Mind Map for test case generation

Today, I like to write about mind map.

Mind Map is a interesting concept that I accidentally came across. I attend CAST 2011 and I shared a table with  Henrik Emilsson during evening reception. There were four guys on the table and we, of course, talked about testing. Henrik showed me mind map tool called XMind on his mac. At first, I thought it was kind of interesting. On the next day, I think James Bach used Xmind to present his keynote.

And I came back to work and used it for my new project. At first, it was kind of cool but I did not realized the real value of it. So I started to learn more about mind map.

I'm not going to explain what mind map is here. Here is Wikipedia link for mind map if you want to see the details. Link

I find two very interesting values to software testing world.
First, it helps testers come up with test cases easily, effectively and extensively. Here are some examples that show how mind map helps me generate test cases

Testing write stored procedure for wrtie
1. start with some parameters

 2. I realized that what I'm doing is parameter validation so I changed.

3. Now I realized that I only have parameter validation test cases

This is pretty simplified version of it but you get the idea.
Start with your high level feature you're testing. Create sub-nodes as things come in to your mind. Re-organized your thought process. Expand and refine your testing ideas.

I'll write about another benefit on the next blog