Attributes of a 'good' tester:
1) Rate and Quality of the defects:
* Finds defects as:
- error in compliance to specifications
- issues to be fixed (independent of any spec)
- issues that a developer never thought of or never specified in the requirements
* Finds high severity/priority defects than just filling the defect database with cosmetic defects
* Ensures lesser number of bugs are reported from the field by doing rigorous testing and catching the defects before the product is released
* Has lesser 'false' defect rate (Waste bugs or defects that are labeled as 'not a defect' or 'duplicate') by ensuring awareness of product to be tested and already found defect database.
2) Attitude
* Shows enthusiasm to learn, understand and master the product domain
* Puts the best of effort in testing, identification of bugs, adequate reporting and escalation at appropriate level.
* Curious and creative
* Thinks beyond the original scope of testing requirements, during/once the original test requirements are met.
* Keeps up to date knowledge on emerging trends in testing
3) Testing Methodology
* Tries to test the system in different possible ways to cover the complete list of requirements
* Is innovative in his/her approach
* Does lot of proactive testing and then logs/shares the findings/observations
* Tests the 'untold requirements' like performance, usability
* Goes beyond normal routine to find out 'how not to use the product under test' (negative test cases)
* Puts customer perspective while testing the product
4) Defect Reporting
* Makes clear and complete defect reports - describes behavior and the context to make them easy to classify and repair?
* Reduces the time that is wasted in defect clarification (back-and-forth communication between developer and SQE)
5) Defect Prevention
* Producing information that leads to and supports software process improvements, reducing or eliminating particular kinds of errors
* Is the SQE suggesting process change to avoid future defects and thus helping the developers to learn from their mistakes
6) Automation & repeatability
* Writes automated and repeatable test cases/scripts
* Follows (tracks the execution errors) and understands test script
* is able to walk through the code, understand the logic and debug (when needed)
What do you think about it?
Do you have any other expectation from an SQE / tester?
What could be another way for an SQE to add value to the product development?
- Mukesh
Its nice to see so many attributes.
ReplyDeleteI would like to add a few more
2) Attitude : Should show some enthusiasm to learn by self rather than to be taught by SWE or a PL. Recently it so happenned that an application which a SQE had used in an earlier project was used in our project with some changes. We had never put the teaching schedule for the SQE as we knew that it has been done previously. But the SQE escalated saying that if no teaching is done then they cant do testing.
4) Defect Reporting :
In a phased release some features of application would be released in phase 1 and some in phase 2 ..so on and so forth. SQE should check whether the feature is in the particular phase or not and then do a defect reporting.