These days a lot of people who pass out of engineering and science colleges are interested about software testing as a career. When I passed out at a time when the IT had started to boom back in India, most of the fresh graduates with whom I interacted didn’t even know there existed jobs or careers like software testing.

I was offered a job as a tester in a start up for 7440 rupees a month compared to fresh developers (who were picked from better institutes from where I graduated) being paid 34,500 rupees a month.

Today there isn’t such a huge difference between what testers and developers get paid and I consider this generation to be luckier than my generation without ignoring the idea that my generation might have been luckier than its previous generation.

When I started my career as a software tester, I didn’t find any training centre, which could coach me on software testing, and I lacked guidance. I didn’t know about Google and its power of search.

In the organization I worked for, there existed a senior software tester, not by designation or for the technical competence but just that he joined that organization 6 months before I did. He happened to coach me. I blindly believed all that he said about testing. I believed him and never questioned him.

By believing whatever he said I think I was becoming dumb. I looked for someone who could coach me and found two great people, one a developer and other a software architect in the organization whose ideas were much impressive than the senior software tester.

The duos were more open to questions from me as compared to the so-called senior software tester. When I questioned all things that I heard from the so-called senior software tester, I found that most of what the senior tester said was highly idiotic.

I realized that my quest in life was to see myself doing good or great testing in future. To do that, I must learn, I must learn, I must learn, I must practice, I must practice, I must practice…

What do I learn? What do I practice?

When I asked for information about software testing, some of my friends sent me material that was nothing more than, – types of testing, techniques of testing, different types of documentation, process of testing and development.

A question that I asked changed my life and you might want to know what that question is: Is there something beyond what all these people think software testing is which I can learn?

Now that leads to more questions. If it exists, where does is exist? Who has the information? How can I find it?

That lead me to discovering James Bach one of the world’s leading expert tester. His career graph is one of the most impressive career graph I have seen till date. He is a school drop out at 8th standard and yet became the youngest Test Manager of the world at the age of 20 in Apple Computers. He even helped Microsoft in Test Specification and was expert witness in court cases that involved investigations of the computer world. He has traveled to most countries where software testing is being done and has carried over consulting assignments there. He is a kind of tester that can make most testers in the world feel ashamed of their lack of skills, knowledge and maybe money. That reminds me to say, he has made lots of money.

I thought this man must have a secret with him that other software testers don’t know and I wanted to learn that. I found that James Bach is very similar to Jackie Chan as he considers skilled testing to be a mental martial art. Sorry, James doesn’t have any testing certification that you know of and he thinks certification doesn’t help, so don’t try to think of certification when you are thinking of James Bach, the great tester and guru of software testing.

I had to pass through several mental martial arts tests before I became his full time student. Let me not take you through the entire story but let you know that I reached a stage where he hired me to represent his company in India.

I don’t like comparing myself with others and run a rat race but some of my friends who were comparing with me were very disappointed as I progressed. I travel around the world speaking and coaching at international conferences. I am featured as an expert tester sometimes (which I acknowledge, I am not) in other countries. I have a fan following for my blog. I am an independent consult, working on different projects in a day and for different clients from different parts of the world. I coach, consult, speak, write, think, test, manage and learn software testing and problem solving. I was interviewed by CNBC as they considered me a problem solving expert and wrote a column for them as Expert problem solver. I was invited to manage testing for an organization products and services division with about three years of working as a software tester. I have tested over a hundred and twenty three products, so far.

Reputation means more money but if you do things just for gaining reputation you won’t get it. Reputation is a little tricky. People think it is about doing things what other people like but I think it is about other people liking what you are doing.

Don’t worry about too many “I”, I have written in this article and for the moment, think if you have so many “I” to say or probably even more, in testing that makes people to approach you for consultation, you would be making more money than you ever imagined you would make as a tester.

I want to see Indian testers make more money than what they have been making. That’s precisely why I am writing this article for you all.

To start in the journey, apply this heuristic: Question everything that – you hear, you see, you feel, you want to see, you want to hear, you want to feel, you don’t want to hear, you don’t want to feel and other things you think you missed.

How to apply this heuristic?

Let me give you an example to get you started: There is a common myth (which means something is fundamentally wrong but people blindly believe it) by which most testers to my knowledge in India live: Testing is done to improve Quality

• Who said the above statement?
• Why should I believe it?
• By having the above idea that testing improves quality, can any tester on Earth say how much quality he has improved?
• If a tester can’t say that then there is something wrong with the fundamental behind it.
• Improve what quality?
• What is quality?
• Who defines what quality is?
• Does a tester define what quality means?
• If I go to a hotel and the hotel owner says he serves quality food and I as a customer think the quality is not good, whose view is important?
• How can merely finding bugs improve quality?
• So, if a tester reports 5000 bugs and the developer quits the organization the same day, has the quality improved?
• So, if a tester finds 10000 bugs and doesn’t report them, has the quality improved?
• In the above case, testing did happen, and hence did the quality improve?
• If I as a tester report 50 bugs, and the developer in a context of fixing bugs introduces 100 more bugs, has the quality improved?
• Why do all other testers don’t understand the fundamental that it is a developer who can improve the quality?
• As a tester, isn’t my job to find information about quality than trying to think of improving the quality?
• Oh my God! I have been misguided all this while. So what’s testing then?
• Isn’t the above question, a good question?
• Didn’t I learn from this that many people around us are fooling and that is what is stopping me from becoming someone like James Bach?
• Do I want to be fooled?
• Should I allow people, bugs, documents to fool me?

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Money making, software testing career and secrets of a richest tester

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Here are some of the best testing practices I learned by experience:

1) Learn to analyze your test results thoroughly. Do not ignore the test result. The final test result may be ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ but troubleshooting the root cause of ‘fail’ will lead you to the solution of the problem. Testers will be respected if they not only log the bugs but also provide solutions.

2) Learn to maximize the test coverage every time you test any application. Though 100 percent test coverage might not be possible still you can always try to reach near it.

3) To ensure maximum test coverage break your application under test (AUT) into smaller functional modules. Write test cases on such individual unit modules. Also if possible break these modules into smaller parts.
E.g: Lets assume you have divided your website application in modules and ‘accepting user information’ is one of the modules. You can break this ‘User information’ screen into smaller parts for writing test cases: Parts like UI testing, security testing, functional testing of the ‘User information’ form etc. Apply all form field type and size tests, negative and validation tests on input fields and write all such test cases for maximum coverage.

4) While writing test cases, write test cases for intended functionality first i.e. for valid conditions according to requirements. Then write test cases for invalid conditions. This will cover expected as well unexpected behavior of application under test.

5) Think positive. Start testing the application by intend of finding bugs/errors. Don’t think beforehand that there will not be any bugs in the application. If you test the application by intention of finding bugs you will definitely succeed to find those subtle bugs also.

6) Write your test cases in requirement analysis and design phase itself. This way you can ensure all the requirements are testable.

7) Make your test cases available to developers prior to coding. Don’t keep your test cases with you waiting to get final application release for testing, thinking that you can log more bugs. Let developers analyze your test cases thoroughly to develop quality application. This will also save the re-work time.

8 ) If possible identify and group your test cases for regression testing. This will ensure quick and effective manual regression testing.

9) Applications requiring critical response time should be thoroughly tested for performance. Performance testing is the critical part of many applications. In manual testing this is mostly ignored part by testers due to lack of required performance testing large data volume. Find out ways to test your application for performance. If not possible to create test data manually then write some basic scripts to create test data for performance test or ask developers to write one for you.

10) Programmers should not test their own code. As discussed in our previous post, basic unit testing of developed application should be enough for developers to release the application for testers. But you (testers) should not force developers to release the product for testing. Let them take their own time. Everyone from lead to manger know when the module/update is released for testing and they can estimate the testing time accordingly. This is a typical situation in agile project environment.

11) Go beyond requirement testing. Test application for what it is not supposed to do.

12) While doing regression testing use previous bug graph (Bug graph – number of bugs found against time for different modules). This module-wise bug graph can be useful to predict the most probable bug part of the application.

13) Note down the new terms, concepts you learn while testing. Keep a text file open while testing an application. Note down the testing progress, observations in it. Use these notepad observations while preparing final test release report. This good habit will help you to provide the complete unambiguous test report and release details.

14) Many times testers or developers make changes in code base for application under test. This is required step in development or testing environment to avoid execution of live transaction processing like in banking projects. Note down all such code changes done for testing purpose and at the time of final release make sure you have removed all these changes from final client side deployment file resources.

15) Keep developers away from test environment. This is required step to detect any configuration changes missing in release or deployment document. Some times developers do some system or application configuration changes but forget to mention those in deployment steps. If developers don’t have access to testing environment they will not do any such changes accidentally on test environment and these missing things can be captured at the right place.

16) It’s a good practice to involve testers right from software requirement and design phase. These way testers can get knowledge of application dependability resulting in detailed test coverage. If you are not being asked to be part of this development cycle then make request to your lead or manager to involve your testing team in all decision making processes or meetings.

17) Testing teams should share best testing practices, experience with other teams in their organization.

18) Increase your conversation with developers to know more about the product. Whenever possible make face-to-face communication for resolving disputes quickly and to avoid any misunderstandings. But also when you understand the requirement or resolve any dispute – make sure to communicate the same over written communication ways like emails. Do not keep any thing verbal.

19) Don’t run out of time to do high priority testing tasks. Prioritize your testing work from high to low priority and plan your work accordingly. Analyze all associated risks to prioritize your work.

20) Write clear, descriptive, unambiguous bug report. Do not only provide the bug symptoms but also provide the effect of the bug and all possible solutions.

Don’t forget testing is a creative and challenging task. Finally it depends on your skill and experience, how you handle this challenge.

Over to you:

Sharing your own testing experience, tips or testing secrets in comments below will definitely make this article more interesting and helpful!!

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Top 20 practical software testing tips you should read before testing any application.

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These days a number of web sites are deployed in multiple languages. As companies perform more and more business in other countries, the number of such global multi-lingual web applications will continue to increase.

Testing web sites supporting multiple languages has its own fair share of challenges. In this article, I will share seven tips with you that will enable you to test the multi-lingual browser-based applications in a complete way:

Tip # 1 – Prepare and use the required test environment

If a web site is hosted in English and Japanese languages, it is not enough to simply change the default browser language and perform identical tests in both the languages. Depending on its implementation, a web site may figure out the correct language for its interface from the browser language setting, the regional and language settings of the machine, a configuration in the web application or other factors. Therefore, in order to perform a realistic test, it is imperative that the web site be tested from two machines – one with the English operating system and one with the Japanese operating system. You might want to keep the default settings on each machine since many users do not change the default settings on their machines.

Tip # 2 – Acquire correct translations

A native speaker of the language, belonging to the same region as the users, is usually the best resource to provide translations that are accurate in both meaning as well as context. If such a person is not available to provide you the translations of the text, you might have to depend on automated web translations available on web sites like wordreference.com and dictionary.com. It is a good idea to compare automated translations from multiple sources before using them in the test.

Tip # 3 – Get really comfortable with the application

Since you might not know the languages supported by the web site, it is always a good idea for you to be very conversant with the functionality of the web site. Execute the test cases in the English version of the site a number of times. This will help you find your way easily within the other language version. Otherwise, you might have to keep the English version of the site open in another browser in order to figure out how to proceed in the other language version (and this could slow you down).

Tip # 4 – Start with testing the labels

You could start testing the other language version of the web site by first looking at all the labels. Labels are the more static items in the web site. English labels are usually short and translated labels tend to expand. It is important to spot any issues related to label truncation, overlay on/ under other controls, incorrect word wrapping etc. It is even more important to compare the labels with their translations in the other language.

Tip # 5 – Move on to the other controls

Next, you could move on to checking the other controls for correct translations and any user interface issues. It is important that the web site provides correct error messages in the other language. The test should include generating all the error messages. Usually for any text that is not translated, three possibilities exist. The text will be missing or its English equivalent will be present or you will see junk characters in its place.

Tip # 6 – Do test the data

Usually, multi-lingual web sites store the data in the UTF-8 Unicode encoding format. To check the character encoding for your website in mozilla: go to View -> Character Encoding and in IE go to View -> Encoding. Data in different languages can be easily represented in this format. Make sure to check the input data. It should be possible to enter data in the other language in the web site. The data displayed by the web site should be correct. The output data should be compared with its translation.

Tip # 7 – Be aware of cultural issues

A challenge in testing multi-lingual web sites is that each language might be meant for users from a particular culture. Many things such as preferred (and not preferred) colors, text direction (this can be left to right, right to left or top to bottom), format of salutations and addresses, measures, currency etc. are different in different cultures. Not only should the other language version of the web site provide correct translations, other elements of the user interface e.g. text direction, currency symbol, date format etc. should also be correct.

As you might have gathered from the tips given above, using the correct test environment and acquiring correct translations is critical in performing a successful test of other language versions of a web site.

It would be interesting to know your experience on testing multi-language web sites.

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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?

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This is not the case always. Some times testers may add complications in testing process due to their unskilled way of working. In this post I have added most of the testing challenges created due to testing staff, developing staff, testing processes and wrong management decisions.

So here we go with the top challenges:

1) Testing the complete application:
Is it possible? I think impossible. There are millions of test combinations. It’s not possible to test each and every combination both in manual as well as in automation testing. If you try all these combinations you will never ship the product

2) Misunderstanding of company processes:
Some times you just don’t pay proper attention what the company-defined processes are and these are for what purposes. There are some myths in testers that they should only go with company processes even these processes are not applicable for their current testing scenario. This results in incomplete and inappropriate application testing.

3) Relationship with developers:
Big challenge. Requires very skilled tester to handle this relation positively and even by completing the work in testers way. There are simply hundreds of excuses developers or testers can make when they are not agree with some points. For this tester also requires good communication, troubleshooting and analyzing skill.

4) Regression testing:
When project goes on expanding the regression testing work simply becomes uncontrolled. Pressure to handle the current functionality changes, previous working functionality checks and bug tracking.

5) Lack of skilled testers:
I will call this as ‘wrong management decision’ while selecting or training testers for their project task in hand. These unskilled fellows may add more chaos than simplifying the testing work. This results into incomplete, insufficient and ad-hoc testing throughout the testing life cycle.

6) Testing always under time constraint:
Hey tester, we want to ship this product by this weekend, are you ready for completion? When this order comes from boss, tester simply focuses on task completion and not on the test coverage and quality of work. There is huge list of tasks that you need to complete within specified time. This includes writing, executing, automating and reviewing the test cases.

7) Which tests to execute first?
If you are facing the challenge stated in point no 6, then how will you take decision which test cases should be executed and with what priority? Which tests are important over others? This requires good experience to work under pressure.

8 ) Understanding the requirements:
Some times testers are responsible for communicating with customers for understanding the requirements. What if tester fails to understand the requirements? Will he be able to test the application properly? Definitely No! Testers require good listening and understanding capabilities.

9) Automation testing:
Many sub challenges – Should automate the testing work? Till what level automation should be done? Do you have sufficient and skilled resources for automation? Is time permissible for automating the test cases? Decision of automation or manual testing will need to address the pros and cons of each process.

10) Decision to stop the testing:
When to stop testing? Very difficult decision. Requires core judgment of testing processes and importance of each process. Also requires ‘on the fly’ decision ability.

11) One test team under multiple projects:
Challenging to keep track of each task. Communication challenges. Many times results in failure of one or both the projects.

12) Reuse of Test scripts:
Application development methods are changing rapidly, making it difficult to manage the test tools and test scripts. Test script migration or reuse is very essential but difficult task.

13) Testers focusing on finding easy bugs:
If organization is rewarding testers based on number of bugs (very bad approach to judge testers performance) then some testers only concentrate on finding easy bugs those don’t require deep understanding and testing. A hard or subtle bug remains unnoticed in such testing approach.

14) To cope with attrition:
Increasing salaries and benefits making many employees leave the company at very short career intervals. Managements are facing hard problems to cope with attrition rate. Challenges – New testers require project training from the beginning, complex projects are difficult to understand, delay in shipping date!

These are some top software testing challenges we face daily. Project success or failure depends largely on how you address these basic issues.

For further reference and detailed solutions on these challenges refer book “Surviving the Top Ten challenges of Software Testing” written by William E. Perry and Randall W. Rice.

Over to you:
Many of you are working in manual and/or automation testing field. Though I have addressed many of above challenges in our previous articles, I want your views on handling these software testing challenges.  Feel free to express your views in comment section below.

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Manual and Automation testing Challenges

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If answers to these questions are ‘yes’ then it’s time to improve your communication skill. You should be perfect in all ways of communications like verbal, presentation skill and written communication.

Poor communication generally leads to disagreement and misunderstandings. Even in romantic relationship if you are poor at communication, chances are high that you will break up with your boy friend or girl friend.

Good communication skill is a must for software testers. You might have seen this line in every job requirements especially openings in QA and testing field. As testers require communicating with different project team members including clients, communication skill plays important role. If you want to win the arguments (I mean arguments that are right) and find the common solution for your problems with your subordinates then you should be able to express your views effectively.

As a part of ’soft skills for testers’ article series I am sharing detailed power point presentation on “How to improve communication skill”.

Keep in mind these simple rules for effective communication:

• Listen carefully when others are clarifying their thoughts. Don’t interrupt others in-between.
• Do not speak too fast. Slow down while speaking.
• Speak clearly. Your pronunciation should be loud and clear.
• Make eye contact with whom you are speaking. This increases chances of mutual agreement.
• Read, read and read. For better communication and effective words in your speech your vocabulary should be very strong. Reading more and more will increase your vocabulary.

Besides these 5 golden rules for effective communication here is PPT presentation on improving your communication skill.

Main topics covered in this PPT:
1) What makes a good communicator?
2) Process of communication
3) Active listening
4) Using non-verbal communication effectively
5) Presentation skill while appearing for an interview.
Thanks SoftLogic Technologies for this presentation.

Update: You can also download the first PPT on communication skill.

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Soft Skill for testers: How to improve communication skill

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For the beginners in Unix, learning basic Unix commands is a good start. This article explains basic Unix commands and in next article we will move on to the Unix operating system basics and advanced Unix commands.

The best way to learn following commands is to read and simultaneously practice them on Unix operating system.

These are the Unix commands that are mostly used while interacting with Unix servers. Most of the time you might be interacting with Unix OS through remote windows machines using softwares like ‘Putty’. In such testing environment this article is very useful.

You can download the article written by Meenakshi on Unix basics for testers on below link:

Download: Unix basics for testers article (Doc file)

I will continue this series of “soft skills required for testers”. Here is list of skills on which I will concentrate in coming posts:

• Operating systems skill for testers.
• Networking skill.
• Database ( Mainly SQL) knowledge for testers.
• Basic programming skill.

All these skills are required to become a successful software tester.

If you think any other skill should be also included in this “soft skills for testers” article series then please let me know in below comment section. I will work on those subjects to include them in my future articles.

Update: For software Testing job seekers, I have updated our Job page with two new openings. See more details on these job openings on below links:

• Testing openings in Amdocs Pune Walk-in on 3rd Feb
• QA Openings in Symphony Services Pune

Don’t want to miss any tip? Subscribe Via Email!

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Unix basics for software testers

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What do I mean by test data?

If you are writing test case then you need input data for any kind of test. Tester may provide this input data at the time of executing the test cases or application may pick the required input data from the predefined data locations. The test data may be any kind of input to application, any kind of file that is loaded by the application or entries read from the database tables. It may be in any format like xml test data, system test data, SQL test data or stress test data.

Preparing proper test data is part of the test setup. Generally testers call it as testbed preparation. In testbed all software and hardware requirements are set using the predefined data values.

If you don’t have the systematic approach for building test data while writing and executing test cases then there are chances of missing some important test cases. Tester can’t justify any bug saying that test data was not available or was incomplete. It’s every testers responsibility to create his/her own test data according to testing needs. Don’t even rely on the test data created by other tester or standard production test data, which might not have been updated for months! Always create fresh set of your own test data according to your test needs.

Sometime it’s not possible to create complete new set of test data for each and every build. In such cases you can use standard production data. But remember to add/insert your own data sets in this available database. One good way to design test data is use the existing sample test data or testbed and append your new test case data each time you get same module for testing. This way you can build comprehensive data set.

How to keep your data intact for any test environment?

Many times more than one tester is responsible for testing some builds. In this case more than one tester will be having access to common test data and each tester will try to manipulate that common data according to his/her own needs. Best way to keep your valuable input data collection intact is to keep personal copies of the same data. It may be of any format like inputs to be provided to the application, input files such as word file, excel file or other photo files.

Check if your data is not corrupted:
Filing a bug without proper troubleshooting is bad a practice. Before executing any test case on existing data make sure that data is not corrupted and application can read the data source.

How to prepare data considering performance test cases?

Performance tests require very large data set. Particularly if application fetching or updating data from DB tables then large data volume play important role while testing such application for performance. Sometimes creating data manually will not detect some subtle bugs that may only be caught by actual data created by application under test. If you want real time data, which is impossible to create manually, then ask your manager to make it available from live environment.

I generally ask to my manager if he can make live environment data available for testing. This data will be useful to ensure smooth functioning of application for all valid inputs.

Take example of my search engine project ‘statistics testing’. To check history of user searches and clicks on advertiser campaigns large data was processed for several years which was practically impossible to manipulate manually for several dates spread over many years. So there is no other option than using live server data backup for testing. (But first make sure your client is allowing you to use this data)

What is the ideal test data?

Test data can be said to be ideal if for the minimum size of data set all the application errors get identified. Try to prepare test data that will incorporate all application functionality, but not exceeding cost and time constraint for preparing test data and running tests.

How to prepare test data that will ensure complete test coverage?

Design your test data considering following categories:
Test data set examples:
1) No data: Run your test cases on blank or default data. See if proper error messages are generated.

2) Valid data set: Create it to check if application is functioning as per requirements and valid input data is properly saved in database or files.

3) Invalid data set: Prepare invalid data set to check application behavior for negative values, alphanumeric string inputs.

4) Illegal data format: Make one data set of illegal data format. System should not accept data in invalid or illegal format. Also check proper error messages are generated.

5) Boundary Condition data set: Data set containing out of range data. Identify application boundary cases and prepare data set that will cover lower as well as upper boundary conditions.

6) Data set for performance, load and stress testing: This data set should be large in volume.

This way creating separate data sets for each test condition will ensure complete test coverage.

Conclusion:

Preparing proper test data is a core part of “project test environment setup”. Tester cannot pass the bug responsibility saying that complete data was not available for testing. Tester should create his/her own test data additional to the existing standard production data. Your test data set should be ideal in terms of cost and time. Use the tips provided in this article to categorize test data to ensure complete functional test cases coverage.

Be creative, use your own skill and judgments to create different data sets instead of relying on standard production data while testing.

What is your experience?

Have you faced problem of incomplete data for testing? How you managed to create your own data then? Share your simple tips and tricks to create or use test data.

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The main reason for bug being marked as invalid is “Insufficient troubleshooting” by tester before reporting the bug. In this post I will focus only on troubleshooting to find main cause of the bug. Troubleshooting will help you to decide whether the ambiguity you found in your application under test is really a bug or any test setup mistake.

Yes, 50% bugs get marked as “Invalid bugs” only due to testers incomplete testing setup. Let’s say you found an ambiguity in application under test. You are now preparing the steps to report this ambiguity as a bug. But wait! Have you done enough troubleshooting before reporting this bug? Or have you confirmed if it is really a bug?

What troubleshooting you need to perform before reporting any bug?

Troubleshooting of:

• What’s not working?
• Why it’s not working?
• How can you make it work?
• What are the possible reasons for the failure?

Answer for the first question “what’s not working?” is sufficient for you to report the bug steps in bug tracking system. Then why to answer remaining three questions? Think beyond your responsibilities. Act smarter, don’t be a dumb person who only follow his routine steps and don’t even think outside of that. You should be able to suggest all possible solutions to resolve the bug and efficiency as well as drawbacks of each solution. This will increase your respect in your team and will also reduce the possibility of getting your bugs rejected, not due to this respect but due to your troubleshooting skill.

Before reporting any bug, make sure it isn’t your mistake while testing, you have missed any important flag to set or you might have not configured your test setup properly.

Troubleshoot the reasons for the failure in application. On proper troubleshooting report the bug. I have complied a troubleshooting list. Check it out – what can be different reasons for failure.

Reasons of failure:
1) If you are using any configuration file for testing your application then make sure this file is upto date as per the application requirements: Many times some global configuration file is used to pick or set some application flags. Failure to maintain this file as per your software requirements will lead to malfunctioning of your application under test. You can’t report it as bug.

2) Check if your database is proper: Missing table is main reason that your application will not work properly.
I have a classic example for this: One of my projects was querying many monthly user database tables for showing the user reports. First table existence was checked in master table (This table was maintaining only monthly table names) and then data was queried from different individual monthly tables. Many testers were selecting big date range to see the user reports. But many times it was crashing the application as those tables were not present in database of test machine server, giving SQL query error and they were reporting it as bug which subsequently was getting marked as invalid by developers.

3) If you are working on automation testing project then debug your script twice before coming to conclusion that the application failure is a bug.

4) Check if you are not using invalid access credentials for authentication.

5) Check if software versions are compatible.

6) Check if there is any other hardware issue that is not related to your application.

7) Make sure your application hardware and software prerequisites are correct.

8 ) Check if all software components are installed properly on your test machine. Check whether registry entries are valid.

9) For any failure look into ‘system event viewer’ for details. You can trace out many failure reasons from system event log file.

10) Before starting to test make sure you have uploaded all latest version files to your test environment.

These are all small and common mistakes but can mostly impact on your relations and credibility in your team. When you will find that your bug is marked as invalid and the invalid bug reason is from above mentioned list – it will be a silly mistake and it will definitely hurt you. (At least to me!)

Share mistakes done by you while reporting any bug. This will help other readers to learn from your experience!

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How to get your all bugs resolved without any ‘Invalid bug’ label?

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What do we mean by a great software testing team?

“A team with a star player is a good team, but a team without one is a great
team.” – Author unknown.

The above quote from Author leads us to discussion on great teams and its characteristics. The article stems from experience gained while working for different teams, observation of team members behavior under time pressure coupled with complex nature of project.This holds good for Software Testing team which finds prominence place in a project activities and requires right mix of people for performing these activities.

Why does some software testing team fails and others succeed? Is there any solution for this problem.The answer is “Yes”/”No” – depends on how the team member aligns himself towards common goal of the team not at the cost of suppressing his team members interest but working together with common understanding of problem at hand.
The success also depends on leadership attributes possessed by Test Leads –“Captain of ship”.

The objective of this article is to help software test engineers or any person who believes in team work,to understand characteristics of high performance team and how to cultivate them in their own teams.

Success of team in long run doesn’t depend on individual who is considered “STAR” but does depends on all who form clusters of stars that makes great team.

Characteristics of Great Software Testing Team

Initial stage – Ask yourself following question:

Does your new team member knows the reason he has been selected for the team?

New members of the team are often puzzled about their presence in team.Although you may argue that he/she need not know purpose and just work on task assigned to him/her.This is assumption made by many higher management people.By clearing defining the roles and responsibilities helps individuals to understand the project in bigger context.That includes the relevance of his/her job,skills of individuals that could be contributed towards the projects,share common team goal which was defined earlier.This does bring great commitment towards the work and hence contributes towards its quality.

Ownership:

When project complexity increases in terms of tasks and team size, it would not be possible to keep track of individuals tasks by single leader.Hence the solution to this would be assigning Ownership to individuals. However this virtual leadership often act as a impediment rather than solution if not considered appropriately. Mere appointment of individual as Owner without considering a serious thought of whether he/she could manage their team would not bring desired result.

Individuals acting as owners should have mindset which matches leaders mindset and the pride on their part to act as future leaders. These are people who could make difference by carrying along with them their team members and the same people by showing Indifferent attitudes towards their team will disintegrate the team. The task of owners is not merely restricted to assigning task to team members but to understand task at hand, situation at much broader perspective and bringing common level of understanding among their team members. Support their team member at the time of difficulty of handling task,word of encouragement,correcting their mistakes by not acting as lead but as a peer,acting up on ideas or taking advice for appropriate situation from experienced members would certainly benefit towards shared goal. Collaboration and a solid sense of interdependency in a team will defuse blaming behavior and stimulate opportunities for learning and improvement.

Knowledge of seasoned players in the team

The term-seasoned players indicates the person who has spent considerable amount of time in same project or similar kind of work. They are resources who have vast knowledge about project. By channeling their knowledge in proper way,the entire team could be benefited.These individual should show an act of diligence towards others work rather than arrogance.It is commonly said “Past success breeds arrogance”. They are higher performers who’s absence could be felt in a team but it should be not sole criteria as there are equal chance for others who has similar caliber to act at this position.

Motivation – Key Factor

Motivation is not all about giving speech when members of team are assembled but rather every effort should be made to tailor these speech to address each individual. This means each of team member has unique qualities and unique working style. This task is rather complex than said for Test Lead since it will bring effort on leaders part to sense the team member’s feeling not only to task assigned to members but also on project as whole. Positive attitude of lead will energies team – This is quoted from experience working for one of great test team.If the leader complains about long working hours or insisting the team members to work at schedule which is impossible to meet, your team will reflect your attitude. He/She is true leader who inspite of unreasonable schedule instills the confidence among team members to believe in their abilities and at the same time working at the background on his part to justify his team members effort working on unreasonable schedule but bring an extension to these schedule to make his team members job simple.

Recognition

Everyone likes to be recognized for his/her work.When an individual is awarded for his/her work,the responsibility of team lead should bring reason for individual recognition in front of others. The team lead decision for these kind of task should be impartial.This does bring great respect for the awarded individual by members in the team. They would be acting on similar grounds and ultimately team benefits from their collective response. Very often that members working for virtual leader often are not recognized since due to zero visibility to the leader of team. It is virtual leader who has to bring on table the accomplishment,contribution done by team member towards their task.This indicates that virtual leader is future leader who does take care of members of his team and well received by members of his team to whom they always wanted to be associated in future.

One-One basis Meeting

It is often seen that roles and responsibilities for the members are defined and assessment is done at the end of project.Agreed that it is formal process.But informal talk like One – One basis adds to this formal process as well. These informal meeting should address issues at present whom members wont feel like conveying during group meeting, future opportunities for members, identifying future leaders/owners of the team and equally acting on issues at hand after feedback from team members.Timely and appropriately delivered feedback can make the difference between a team that hides mistakes and a team that sees mistakes as opportunities. The responsibility for poor performance is usually a function of the team structure rather than individual incompetence; yet, it is individuals who are sent to training programs for fixing. If team members feel like they are pitted against one another to compete for rewards and recognition, they will withhold information that might be useful to the greater team. When a team has problems, the effective team leader will focus on the team’s structure before focusing on individuals.

“Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.” – George Patton

Conclusion

There are plenty of things to be considered while building successful team.The key words – Unity,Trust,Respect for others opinion and acting without fear are ingredients for great test team,in general for any successful team. After reading this article look at your team and question yourself “Are you working in great test team” or “ Will you make every effort to build great test team”.Then don’t wait,try next second to build “Great Software Testing Team”.

“Coming together is a beginning, Keeping together is progress, Working together is success”. – Henry Ford

Over To You!

What do you think from your experience, What are your characteristics for building a successful QA team?

About author: Sharath R. Bhat is a Software Test Engineer at Torry Harris Business solutions, Bangalore and has more than three years experience in software Testing. An ISEB/ISTQB Certified Test Engineer and worked in Telecom, Finance and Healthcare domains. Areas on technical expertise include testing Web Applications, Client-Server, Data Warehousing and Middleware applications built using “Kabira”.

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I just wanted to thank you for subscribing to SoftwareTestingHelp.com. This blog is a success because of you and your support. Here's to your success!

As always, I appreciate your valuable comments. Visit below link to post your comment:
How to build a successful QA team?

Thank you so much!