Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Good Testers Vs Bad Testers

Hi Readers, Wish you all a Happy New Year. My heart full thanks to all people who really helped me to continue my writing. Though I have the passion to write, still I was looking for the support from people to share their feedback to help my writing better. Lot more changes happened in my writing style just because of the feedback you provided. I didn't see those as a feedback, I used to see that as a “caring”. Yes, it’s just because of you now I am writing this as my 37th blog. Oh. What an “Awesome experience”.
As I said in my previous blog,  I started blogging with the help of my colleagues guidance. Though they are busy in time, they are still helping me by managing their times. Oh. What an awesome colleagues I have.
Let’s get into the topic. Smile

Good and bad testers
This article is purely based on my opinion and it is not written in the intention of pinpointing someone else. What I have shared is purely based on my knowledge that I gained/witnessed in this past (1.8 years). I do apologies if any of my points I mentioned are wrong and I would be happy if you share your thoughts for which you say I am wrong.

 Good testers:
  1. Knows the importance of having good communication with people
  2. Share their knowledge
  3. Keep updating their skills
  4. Learn  about the product before questioning
  5. Set their own principles and they will follow those principles.
  6. Say no to blind believing.
  7. Will not be compromised with the bug they find that are not fixed.
  8. Work for product quality
  9. Know when to use tools and what tool to be used.
  10. Define his/job by defining on his/her own
  11. Make good bug report.
  12. Professionalism is seen in the report
  13. They act(work) like a good thinker
  14. They interact with social network
  15. They make their bugs fixed or they keep tracking the updates.
  16. See bug as a problem in the product.
  17. They provide the details as much as possible to help the developers to fix the issues quickly.  

 Bad testers:
  1.  Don’t communicate because they are scared or don’t know the value of it.
  2.   Don’t share just because of “Ego”.    
  3. Don’t have the passion to learn new thing
  4.  Don’t question and say yes to all what their lead/manager say even after knowing it will not work  well.
  5.  Don’t have principles in their life (career).
  6.   Blind believer. They don’t have trust on their thoughts.
  7.  They compromise with the issues if the developers are his/her friend and don’t want to hurt them by  any more.
  8.   Work for monthly salary (only intention).
  9.    Always go with tools no matter it could be of any tools
  10.    Define job by referring some reference material.
  11.    Bug reporting contains only the snapshot with max file size.
  12.    Professionalism is not seen in the report.
  13.    They act(work) like a tool
  14.    Don’t interact in any social network
  15.    Don’t care about the bug they reported. They don’t track any updates.
  16.    See bug as a credit for their job.
  17.    Blindly send the bug with no clear information about it.     

  

3 comments:

  1. Hi Pradeep,

    Interesting lists. I'd like to give some feedback on your "good" list.

    Good #4 - How can a tester learn about the product without asking questions? Questions don't happen after we learn, they are a tool for learning.

    Good #7. It is not my decision whether a bug is fixed or not. If the business decides to accept the application with a number of issues, where they decide not to fix all reported issues, that doesn't make me a bad tester?

    Good #8. Do we work for product quality? Or to provide information about product quality? I think there's a difference.

    Good #17. If we always provided "as much [information] as possible" we'd be wasting a lot of time, both the tester and the developer. We only need to report *enough* information. I think a good tester knows how much enough is.

    I'd be curious to see you think a bit deeper on some of your points here too. Things like:

    Does it matter how a good tester learns about the product? Do they have to do that in a certain way?

    Does it matter what their principles are? Or do any principles make them a good tester?

    What do you mean by a good bug report?

    What do you mean by a good thinker?

    What do you mean by professionalism?

    Kind regards,
    Katrina

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    2. Hi Katrina,
      Good #4 - How can a tester learn about the product without asking questions? Questions don't happen after we learn; they are a tool for learning.
      How can you question without having any knowledge on that product? It could be taken in either way. To learn better we need to question. I agree, “Questioning is a tool for learning. It doesn’t mean that when someone question more has learned a lot. Questioning should be a meaningful one. To do so we need to have some knowledge on that product (when the product is new to us)
      Questions don't happen after we learn; I don’t think so. It’s like we are setting a boundary for learning.


      Good #7. It is not my decision whether a bug is fixed or not. If the business decides to accept the application with a number of issues, where they decide not to fix all reported issues, that doesn't make me a bad tester?

      If you don’t take the responsibility (care) of the bug you find, then who will care for your bug. Yes, all bugs may or may not be fixed. Bug finding alone is not the only responsibility of the tester. Making it fixed cost a lot. I believe “The single bug that are reported and are fixed is worth more than the 100 reported bugs that are not fixed yet”. So, I own the responsibility for the bug I find. When I feel it is crucial I will try to convince the stake holder or any concerned people about the risk of it.
      I believe no people will deliver a car when I say the break system has some problem. It’s just for an example.


      Good #8. Do we work for product quality? Or to provide information about product quality? I think there's a difference.
      Yes. There is a difference. All those information you provide will have more worth when your intention
      Is to deliver a better product. Again it is purely based on testers.

      Good #17. If we always provided "as much [information] as possible" we'd be wasting a lot of time, both the tester and the developer. We only need to report *enough* information. I think a good tester knows how much enough is.
      Giving good information about the bug will help the developers to identify the bug easily. The purpose is to not to spend more time to find the part of the code for fixing it I don’t know how the developers will feel it would be a waste of time. I believe we can’t confirm the information is more enough to identify the issues unless a developer gets to know about the issue.
      Does it matter how a good tester learns about the product? Do they have to do that in a certain way?
      Yes.it matters a lot. Let me know in what ways a testers will be considered as a good tester
      What do you mean by a good bug report?
      When the developers feel my report has enough information to identify the bug and make it fixed.

      What do you mean by professionalism?
      I believe, All what I have mentioned in the good tester list are called as professionalism.

      Regards,
      Pradeep Lingan

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