Many Companies don’t have resources or can’t afford to hire the required number of testers on the project. So what could be the solution in this case?
The answer is simple. Companies will prefer to have skilled testers instead of a army of testers!
So how can build skilled testers on any project?
You can improve testers performance by assigning him/her to the single project.
Due to this the tester will get the detail knowledge of the project domain, Can concentrate well on that project, can do the R&D work during the early development phase of the project.
This not only build his/her functional testing knowledge but also the project Domain knowledge.
Company can use following methods to Improve the Testers performance:
1) Assign one tester to one project for long duration or to the entire project. Doing this will build testers domain knowledge, He/She can write better test cases, Can cover most of the test cases, and eventually can find the problem faster.
2) Most of the testers can do the functional testing, BV analysis but they may not know how to measure test coverage,How to test a complete application, How to perform load testing. Company can provide the training to their employees in those areas.
3) Involve them in all the project meetings, discussions, project design so that they can understand the project well and can write the test cases well.
4) Encourage them to do the extra activities other than the regular testing activities. Such activities can include Inter team talk on their project experience, Different exploratory talks on project topics.
Most important is to give them freedom to think outside the box so that they can take better decision on Testing activities like test plan, test execution, test coverage.
If you have a better idea to boost the testers performance don’t forget to comment on!
23 comments ↓
Hi Vijay,
I am happy to see you blogging about software testing in a serious manner.
If you are open to learning, here are a few things that you might want to learn:
So how can build skilled testers on any project?
You can improve testers performance by assigning him/her to the single project.
Assigning a tester to a single project. What do you mean by that?
Assuming that half of the testers in India work on one project over a period of one or two years, are they improving their skills?
What do you think are the skills required to test?
Due to this the tester will get the detail knowledge of the project domain, Can concentrate well on that project, can do the R&D work during the early development phase of the project.
You said tester will get detailed knowledge , not even the person who collected the requirement nor the customer has a detailed knowledge of the product or domain.
If I do not know a domain/product and yet find bugs that might be important quickly, do I belong to testing community?
Most of the testers can do the functional testing, BV analysis but they may not know how to measure test coverage,How to test a complete application, How to perform load testing. Company can provide the training to their employees in those areas.
A person who drives a car is provided one day training to fly an aero plane, can he fly the plane on the second day without further assistance or would you mind to board the plane if he plans to make you a crash test dummy?
Any tester who doesn’t practice testing, isn’t a tester anymore. If a person who has received a one day training on “how to fly an aero plane”, practices to fly in a simulator with assistance and de-brief from a skilled pilot is a person who might be able to fly better with little assistance on the 32nd day. Have you seen any tester in India saying, “I practice testing”?
3) Involve them in all the project meetings, discussions, project design so that they can understand the project well and can write the test cases well.
If your idea of involving a tester to all discussions, meetings and development is to help him a get a better understanding on the project, it might leave him *biased* to the information he has heard over developers and designers meet.
If he is *biased*, he might not be able to find important problems quickly. He might end up doing worse testing than what he was doing earlier.
4) Encourage them to do the extra activities other than the regular testing activities. Such activities can include Inter team talk on their project experience, Different exploratory talks on project topics.
When I was as young as you at heart, I thought software companies who claimed that they are R&D centre to be something like R&D labs I have watched in Bond movies but it was later I realized that even bond movies are for making money and it’s business that drives innovation and innovation, *that* drives business works!
Why should companies encourage you to do extra activities?
You form a group of testers during weekend, discuss on topics, share your ideas, share stories and learn from each other. If you want to improve, you do it.
Companies prefer and pay well to people who are self motivated than to people who join BIG brand names to motivate themselves.
Most important is to give them freedom to think outside the box so that they can take better decision on Testing activities like test plan, test execution, test coverage.
You are in India, asking for freedom and that too for thinking. Even before we got our national freedom, we had freedom to think and freedom to think brought freedom for the country.
Did you say, “out of the box”?
Define your idea of box you are talking about and I shall help you think out of the box.
If you have a better idea to boost the testers performance don’t forget to comment on!
I did it!
I wish you wonder, “What makes testers skilled?” and start exploring.
Well a good analysis of the topic.
Now let me comment on some of your points:
here is your one statement:
not even the person who collected the requirement nor the customer has a detailed knowledge of the product or domain.
So are you on the assumption that whichever products get released in the world are with the incomplete domain knowledge?
Unless and until the the person who collected the requirements has a complete list of do’s and don’ts how can a project architect or even a developer know what to do?
Here is your second point:
If I do not know a domain/product and yet find bugs that might be important quickly.
So someone start testing of the project with incomplete domain knowledge he might come up with some UI bugs, right? How can then you expect from him to find the core bugs without the domain knowledge? so decide what is important, finding a quick UI bug or finding the core functionality bug with proper domain understanding.
I don’t know why you are stressing on finding quick bugs!
Also I don’t understand why attending a project meeting leaves a tester ‘biased’?
If you are thinking about competitive and skilled tester, even he can clear some points to developers if they misunderstood any concept.And no point of getting ‘biased’ what you mentioned. Ya it is correct if you are thinking of below average tester, who don’t want to go in that much details.
Again you question:Why should companies encourage you to do extra activities? When they are paying for you for whatever knowledge you have.
Well if this is the case all the Big brands will close their training centres and will directly assign all the employees to the project. Is it right? Definitely not.
Company should encourage not only to boost the tech skill but also the activities like communication, inter project team culture, to know each others and this is most important part for the company growth besides the individual knowledge.
Your next point about freedom to tester.
Ya still in some of the companies testers don’t have the freedom to suggest the points such as the project areas where team should concentrate well, risk factors involved in the project. This is due to thinking of testing as a inferior roll by some managers or management. ( And this is our responsibility to tell them what is a testing job and how risks are involved in this, to remove this inferiority thinking from their mind.)
Well these were my ideas to boost the testers performance. Can you add some more ..
thanks for the comments.
[…] How to improve Testers performance? You can find here answer to What measures can company should take to improve testers performance as for some companies its not possible to hire required number of testers. Here you can also find a interesting debate in me and Pradeep S. […]
Excellent Debate!
Keep Posting.
Hey really ecellent debate..Keep posting!!
hi Belated NEW YEAR WISHES TO ONE AND ALL…CAN ANY ONE DEFINE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “VALIDATION AND VERIFICATION WITH EXAMPLE.
PLZ DO WRITE ME AT action2006@rediffmail.com
Yes company should promote test team member to Improve Performance : Few thing which can really benefit teat team:
1. Test team member should know how to make teat coverage.
2. Team member should know Issue list
3. Team member should know Project plan.
4. Time frame.
5. Good understanding of user story
6. Test case creation technique .
All above are common things which involved in any project test activity .
Apart from this we can improve performance in other area Communicate with client, Manage daily time for test activity .
To improve Tester Performance, these are suggestion
1. Acquire good skills in written communication - to be precise in description
2. Do not assume and presume (even if you have very good rapport with your colleagues, managers, onsite managers and client). Be precise and indicate all information eventhough it is repeated
3. Review twice by asking why I should include this bit of information / data or why I should report
4. Be detail to the core is best attribute of Tester and establish traceability
5. Do not accept anything until it is verifiable by you since ultimately you are responsible for product / software usability by the client
Hi Pratap !!!
Have you ever prepared DOSA ???? As this is a commonly known dish and if your answer is YES then I can proceed, if your answer is NO then atleast learn about the preparation!!!
Then coming to our point …………..
Read this patiently….
Let’s suppose that you know about the ingredients for dosa preparation….[requirements]
grinded dosa mix, onion, cooking oil, finely chopped green chillies etc., to prepare a tasty dosa…However this list of ingredients is not exhaustive!! I have missed some of the ingredients..but still we can prepare a delicious dosa..Apart from these, we need a frying pan, knife, gas stove, matchbox….as support items for our “project-DOSA”
Assuming that you already know the preparation of DOSA can you prepare dosa with the given ingredients????If your answer is YES I would urge you to think again!!!
What if I provide a tea-spoon of oil, a kilo salt and ask you to prepare 12 dosas with the about ingredients????Will you say still YES !!!
I guess not !!! The ingredients provided are disproportionate because a tea spoon of oil is not sufficient for preparing 12 dosas and a kilo salt is more than sufficient. So it is quite unfair to ask to prepare 12 dosas with the above ingredients.
So “Verify” your ingredients are in correct quantity/amount…..
Now If I provide with the ingredients in correct quantity can you prepare a nice dosa.. Please don’t say YES without a second thought.. If the grinded dosa mix is out-dated…Will you able to prepare a nice dosa out of it.??
So “Verify” the requirements are of good/enough quality….
After providing good/enough quality ingredients, let’s assume you have prepared a nice dosa and you are about to serve to your guests…I think you will taste a bit before serving because whether it tastes good or not..right!!!
So “Validate” your final product(Dosa) has been prepared correctly…
The verification of correct ingredients and quality of ingredients while preparing can be compared to as “Verification”process in software development and
Final validation of whether the dosa has been prepared correctly as per expected can be compared to as “Validation” process in software development.
Verification was done when the dosa preparation is under way!!But you did not have final dosa in your hand while doing verification process.
Validation was done when the final dosa is in your hand..
So, last but not least,
Am I building the product right?—–Verification
Am I building the right product ?—-Validation
Thanks,
Lakshmi
Hi Lakshmi,
Very interesting topic and an easy way to understand….
nice example and good explanation…
Thanku Jaykay
Hi Lakshmi,
one more thing, can u give similar eg for sanity testing and smoke testing pls…….
Lot of members asked difference b/w those two….
Hi Floks,
Suppose, if any bugs are found by clients(after the release of the project), then who is responsible for that?(tester/developer)..is this bcz incomplete test case coverage , negligence /any thing….?
Hai to all,
Me, being a Test Engineer i strongly believe that a products Sucess/Failure lies to the max(above 70%) on the Test engineer…this is not a theory but a practical truth.Any comments i can explain in detail in due course.
May I know the exact meaning for
“Product success/Failure”
Hi Jaykay,
To the best of my knowledge,
Smoke test is performed by developers after completion of build and before giving it to tester’s hand.
Sanity test is performed by testers after receiving the build for the completeness and correctness of the build from the developers.
Smoke test is the last test (assumption for better understanding) performed by developers before giving ithe build to testers.
Sanity test is the first test or level 0 test performed by testers after receiving the build from developers.
If I am wrong , please let me know.
Hi Friends,
Currently i am working in Non-IT field and planned to switch my career to testing.I had learned the basics of testing,and now i am very eager to learn testing practically with real time projects.
If any one interested to teach testing personally with real time projects , i will be more grateful, or else show me the right place in chennai.
Thanks & regards
selvam.ba@rediffmail.com
what is test case coverage? how can testers do test case coverage? please explain by giving examples.
Lakshmi,
Nice Example for Verification and Validation process.
Hi friends i planned to switch my career to testing .I had learned the basics of testing,and now i am very eager to learn testing practically with real time projects.
If any one interested to teach testing personally with real time projects , i will be more grateful, or else show me the right website ,i am in US.
Thanks & regards
srilaxmi2004@gmail.com
can u tell me about checklist and traceability testing with example….
if u know about that please send me that articles to my mail id:
kupen.sk@rediffmail.com
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