Every member in a software project is curious to know the results of what if we try this... The one who tries every possible what if ... and breaks the system is named the tester. With my experience, I can say that software testing is complete only if the project deliverables are made failed by the tester, irrespective of their project responsibilities, and make the developers put their best efforts and come up with a robust solution.
Apart from the technologies used in the project and other technical skills, a tester should have few qualities to put them ahead of the game.
To stand out of the crowd and add value to the projects, a software tester must have the below three qualities:
Taking Ownership: Generally, a test team member will test user stories or test a piece of code. And may certify that it is good to go to the next stage in the software development life cycle.
However, my experience says that a tester is successful if one takes complete ownership of the software development life cycle end to end. Debug the end-to-end processes and seek help from other team members to fix them. Test the documents and get the appropriate details into the communication channel. Think out of the box and implement the testing scenarios.
One should understand each stage of the software development life cycle and suggest a lean method to optimize and crash the schedule. Taking ownership in each area of the project will bring definite success to both the tester and the project.
Evangelism: Each member of the testing team should have the utmost knowledge about the project objectives.
Another top quality of a successful tester is to conduct knowledge-sharing sessions on the product they are working on with a new developer joining the team. The sessions should not limit product knowledge but also cover the processes and procedures. If required, the technologies used in making the product, including debugging the code already written.
Generally, in any knowledge project, the architects or lead developers take the lead seat in evangelizing the processes, procedures, technology, etc. A tester taking this seat will indirectly add value to the final output of the project. This is an absolute mandate as per my experience.
Implementing Lessons Learnt: In one of my previous projects, the idea of implementing automation to test the product implementation software by the test leader gave us a game-changing result.
With her quick learning skills, she understood the project objectives quickly. With her in-depth understanding of test automation and help from other team members, we reduced loading eight test engineers into the project out of ten planned - and hence the costs. This would not have been possible without implementing the lessons learned from her experience.
Most test engineers learn a lot from previous projects, and they should discuss and implement their learning. Observed that this helps further enhance their skills to reach mastery.
Do you think I am expecting a tester to go beyond their responsibilities? If your answer is a yes, then the product would need at least another minor version to be released. If your answer is a no, and if each of you in the team exhibits these traits - you can rest assured that there will be zero issues while moving further into production.
Many of us fail to understand our strengths till we literally fail. We hardly implement the outcome from retrospection. So, before we fail, let us make a dent in the universe! Let us start identifying all the qualities required to be the best tester. And start inculcating the three top qualities to stand out of the crowd.
Written on 17th December 2020
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