Exploratory Test Charter Template (Session-Based)

Session-based exploratory testing: charter and mission, session sheet with time split and notes, bugs and issues, debrief

Testing & QualityLeanSession-based test management (Bach, 2000); ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-4:2021exploratory test charterUpdated Oct 29, 2026

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How to use: Use it for each time-boxed exploratory session. Fill the mission as explore, with, to discover before starting and debrief within a day. The main pitfall is a session without notes, which cannot be debriefed.

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Exploratory Test Charter: [Charter ID] [Short mission]

Charter and session record for one time-boxed exploratory testing session. The charter sets the mission before the session; the session sheet records what the tester did, found and could not do; the debrief turns it into decisions. The format follows session-based test management as described by Jonathan Bach and James Bach (2000). Exploratory testing is an experience-based approach, the third family of test design techniques in ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-4:2021 next to specification-based and structure-based techniques. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example.

1. Charter

Field	Value
Charter ID	[CH-QD53-07] (Example)
Mission	Example: Explore the ticket board with keyboard only and a screen reader to discover where agents cannot complete triage without a mouse
Areas	Example: Ticket board, assignee picker, status change
Risks addressed	Example: R-03 (late board rework), ACR-ISS-001
Build and environment	Example: 5.3.0-rc3 on ST-2, NVDA with Firefox
Time box	[90 minutes]
Tester	[@tester]

2. Session sheet

Item	Value
Start and duration	YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM, [95] minutes (Example)
Time split (setup / testing / bug investigation)	Example: 10% / 65% / 25%
Charter versus opportunity	Example: 85% on charter, 15% on an opportunity (keyboard shortcuts)

Test notes (Example)

10:05 Tab order on the board reaches each column header, then each card. Cards announce title and priority.
10:22 No keyboard way to move a card; context menu has no "Move to" option.
10:40 Assignee picker: arrow keys move the highlight, but NVDA does not announce the selected option.
11:05 Opportunity: shortcut "g b" opens the board even when focus is in a text field.

3. Bugs and issues

Type	ID	Summary
Bug (Example)	INC-QD53-0161	Cards cannot be moved by keyboard (links to ACR-ISS-001)
Bug (Example)	INC-QD53-0162	Shortcut fires while typing in a text field
Issue (Example)	ISS-07	No test account with JAWS licence; JAWS not covered
[Bug / Issue]	[ID]	[Summary]

4. Debrief

Question	Answer
Was the mission met?	Example: Partly: triage blocked by the board, so status changes were tested through the ticket form instead
What was not covered and why?	Example: JAWS (ISS-07); bulk actions (out of time)
New charters proposed	Example: CH-QD53-08 Explore bulk actions with keyboard only to discover focus loss
Decisions	Example: Raise INC-QD53-0161 to S2; book JAWS licence
Debriefed by and date	[@test-lead], YYYY-MM-DD

Related templates: Test Incident Report (quality/test-incident-report), Test Status Report (quality/test-status-report), Test Strategy (quality/test-strategy).

Sources and licence note

Based on the session-based test management approach described by Jonathan Bach and James Bach (Session-Based Test Management, 2000, https://www.satisfice.com/download/session-based-test-management) and on the charter shape (target, resources, information) discussed in Elisabeth Hendrickson, Explore It! (Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2013). Both are cited by name only; this text is original. ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119-4:2021, Software and systems engineering: Software testing: Part 4: Test techniques, is named for its classification of test design techniques only. Official text: ISO, IEC and IEEE, purchase or licensed access: https://www.iso.org/standard/79430.html. Template licence: MIT.

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