At work we do a lot of testing, and we play a lot of table football. Up-time and down-time; you can’t stare at a screen or a handset for too long before your mind goes blank. Everyone needs a break sometime….

But are the two activities so different? Can testing learn from table football, or can table football learn from testing?

Those of you thinking “of course not”, consider this:

• If you are playing the defender and goalkeeper then you’re trying to stop something (the ball) getting in (to the goal). 
• As a tester you are trying to stop something (bugs) getting out (to the wide world).

• To be great at table football you have to play as a team. It’s difficult to play table football with only one person per side.
• Try stopping all the bugs as a tester on your own.

• The success of a team at table football is decided by who uses the best tactics, the best techniques and the best skills.
• Testing is the same – you can’t catch the bugs simply by hoping you’ll find them.

• Sometimes just hitting the ball as hard as possible gets a goal.
• In testing, sometimes just hitting the product with all your skills, probably via Exploratory Testing or Session Based Testing can find the bugs.

So, maybe our up-time and down-time activities are so different after all 🙂