4 Mistakes of My Life as a Software Tester (and You’re Probably Making These)

By Vijay

By Vijay

I'm Vijay, and I've been working on this blog for the past 20+ years! I’ve been in the IT industry for more than 20 years now. I completed my graduation in B.E. Computer Science from a reputed Pune university and then started my career in…

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Updated January 17, 2025

In this article, I want to talk about 4 mistakes that software testers make, including me. You’re also Probably Making These. Curious? Read on. 

We have all heard that frogs believe that the whole world is the well they live in until they come out and realize how big, beautiful and different the world really is!

Do you think you have lived this story at some point in your professional life? Well, everyone has. Welcome to reality.

4 Mistakes That Software Testers Make

Software testing mistakes

As a tester, how many times in your career did you think the following?

#1. Asking questions is not always necessary

We all have inbuilt weaknesses. According to a popular survey, the most common weakness in adults is the fear of appearing silly. Unrealistic fear blocks our growth.  Assuming rather than asking is what we are taught.

While testing an online ticket booking application, a tester observed that the user was not allowed to cancel the booked tickets until at least 24 hours have passed since the booking was made.  Now, from the end user’s perspective, this is totally unacceptable. But instead of questioning the behavior, the tester assumed that it might be a requirement. This one wrong assumption led the application to fail in the market.

A tester friend, well-known for his question-asking style, once told me that he was laughed at for asking questions about almost everything from coding logic to bug tracking system to how the bug was resolved. It was beneficial to him because he was developing self-confidence and clarity about things.

Never hesitate to ask questions and present your view point. As a tester, you have all the right to ask questions about application’s behavior and its real-time usage data.

#2. Automation is tough to learn and takes lots of time

Automation” is the word that still gives a sick feeling to many testers.

Many still think –

  • Learning automation might take time
  • Automation is tough to learn
  • Automation is not useful

This is nothing but an unreal fear of change, fear of learning new things, and fear of getting out of your comfort zone.

I would advise you to learn automation testing and keep learning if you want to shape up your career and want to grow fast in this demanding industry.

#3. Documented test scenarios include everything and I do not need to think beyond them

The trend that has been followed so far is- explore requirements, understand functionality, brainstorm, document test scenarios, and send them for review. Once the review is done, testers will follow the documented test scenarios. Real-time exploratory testing seems to be of no use as the brainstorming was already done at the time of documentation.

Once the review is done, testers will follow the documented test scenarios. Real-time exploratory testing seems to be of no use as the brainstorming was already done at the time of documentation.

This is a totally wrong approach. Let me give you an example,

If you are looking at a painting and you continue to look at it for 10, 30, 60 minutes and so on. Initially, you found the painting good but with prolonged exposure to it, you start realizing the flaws in it. After staring at it for 60 minutes, you feel like you know the painting for a long time and you know all the flaws and positives about it. Leave for the day.

Next day, look at the picture again. Did you notice the color mixture at the corner yesterday? Does it seem ok? Don’t you think that the wrong color mixture is ruining the overall effect of painting? Surprised that you did not notice it yesterday? Well, that happens. Every day brings us new perspectives and new views and with that we look at things differently.

I hope this example clarifies my point of not relying on documented test cases while testing.

Try to do something spontaneous and note the application’s reaction.

#4. I am here to find bugs and not to analyze patterns

We are always taught to mind our business and somehow we are convinced that our business is to find bugs. Anything other than that does not fall within our responsibility range.

Let’s change that mindset today with the best example that I have been using for years.

A newly opened restaurant has no customers even after trying hard. They called an expert to analyze the situation. The analyzer sees that the restaurant does not get any repeat customers despite the variety, ambiance, price, etc.  He contacted the one-time customers and from their feedback, he came to know that customers did not like the food (any variety of food) as it was tasteless. New and experienced chefs were appointed immediately and the restaurant now sees waiting customers.

Our role as a tester is similar to that of the analyzer in the above situation. We do not need to point out what is wrong but we need to analyze which are the other points that might have been affected due to the bug and is there any pattern of that bug in the application.

With experience, you are expected to provide analytical details rather than just limited testing.

Conclusion:

The idea behind this post was to guide the new testers and to remind even the old bees that the industry, the demand, and the expectations are changing.

Keep yourself updated, keep learning new and in-demand skills, share knowledge, information and problems, never hesitate to demand better quality and always be ready to contribute for the same.

About Author: This inspirational post was written by STH team member Bhumika M. She is a project lead, carrying 10+ years of software testing experience. She is totally into testing and loves to test everything that exists.

I hope these mistakes I made as a tester have provided an insight to you and will help you not repeat them.

Are you making the mistakes mentioned in this article in your testing career? Tell us in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you. 

Finally, we wish you happy testing 🙂

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45 thoughts on “4 Mistakes of My Life as a Software Tester (and You’re Probably Making These)”

  1. Very informative 🙂 Happy that i am connected to a platform where we can learn such things from experienced professionals 🙂

    Reply
  2. Very Informative. All points are very correct as we never bother to think beyond the Requirement documents.. This post is an eye opener… 🙂 Thanks

    Reply
  3. My QA Tester opinion, as black box tester, that programmers/SW QA in Test should write/program test tools/test application, but tester should use/run these tools, collect results and reports bugs. So on.. Because testers mind works differently from programming…

    Reply
  4. True and valid points , each of tester should check how many mistake they have committed. Best thing i like about article is its very simple. +1 nice one .

    Reply
  5. Thankyou for sharing your experience with us . it helps me a lot , as i was also repeating the same mistakes. from now i will not hesitate to ask any questions. thankyou:)

    Reply
  6. Seriously boosted my confidence, Specially the Automation related point, I thought its difficult to learn from ur point I got wat mistake I did.
    thank you Bhoomika 🙂

    Reply
  7. 100% true. I made this type of mistakes in our software testing career. Thanks for post. It’s informative & to the point.

    Reply
  8. nice post….i really want some career tips in software testing.
    can i get ur personal email id so that v can have a conversation.

    Reply
  9. Nice post as always.. Thanks.

    The real time issue with following #3 and #4 is the time allocated for testing. For example, lets say Tester#1 write the test cases and Tester#2 executes that and in that case and when the time is very limited anyone will not have time to execute the documented test cases itself!! This happens when Tester#1 executes his/her own test cases as well…

    And on Point#4, lets say tester is assigned to execute 4 test cases per day and at the end of the day tester comes and say that he/she executed only one test case and that is failed and they spent the rest of the day in finding/analyzing the impact of that bug in the application!! Is any test lead/test manager is good to hear this by compromising the execution count for that day?

    Many a times I see test estimation should be aligned with delivery date. Your test estimation is 4 months and the project to be delivered in 2.5 months, we need to short our test estimation to align with project delivery date. Either test team to work extra or write less(Important) scenarios and execute those to meet project delivery date.

    I am accepting #3 and #4 completely and wish that to happen every time in every project/product testing. But due to various factors this is not happening very often, at least as far as I know!!

    Reply
  10. Another mistake is letting a difficult employee (when working as a Consultant) completely disrespects you and others, yet you don’t handle the situation the way you wanted.

    Reply
  11. Good points especially the one related to asking questions and analyzing patterns. We have to actively involve ourselves into the development process

    Reply
  12. It’s very useful. A Tester is not just find the bug and shutdown DEv 🙂 , we also should analyse the issue , findout the root cause (if possible), then can suggest changing/adding something to enhance our product. The benefit we get :

    1. Our skill will improve better than
    2. Value of yourself is increasing in group as well as the market 🙂

    Reply
  13. Bhumika your articles are one of the best on this site.

    This one is very much practical and rightly highlight the basic important points in testing

    Reply
  14. Once again a very good article on testing core… you said it right, many testers fear to become silly at the time of asking questions.

    Your articles are very realistic and as per with the current core of testing.

    thanks for the great article @Bhumika

    Reply
  15. Amazing Post.. Most importantly you didn’t hesitate to express your weaknesses AKA views which we faced almost everyday.. Keep it Up!! 🙂

    Reply
  16. To the point and very well written article, covers, I guess most of us have done these thing, and may be continue to do us without realizing these things

    Reply
  17. Readers,

    Glad that the post is well accepted and informative. Thank you for your continuous readership with us.

    Stay tuned for more inspiration 🙂

    Reply

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