Entries from June 2008 ↓

This is a guest post from author Gunasekaran Veerapillai, Bangalore

Over the last one decade the profile of software tester has undergone tremendous changes. Testing has become show-stopper for several application/product implementations and business has realized the importance of structured testing of applications before release. Testing has created several levels and types and specialization in these various types of testing has increased the intrinsic value of a software tester. From being a monotonous test case executor, several career options have evolved in front of the testing community. The following diagram depicts the various options available to a software tester.

 Career options for software test professionals:

Of late, testing is looked after as a good professional career for many of the aspiring youths. As mentioned above, from being test engineer one can move to senior test engineer, test lead to test manager; else can become QA lead, QA Manager. The options available in the testing tools side are enormous. There are numbers of functional, performance, security testing tools besides test management tools like Quality Center from HP, CQTM from IBM etc.,

The demand for niche skills like SOA testers, Security testers are on the increase. There is dearth of skills in test automation areas – scripting skills in the tools languages like VB, Java and other scripting languages like Perl, Shell, Python etc., Technical resources with capabilities to evaluate automation tools, create automation framework and reusable components are on demand. Always there is demand for good performance testers who can analyze the performance test results, identify the bottlenecks and suggest tuning techniques.

Specialization has come to stay in testing career – following are some of the key areas where one need to specialize to move ahead in career path in testing apart from good knowledge in software lifecycle testing process.

1) Domain Knowledge – Good knowledge in domain area of the application adds value to the testing professionals. There are ever living domains like BFSI, Telecom, Health care, manufacturing, embedded etc. Numbers of certifications are available for each of these areas where the tester can get them certified.

2) Automation Testing Tools Knowledge – There is great demand for automation and performance testers. A good skill on scripting languages of these tools is basic necessity for succeeding in test automation. Knowledge on creation, validation and enhancement of test automation framework is very much required.

3) Certifications – QAI, ASQ, ISQTB and several other institutes are offering testing specific certifications. These certifications improve the confidence of the clients on the testing professionals. CQTM, PMP are some managerial certifications, which help the testers to scale up in the professional ladder. Certifications on the testing tools offered by vendors like HP increases the technical competency of the individual.

4) Niche areas in Testing – Experts predict that the niche areas like SOA testing, Security testing are gaining momentum in the testing space. Many tools are emerging in these areas. As testing professionals we should be aware of where the industry is heading and update our knowledge in those areas.

Knowledge updation is a continuous process. Several website like stickyminds, QAForums offer excellent insight into various facets of the testing arena. I always request my team members to spend at least two hours in a week in these selected websites to update themselves to the current happenings and events.

As the saying goes “you need to run continuously to keep yourself in the same place”, as testing professionals we should always work towards sharpening our testing skills to succeed in this competitive environment.

What is your career path?

Association for software testing announced their third annual conference (Cast 2008), to be held on 14-16 July in Toronto, Canada. The conference theme for current year is “”Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing”.

I am happy to announce that we are the official silver sponsors for this conference.

CAST 2008 is held for building active community of software testing professionals. This will help to influence software testing practices through discussion between members of this community.

Continue reading →

Few days back ‘Teresa’ asked me an interesting question.

“I was intrigued by your website because it seems you are truly passionate and interested in testing.  In my organization, we’ve found that it’s really hard to keep the GOOD testers in testing.  Many of the really skilled testers are always looking for change and want to get out of testing for some reason.  I would love to hear if you have any ideas on how to keep the good testers in testing?”

Teresa, first I will address this high attrition rate problem for all employees and then I will come back to addressing “How to keep good testers in testing positions?”

0% employee turnover is just a imagination and unrealistic in current competitive world. Employee turnover to certain extent is ok. However increased turnover in any company indicates some serious problems.

Though I am not a HR expert to reduce the attrition rate, I will suggest some common measures from employee perspective, which can minimize this turnover to certain extent. These measures will be applicable for every company and employee. Also we are in context of software testing so I will concentrate more on how to retain good testers in their positions.

I will address each and every solution we can try to keep low attrition rate. So sit back, get relaxed as this is going to be a long article.

Who will get help from this article?

This article will helpful to Company management, Managers, Team leads in development and testing and of course to the emerging testers who are tomorrow’s leads.

What are the effects of high attrition rate on company?

• May lose projects in hand – as clients are not happy with high attrition rate
• Financial burden on company
• Cost to recruit new employees
• Cost of new employee training
• Time for ramp-up in new projects
• Workload on existing employees
• Low employee productivity due to unstable work and overtime

These are few important drawbacks of high attrition rate.

How to reduce attrition rate?

First let’s go to root cause of “why employee leave the company?”
The main reason is “lack of appreciation for their hard work”. I mean if company is not caring about employees then why would they stay in such company?

Keep in mind ‘more money’ is not always the solution! Nowadays employees are more concerned about quality of life and their family needs.

Here are some solutions on high attrition rate:

• Hire the right people in right positions
• Understand the employee needs and provide it to them
• Respect them
• Always appreciate good work
• Regularly ask for employee input and take appropriate action
• Offer training opportunities to gain advanced knowledge
• Better to become employee oriented
• Pleasant working atmosphere
• Career growth opportunities
• Value employee creativity
• Job security

Last one is very important. Your employees should feel secure about their jobs. If you can’t provide job security or at least feeling of job security in employees mind then your company deserve for high attrition rate.

These are some one liner solution. Let’s take some practical solutions.

Motivation:
Any software team should consist of highly motivated and skilled people. Good motivation comes from good leadership. Good leadership provided by team leaders and managers can bring down the attrition rate. In my career I observe employees leave the company just because of their boss. Some unrealistic demands or lack of motivation and leadership can make employees think over their position and career.

So leaders should motivate and energize colleagues when they lost all hopes.

More Money:
Give them a good compensation and benefit package.

Fun at work:
As I said money is not always the solution, fun at work is also important. Only more money can’t motivate the team if you don’t have fun culture in your company. I believe in “Work hard, Play hard” culture, so plan some sporting activities, outdoor trips, different competitions between different teams etc etc… There can be so many such activities, which can act as refreshment for employees.

Help to settle employee life:
What I mean from this is to help employees providing stability in their life. I know this is not going to be a simple task but company can help employees by providing medical insurance, medical facilities to employees. Housing is the first priority of most of the employees. So help them getting good accommodation.

‘Teresa’, you asked about retaining testers in good positions. So let’s come to testers problem.

What are the common complaints from testers?

“Sometimes developers ego as they are better than testers”
“Tester is responsible for every fault”
“Schedule slips due to testers”
“Testers are not getting the respect”
“Management don’t consider them equally with developers”

These are some common complaints from testers and this makes them feel insecure in their job, affecting their daily work and may result in high attrition rate.

Management needs to address these complaints early before testers leave the company. The solution is – organize your teams effectively, improve communication between developers, testers and management. This will lead to better understanding and addressing of testers needs.

Below are the baby steps, which can retain good talented testers in their positions:

Provide them training:
Train all your testers. Provide them training for free, if not possible then with cheap cost. Make available some remote courses, seminars and books to study. Sponsor and help them to get the software testing certifications.

Appreciate the good work:
Don’t go behind the quantity of bugs. See the quality of bugs and appreciate those testers working hard to find it. Regularly comment positively on good work from the team.
Reward testers for finding good quality bugs. Keep some weekly or monthly competitions such as “Bug of the week” to reward the testers.  This will help to build a successful QA team.

Set finite boundaries to everything:
Your goals should have clear boundaries and completion criteria. Setting goals, those not having end can become a boring task. Don’t let feel the team that this testing work is going forever without any insight goal.

Take every bug as a learning opportunity:
Don’t bother testers about the bugs that slip through. Make these bugs as a learning opportunity. Let them know why they overlooked that bug. This way they will learn from their mistakes and will not make the same mistake again at lest for the same bug.

Don’t make testing a repetitive task:
Some times we get bored doing same thing again and again. Testers job involve with repetitive task. So take care to distribute your work so that no tester will execute same test case repetitively on any project. Randomize the testing work in team, this way team will get knowledge of whole product, helping to find more bugs.
Good solution to avoid repetitive work is to rotate the experienced employees internally in different projects.

Create good relation between testers and developers:
Testers need encouragement and support to find more and more bugs so that the final release is bug free. Build a good team of testers and developers. Treat everyone similarly.

Don’t forget to celebrate:
Celebrate each and every success moment. This will help to build good team spirit. Host product release parties to recognize accomplishment.

Conclusion:
Show your appreciation to those employees who work hard. This is a key to successful business. Show your employees that you are committed to fulfill their needs.

Over to you:
These are my personal thoughts to keep good employees (testers) in their positions. I am not a HR expert but I have mentioned here everything what I feels from employee perspective to stay on the job.

I want your views “What keeps you on the job?” You can share your personal thoughts, your expectations from employers or any personal experience in this matter.

If you are not yet the regular reader of this site, I recommend you to subscribe with us so that you won’t miss any single article on software testing. Click here to get new articles in your inbox!

Let me first explain what is site subscriber number?
I am using feedburner free RSS and email subscription service for registering users to this site. For registering you just need to enter your email address, and verify it once from your email inbox.

So when you will register with softwareTestingHelp.com you will receive new software testing articles in your inbox.

In very short span, this site crossed 4000 readers count (Check the live count at the top of left sidebar on site) and I am counting more and more daily. I really thank to our readers for their continuous support and contribution to this site.

In short about the statistics of this site: SoftwareTestingHelp.com is now getting around 10,000 daily pageviews (As on 7th June 2008). This means thousands of software testers are getting help from this site daily.

I have outlined many plans for 2008 to grow this site more than my expectations. And I am sure you guys will definitely help to grow more and more. I will keep creating good value content for our readers so that you can reach on top of your dream career.

If you are a new visitor on this site then here is call to you to subscribe with SoftwareTestingHelp. You may subscribe to Software Testing Help via email. Join our 4000 other readers.

Check out the activation mail sent to your email address for verifying your email.

Or use this link for subscription: Email subscription
You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.

Call to You:
This site is a success just because of you and your support. I welcome more and more reader’s contribution. You can answer other reader’s queries in comment section of each article, write any article on software testing and send it to me. If you have any comments or suggestion for improvement of this site then please feel free to comment or contact me.