Chapter Seven · The Working Week
The Testing Process, End to End
One release, lived through: the risk table that lets one tester survive six stories, the execution discipline where every status means something and every "huh?" survives, the exploratory session that manufactures the suspicions scripts can only inherit — and Friday at 4 p.m., when Petra asks "can we ship?" and the professional answer is neither yes nor no, but a one-page picture the decision can actually stand on.
The fundament closes here. Chapters 4 through 6 gave you the crafts — designing, documenting, reporting; this chapter assembles them into a working week with a deadline at the end. It's the most role-defining chapter in the book: how a tester decides what deserves attention, keeps the record honest under pressure, hunts beyond the scripts, and hands the team a decision-grade picture instead of a verdict.
Four topics, one arc. Risk-based planning — impact times likelihood, the twenty-minute table, and cutting scope out loud when Wednesday goes wrong. Execution — runs bound to builds, the four statuses and why blocked is not fail, and the side-note habit that keeps discoveries alive. Exploratory testing — charters, timeboxes, tours, and FW-372, the money leak no script could have contained. And the release decision — the one-page report, honest metrics, exit criteria coming due, and the sentence that defines the role: QA informs; the team decides.