Characteristics of A Great Software Tester
Characteristics of A Great Software Tester
8. Start Early Don’t wait until you get your first build for
testing. Start analyzing requirements, preparing test
cases, test plan and test strategy documents in early
design phase. Starting early to test helps to visualize
complete project scope and hence planning can be done
accordingly. Most of the defects can be detected in early
design and analysis phase saving huge time and
money. Early requirement analysis will also help you to
question the design decisions.
9. Identify and Manage Risks Risks are associated with
every project. Risk management is a three step process.
Risk identification, analysis and mitigation. Incorporate
risk driven testing process. Priorities software testing
based on risk evaluation.
10. Do Market Research Don’t think that your
responsibility is just to validate software against the set
of requirements. Be proactive, do your product market
research and provide suggestions to improve it. This
research will also help you understand your product and
its market.
11. Develop Good Analyzing Skill This is must for
requirement analysis but even further this could be
helpful for understanding customer feedback while
defining test strategy. Question everything around you.
This will trigger the analysis process and it will help you
resolve many complex problems.
12. Focus on Negative Side as Well Testers should
have test to break attitude. Concentrating on only
positive side will almost certainly create many security
issues in your application. You should be hacker of your
project to keep other hackers away from it. Negative
testing is equally important. So cover a good chunk of
your test cases based on negative scenarios.
13. Be a Good Judge of Your Product Judge usually
thinks whether it is right or wrong. Judge listens to both
the sides. Same is applicable for testing. As a software
tester if you think something as right, try to prove it why
it is not wrong and then only accept it. You must have
valid reason for all your decisions.
14. Learn to Negotiate Testers have to negotiate with
everyone in all stages of project life cycle. Especially
negotiation with developers is more important.
Developers can do anything to prove that their code is
correct and the defect logged by testers is not valid. It
requires great skills to convince developers about the
defect and get it resolved. Though some software
testers think this is not our task but explaining the true
impact of any issue is very helpful for developers to
quickly understand the overall scenario and its
implications. This requires years of practice but once
you learn to negotiate you will gain more respect.
15. Stop the Blame Game It’s common to blame others
for any defects which are not caught in testing. This is
even more common when the tester’s responsibilities
are not defined concretely. But in any situation never
blame anyone. If an error occurs, first try to resolve it
rather than finding someone to blame. As a human
everybody makes mistake, so try to avoid blaming
others. Work as a team to build team spirit.
16. Finally, Be a Good Observer Observe things
happening around you. Keep track of all major and
minor things on your project. Observe the way of
developing the code, types of testing and its objective.
Observe and understand test progress and make
necessary changes if it is off the track in terms of
schedule or testing activities. This skill will essential help
you to keep yourself updated and ready with course of
action for any situation.