1. Be Skeptical Don’t believe that the build given by
developers is bug free or quality outcome. Question everything. Accept the
build only if you test and find it defect free. Don’t believe anyone whatever
be the designation they hold, just apply your knowledge and try to find errors.
You need to follow this till the last testing cycle.
2. Don’t Compromise on Quality Don’t compromise after
certain testing stages. There is no limit for testing until you produce a
quality product. Quality is the word
made by software testers to achieve more effective testing. Compromising at any
level leads to defective product, so don’t do that at any situation.
3.Ensure End User Satisfaction Always think what can make
end user happy. How they can use the product with ease. Don’t stop by testing
the standard requirements. End user can be happy only when you provide an error
free product.
4. Think from Users Perspective Every product is
developed for customers. Customers may or may not be technical persons. If you
don’t consider the scenarios from their perspective you will miss many
important bugs. So put yourself in their shoes. Know your end users first.
Their age, education even the location can matter most while using the product.
Make sure to prepare your test scenarios and test data accordingly. After all
project is said to be successful only if end user is able to use the
application successfully.
5. Prioritize Tests First identify important tests and
then prioritize execution based on test importance. Never ever execute test
cases sequentially without deciding priority. This will ensure all your
important test cases get executed early and you won’t cut down on these at the
last stage of release cycle due to time pressure. Also consider the defect
history while estimating test efforts. In most cases defect count at the
beginning is more and goes on reducing at the end of the test cycle.
6. Never Promise 100% Coverage Saying 100% coverage on
paper is easy but practically it is impossible. So never promise to anyone including
clients about total test coverage. In business there is a philosophy – “Under
promise and over deliver.” So don’t goal for 100% coverage but focus on quality
of your tests.
7. Be Open to Suggestions Listen to everyone even though
you are an authority on the project having in depth project knowledge. There is
always scope for improvements and getting suggestions from fellow software
testers is a good idea. Everyone’s feedback to improve the quality of the
project would certainly help to release a bug free software.
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.
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