EuroSTAR Conference

Europe's Best Software Testing Conference

Tutorial G

Condition-oriented Test Case Design with ECT and MCDC

Rik Marselis

09:30-13:00 CEST Tuesday 28th September

Test case design is one of the core competences of the testing profession. Which test design techniques do you use? And is this effective and efficient?

Suppose you must test the entry-check of the new Wuthering Heights Rollercoaster in the QualityLand amusement park. Every person must be at least 120 cm tall to be allowed in the rollercoaster. What technique would you use? Boundary Value Analysis, right? That’s not a tough choice.

But now the marketing department of QualityLand has a special offer for Halloween. To be allowed with the special discount-rate, a person must still be at least 120 cm tall, but must also wear a Halloween outfit and needs to be at the gate on 31 October (that’s a decision with 3 conditions). On top of this, if the person has bought a ticket online, and paid 10% extra, they may skip the line (that’s another decision, with 2 conditions). So, all in all you have 2 decision points, with together 5 conditions.

Now what test case design technique do you use? There are a couple of dozen different test design techniques. TMAP has classified them in four groups: Process-oriented, Condition-oriented, Data-oriented, and Appearance-oriented test design. In the above example (with 5 conditions) choose a condition-oriented test design technique. But which? Probably you know Decision Table Testing. Applying this technique would lead to 2 to the power of 5 = 32 test cases. That’s a bit too much to call this an efficient test set.

My advice is to use the Elementary Comparison Test (ECT) design technique, together with Modified Condition Decision Coverage (MCDC). This way, with only 6 (!!) test cases you can guarantee that EVERY condition has contributed to trigger EVERY outcome of the entry-check of the rollercoaster. So, it is both effective and efficient!

Have you never heard of ECT before? Well, even though it exists for decades, I can imagine, because ISTQB doesn’t teach you this. But we do 🙂 This EuroSTAR conference you will get your chance to learn all about ECT & MCDC!

Join me in this half-day tutorial and I will make sure that you will get hands-on experience. Since it is an online tutorial, we will use an easy-to-use Excel-template for multiple exercises. At the end of the tutorial you will feel confident to apply this elegant, efficient, and effective test design technique in your daily testing work!!

What you will learn

  1. If you have a business process with multiple decisions with multiple conditions, the ECT is the test design technique for efficient and effective testing!
  2. ECT & MCDC may seem difficult at first, but after practicing for half a day, you can do it!
  3. Applying an elegant test design technique such as ECT, makes your life as a tester easier and more fun!

Session Details

  • Intermediate
  • 3.5 Hours
  • Interactive Tutorial
  • Approaches, techniques, and types of testing
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“Thank you Anders for a great talk and “Food for thought”. I really enjoyed it and I am taking home lots of pointers to think about further.”

Anders last spoke at EuroSTAR 2019 in Prague and in that same year, he won the ‘Best Conference Paper Award’. We are delighted to welcome Anders back as a tutorial trainer this year.

Session Speaker

Rik Marselis

Principal Quality Consultant – Sogeti, Netherlands

Rik Marselis is principal quality consultant at Sogeti in the Netherlands. He is a well-appreciated presenter, trainer, author, consultant and coach who supported many organizations and people in improving their quality engineering practice by providing useful tools & checklists, practical support and having in-depth discussions. His presentations are always appreciated for their liveliness, his ability to keep the talks serious but light, and his use of practical examples with humorous comparisons. 

Rik is an accredited trainer for TMAP, ISTQB and TPI certification training courses, but also, he has created and delivered many bespoke workshops and training courses. For example, on Intelligent Machines and DevOps testing. 

Rik is a fellow of Sogeti’s R&D network SogetiLabs. These R&D activities result in presentations, books, white-papers, articles, podcasts and blogs about IT in general and quality engineering in particular. In 2020 his latest book “Quality for DevOps teams” was presented. 

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