How the Testers Can Ask Questions The Smart Way: The Step-By-Step Guide

Are you wondering how testers can ask questions in a smart way? Don’t worry. We will explain it here in this article. 

Having a brainstorming session with the team is always a learning experience. This time, we had a different idea.

We divided the team into two groups and decided to ask questions to each other about a common product – Phone. The only restriction was that the questions should be limited to the testing of the phone.

The session ended with interesting unanswered questions and some better ideas to test the phone.

We also learned an important thing – asking questions (even silly sometimes) helps in making product / application better and that is what matters at the end.

I want to support my point with the following article.

How Testers can Ask Questions the Smart Way

Why Do the Testers Ask Questions And Why It Is Important To Do So

Being a tester, we know how the real world works when it comes to delivery and timeline pressure.

Even when there is no pressure, having a clear and crisp requirement document is not something every tester can dream of. And in both above mentioned situations, testers are prone to assume: when there is no data available and decisions are to be made, assumptions are natural.

Recommended read => How to Deal With Bad Requirements as a Tester

Assumptions and examples:

The requirement document mentioned that the essay writing application should show the author’s name. During testing, the tester learned that there can be multiple authors for the same essay and they can maintain different versions of the essay.

Now, how do you show the author’s name for this situation? There is no clarity on the requirements and no time/person is available. The developer assumed that the author’s name, who owns the latest version of the essay, should be displayed and the tester agreed to it.

Questions based on assumptions can be as below:

• What if multiple authors updated the essay at the same time?
• What if there are multiple authors with the same name?
• What if the author wants to reach out to the last version that he/she had submitted?

An application experienced a crash while the user tried to refresh the same page for the 7th time. Now, finding out the issue and reporting the same is good but when there is heavy delivery pressure, we need to have the right data to understand the risk of this specific issue.

For the above situation, if no data is available, a tester will have to assume that it would not be a routine case and can be taken care of later on.

In this case, the questions based on assumptions can be as below:

• Is it OK to take the risk as the issue observed is severe?
• Is there a temporary workaround available?
• Should this be included in the known issue bug list?

From the two examples given above, it is important to note that the assumptions that testers have to make and the questions we should ask are not always just about the application, but sometimes might be about what to do next, how or why.

What to do next, how or why

Step 1: Investigate

A curious tester, when observing unexpected behavior, ends up investigating and this investigation results in making him ask questions.

For example:

After observing an issue where the user was being logged out every 5 seconds, the investigation ended up identifying the issue as an automated query in the database that was executing every 5 seconds, and would clear out all the existing sessions.

Questions based on assumptions can be as below:

• Why do we need that query?
• For what purpose was it being automated for 5 seconds?

Thus investigation results into more questions, which helps in determining the right answer.

Step 2: Apply past experience

Having faced the same problem in the past, our human mind instantly retrieves relevant data and that data when applied to the current situation, gives way to more questions.

For example:

Based on past experience while working with Linux OS, I knew that rebooting the server could possibly cause many errors to disappear automatically. Applying the same technique to the current situation, where the code was deployed and maintained on a Linux server, I observed that the performance of the application improved.

And the questions were:

• Which dead process would have made the code so slow?
• What if the server would not have been rebooted?
• Are we missing any points to be considered while measuring the application’s performance?

Step 3: Analyze Data

The experienced tester always analyzes data and questions about the possibility of patterns.

For example:

After the first version of the launch, only 3 system crashes were reported and the product worked well for every other case. For the second version of the launch, failures reported increased to 17. And for the third version of the launch, failures reported increased to 47. No major changes done. So, why did this happen?

Well, while analyzing data, it was realized that for the first time, when the product was launched, there were only 3 centers which were rural and all the failures were from them.

For the second time, rural launch increased and so the failure rate too. While looking into the details, it was found that it is not a specific product feature; it was because of the low network speed that was the issue. Thus, analysis of data available might lead us to a pattern of the problem.

Questions:

• What is the impact of Network Speed on the system?
• What could be the remedial action?
• What precautionary steps should be taken for the future?
• What are all the network speeds to be considered while testing?

Note: I am sure you can think of many more questions you might have. This is just a short list of basic ideas.

Thus, a tester does not ask questions because he wants to ask lots of questions. There can be many reasons, such as:

• Constant investigation
• Not knowing anything specific
• Clarification of doubts
• Clarification of assumptions made
• Evaluation of overall risk
• Decision making

But as they say, asking questions is an art.

So, the next important question is: How to ask a question?

How do I ask a question

Asking questions is always being encouraged in the industry that we are working in. However, if you see a negative or cold response to your queries, maybe you need to tweak those queries or need to polish your question asking skill.

Personally, although I encourage everyone to ask questions, I also expect them to do some homework. It is obvious that no one would like a guy who asks “where he can download Skype” when Google is available :).

So, it’s better to apply the following techniques while asking questions so that you can get maximum answers.

Ask smart questions:

• Dig around the questions and because the answers might not always be straightforward
• Be prepared to listen and curb the need to interrupt
• Don’t assume the answer
• Ask for relevant information too – useful links, books or other sources of help
• Present your opinion and ask for their viewpoint

As they say, asking a question is the key to unlocking the world full of knowledge. If you observe a kid, he/she is asking more questions than an adult. Why? – Because they do not understand how to assume something. Just replicate a child’s behaviour when it comes to information.

Keep asking, be curious, get clarification and testing will be easier, more productive and interesting.

About the author: This awesome article was written by STH team member Bhumik M.

Hopefully, this article has been able to provide some answers instead of giving way to more questions. If it did raise questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you:)