In this article, we will learn about the top 5 ways to be a Bold and Confident Software Tester. Let’s get started.
Before we begin, here is a conversation for you:
“The issues are almost similar. Mark them duplicate”, says Person 1 (you can tell, it is a developer)
“No, they are not. They impact different areas of the application. Behavioral impact is different too”, argues Person 2 (of course, it is a tester)
“Your team is only interested in increasing bug count”, retorts Person 1.
“Actually, we are trying to reduce it”, Person 2 counters.
Isn’t this common in every organization? Let’s take a look at some other scenarios.
Tester: “What will happen if I enter special characters in the field?”
Developer: “But client has asked to not enter the special characters”
Tester: “But it does not give any validation message or restrict me when I enter special characters”
Developer: “I need to discuss this with the product manager. The implementation is done according to the client’s requirement”
Tester: “I don’t think there is anything to discuss. If something is not user-friendly or implicit, it has to be changed for a good user experience”
Developer: “You continue testing. I will discuss it with the Product Manager. Please ignore this case for now”
Table of Contents:
5 Ways To Be a Bold and Confident Software Tester
For most of my career, I have been trying to make a point. It makes me think, why is the industry so rude to its software testers?
To give an example, in the manufacturing industry, if someone observes and reports a malfunction, will the product ever go into production?
Why is it not the same for software too? Maybe it is the nature and dynamism of the industry.
But again, as a tester, you have to be bold to ask a question, to raise doubts, to convey your point and sometimes just to start the conversation.
As I always say, software testing is a tough job. You have to be a good communicator, a worthy reporter, effective analyzer, and hunter (bug hunting of course), an efficient team member and ultimately a fantastic tester.
With the technology revolution and great user experience demand, software testing needs a change too. If you are not testing the user experience, you are not testing anything.
That old era, where all the test cases were documented and tested, is over now. Demand for test idea generation and quick decision making is needed. And for that, the tester needs to be bold now.
We cannot get into the shell, test as per the document, and provide a report for Pass/Fail.
We should contribute to product delivery. We need to consider expected and unexpected user requirements, we need to discuss every possible outcome of an implementation and we need to test with a user’s eye.
It is important to be bold, take risks and be creative with whatever you do.
How can I be bold as a software tester
#1) Find clarifications instead of making assumptions:
When you are told that knife is to cut vegetables/fruits, did you try to cut paper? What happened? What made you try it?
Ask questions. Ask them early. Don’t quantify your questions as important or not- a question is a question. A tester needs to know how a product will and will not work so you can test it both ways before marking it “Tested”.
#2) Think out of the box and don’t worry about sounding silly:
Have you ever had basil leaves in tea?? Do you know it can cure a cold? What if no one ever thought of adding basil leaves to tea? We would have missed a wonderful medicinal flavor.
Be a thinker. Think deep. Understand algorithms. Use Mindmaps. Whatever helps you understand the application deeply, try it.
Thinking and learning something new should be on the list of every tester’s diary. This will help generate test ideas.
#3) Don’t see developers as enemies. Be friends and work as a team.
Initiating communication is the toughest thing in the world and that too when you are trying to convey something negative. But as a tester, you will have to learn to communicate. You will have to be open to understanding other’s opinions and viewpoints.
In most organizations, developers and testers see each other as opposing teams in the game of Kabaddi, trying to pull each other at the boundary line of frustration.
Let’s change this for a change.
Rather than jumping on the bug you have reported, ask the developer – in which situations, in which technologies, in which coding standards, same kind of issues can be expected.
Share a cup of coffee with a developer and you will know that he/she is going through the same frustration too as you.
Always remember, development and testing are both mandatory activities of a project life cycle and none of them can be ignored. Working as a team definitely lessens the internal issues at the project level and helps in delivering successful application/product.
#4) When it comes to quality, understand that you have every right to jump in if you are not satisfied:
As a tester, that is what you are supposed to do.
If you have reported a critical but randomly reproducible bug and the development team asks you to ignore it, you can fight for it. After all, you are the gatekeeper and you are trusted for quality. You cannot compromise with it.
Be brave and communicate your concerns. Argue, involve other people to convey thoughts, be positive but never compromise on quality.
#5) Don’t underestimate your self-value. Consider yourself an important part of the team
This applies to freshers and trainees. As I have always said, it is not the number of years of experience you carry that matters. It’s all about how you contribute.
Never think that at a lower level of experience, you cannot discuss or ask. Be brave, attend meetings, and ask management to make you a part of discussions, seek clarifications, make efforts to deliver the best and shine.
About the author: This inspirational article was written by STH team member Bhumika.
Do you think being brave as a tester is useful?
I think its true and would also love to hear your opinion. So pour in your views and feedback in the comments section. We would love to hear them.
very Nice…
It’s very helpful for tester
Dear Readers,
It really feels good when the article written with great passion is well accepted and helpful.
Thank you for pouring in positive comments and your continuous readership with STH.
Tune in for more inspiration 🙂
Very nice article…
thanks…
This maybe due to numerous times i’ve used the”back”button, between each of the latest article links. I tried looking to see if its just my system (dell 7,windows 7 home pre…) then i checked to see ifanyone else has seen this error:
Error establishing a database connection
when i finished reading what is regression testing, then clicked on onethe links for the first time, i get the article as expected, then i clicked on a new article links and got the article. however, i clicked my back button to re-read a paragraph then clicked on another link.. I got the article then clicked my back button only this time, i clicked on a previous link i already read…I got an error message: error database connection…
I decided to try this out again to get the error message, clicked on a new link, hit the back button, clicked on a previously read link, then got the error message ( the first error message,stated above).
Could you guys checked this as it could be just my system or maybe not but it would be cool if you could repeat the error message on your end. Thx
Thanks a lot
Its really a good article and show the real activities of the s/w tester in IT corporate. Of course all points will definitely encourage & make confident about the work.
Thanks for post!!!
Nice article, as it contain with communication part of the developer and tester. Also it tell us that how Tester is to be bold in his career.
It’s a nice/inspirational article for a novice tester, but still I have few comments:
1. You say: “That old era, where all the test cases were documented and tested is over now.”
This is not true a lot of organization (depending on business domain , such as Health, Defence , Transportation , Aviation and others) are still performing documented/scripted testing.
2. As a tester you can’t be responsible for Quality , becouse Quality can’t be “Tested into a Product”, Quality must be planned and designed into the Product.
Testing can give more visibility to project/product status and provide means for making decisions based on objective data.
If the only means you use to acheave Quality is testing , than no matter how much you test and what kind of testing you do , your quality will be very questionable.
Really very nice Article
Great article! I agree with so much of what has been said here. Testers are often pressured into “passing” things they’re not comfortable with. And who’s fault is it for “missing it” when a client / user reports it…?
When raising an issue like in the scenarios above, the tester should try to put across the impact to the business / product that would occur if it’s not fixed before being released, as this may help others to understand their standpoint. For example: added cost to deploy now and fix later / not at all; reputation; key functionality; data corruption.
Thanks for sharing, guys!
If test is the gatekeeper and trusted for quality you’ve got far bigger problems than boldness and confidence. If test is the gatekeeper and trusted for quality, then you’ve just set test up for a beating. Is that really what you want?
Quality is the responsibility of everyone in the organisation. Test provide factual data that allows others to make an informed decision.
Great Learning, Inspirational too
It is an Eye Opener
Really an excellent article
After reading your article.. may be myself bold or confident 🙂
Great article, Every tester’s story.
Almost all types of important points covered.
Thanks for the article.
Just wanted to add that I Love the examples you used!!:)
It is so True! I could tell exact same conversations I had with the people I worked last! You’re Awesome!
Thanks again so much for posting this!
Dear readers,
Thank you very much for sharing your views. I am very thankful to all of you that the article is well accepted.
Stay tuned for some more 🙂
Thanks again!!
Good article..very encouraging
nice article.very Good.
Very thanks for such a motivational, inspirational article. Being testers, we face these kind of situations daily. But you come up with the solutions. Thanks for your motivations and guidance once again.
Good article. Thanks.
really good article ! it helps me a lot as always motivate me to be a very good Qa Software Tester .
Very Good Article .. defined thoughts are useful.
very supportive article for testers.
mmmmmm was inspired man thanx …now going to domy job in a different manner
Very Useful Article, as you said the programmer and the tester are mandatory. this sentences is inspired us(tester) because if programmer have only coding knowledge. but he/she dont know what is actually happening after application is in actually in use. he/she blindly doing a code and they are following seniors order. so i am very agree to that sentence.
Thank you so much of this wonderful article
Get to know the complexity of the backend development, be cognizant of the budget and timeline; know how to pick your battles and fight smart. Find the engineers who have the most design and UX sense, recruit someone from the design / UX team to back you up. Make your own comp for a UI and or research examples of better functionality and present them if you want something changed and are experiencing push-back. Accept that clients sometimes just really don’t care; let it go and move on.
Very encouraging article. liked all the points especially the 5th one.
Very motivational and something new to learn. 🙂 Thanks for sharing it Bhumika…
The article is useful for testers. I like saying if you are not testing user experience, you are not testing anything. It is correct way.
Nice article ..
Thanks..
Inspiration for every testers, explore things out of the box!!!
Thanks to Bhumika.
Very nice article;
being a tester i faced these issues especially the “kabaddi” incident you have mentioned.
For this type of incidents i always prefer to raise a bug and ask the dev to put the comments so that we can have it documented and Tracked.
once again thanks, your articles are always a true story for testers.
Nice Motivation for a Test Engineer
nice article
Really very useful article its fact in tester life thanks for thank u very much it would help to understand about testing field
Ooops.. here’s the link that the error appeared on:
Softwaretestinghelp.com/types-of-software-errors/
Error establishing a database connection
@ tonya can you please check again with the steps you followed? I am not able to see the issue that you mentioned.
Thanks for posting this article. It was heart-warming. It’s great to know that I’m not the only one who is experiencing this–it’s for all us as testers.
Thanks for the tips too!
Inspiration article for Testers Must read!!!
Very Very Nice Article. Softwaretestinghelp always motivates the testers and helps to understand them self very bravely.
Thank you very much……
Best Testing Community……..
It brings me the positive attitude..Always developers used to say the tester job is nothing.. It was so inspired.. Thanks..
hello,
Great thoughts bhumika. whatever the experience you share that is great. I really motivated because of you, thank you so much.
wow nice artical
Tq
Very nice article with real time scenarios…
Nice Articles. It’s very useful for new aspirations who want to enter in software tester carrier and same thing happened with other field as well ;be toketive in life …!!!
I have to disagree with the author that the era of documenting test cases is over. How can a tester be bold and confident in the quality of his own test coverage without documenting the test cases?