- Focusing Your Practice
- Avoiding Automated Performance
- Contributing to Open Source Projects
- Beta Testing
- Pair Testing/Programming
- Adopt "Parallel Thinking"
- Search for Bugs in the Wild
- Learn "Systems Thinking"
- Teaching and Writing
- Participating in Conferences and Workshops
- Develop Your Cognition Skills
- Finding the Time for Practice
Adopt "Parallel Thinking"
Another effective method of practice might be to take a problem from work and attempt to analyze it from different perspectives. For example, if you applied the four schools of testing as identified by Bret Pettichord and evaluated your problem through the prism of each school, you would most likely develop a deeper understanding of the problem. Each school's relative merits might force you to think in unusual ways. How do the core beliefs for each school change the way you view the software and your testing? What types of tests would you perform in that school? How would you interact with other team members? The idea is similar to the process outlined in Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats (Back Bay Books, 1999), a book on parallel thinking.