a team towards better testing.

You can find the full AST WHOSE wiki here:

http://whose.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Do you have a skill that is important and relevant to your work, along with a short story about how you used it? Do you have a few recommendations on where we can go to learn more and practice that skill?

If that describes you, we encourage you to share your ideas with testers all over the world through the AST WHOSE wiki. If you would like to contribute to the WHOSE project, please send an email to whose@associationforsoftwaretesting.org and asked to be added as an editor.