Using Hexawise to Reduce Test Cases by 95% While Increasing Test Coverage

Kathleen Poulsen spoke on using Combinatorial Software Testing at Fidelity Investments during the StarEAST conference in 2017.

Hexawise sponsored an evening gathering with short talks on software testing by various experts. Kathleen discussed the use of Hexawise at Fidelity Investments, as seen in this video.

We hope you enjoy this video. We plan on added several more from the speakers at the evening sessions.

Kathleen, in the video:

We had more than 20,000 less than 30,000 test cases that were in place. 95% of them were redundant; either with the integration layer below them or themselves because people would come on board for 6 months and they would quit and go somewhere else and someone else would come along and reinvent exactly the same test.

I could see that now. When we went with in Hexawise we could see how many tests it actually took and just so small compared to what we had been testing. The first time I ran the full suite of [new Hexawise designed] tests I went back an hour later and I told the manager “we’re done you can move ahead you’re all right now.” By “move ahead” I meant promote to a new environment. And he said, “what, I thought I would see you again in 2 weeks.

That’s the kind of difference it is making.

Related: Examples of the Benefits of Using Hexawise at a Large Bank QA DepartmentHow Do You Know You are Executing the Right software Tests?Too Many Tests

Detailed Example for Creating Pairwise Test Plans Using Hexawise

beginner video

This is an 8 part series of videos showing, in detail, various steps that can be used in creating a pairwise software test plan. Many test plans will not require many of these optional steps. Most of the videos have run times of 1-4 minutes.

The series of videos looks at how to create a set of functional test cases for customers purchasing products on Amazon.com using the Hexawise, a tool to create software test plans with pairwise and combinatorial test coverage.

Video 1 of 8, getting started creating up a new test plan.


Video 2 of 8, marking invalid pairs. This allows a test planner to avoid pairs that are not sensible – for example, if a certain product is not available for payment with a check (perhaps a service that requires a monthly payment). Hexawise will then avoid creating any test conditions that contained the invalid pairs that were identified.


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How to Think about Test Inputs in Software Testing

beginner video

This video provides practical tips for selecting appropriate test inputs for pairwise and combinatorial software test design.

Our experience shows as software testers begin to use pairwise test design strategies selecting the correct input parameters to test is often a bit of a struggle. This video will help testers get up to speed with designing pairwise software test plans effectively.

Related: Introduction to Pairwise Testing: Banking ExampleHexawise – More coverage. Fewer tests.