IS TESTING A DOCUMENTATION WORK

Every Tester (even Non-Testers) has their own opinion on the term Testing. It cannot be compromised by all people with a one definition.

What testers actually do?

 It depends upon the role that the testers play and the organization standard they follow. But the two common things that most of us do are “Test and make a Report” of it. Here, I am not going to write about how to test and how to make a report. I just want to mention about how we see the job?

The Programmer spends most of his/her time in writing code. But how about a Testers who work on the same product?

As Testers someway we need to find out our time in making the documentation for 

Test strategy

Test scenarios

Test Ideas/Test cases

Bug Report

And what else….

Out of all we need to find a time to test.

It is always better to know, what people (whom we are writing for) need from us and how they want the document to be. If possible prepare the document based on it. Rather than assuming that people would love to read the document that we have prepared. Don’t make people panic to read by submitting the lengthy document which doesn't interest them. Be specific in sharing the information that you want to share and make it as simple as you could.

Always focus to make a report (any report) with clear and more informative. But not in the intention of impressive. Informative makes impressive.

Which part of the work (Testing or Documenting) playing a major role in the testers’ job?  

It’s your choice. To me both are a tester’s work. Our documentation speaks about our investigation. But which plays a high priority. Again Documenting or Testing?

To test we need those entire mentioned document. Because that play as a proof that we conducted a test. Also it pays a ways to do our test better and also to ensure our coverage.  It is Okay, when all those jobs are carried by a group of people. But it will not be fair if those jobs are supposed to be done by a minimum number of people. Whether the jobs are carried out by maximum or minimum number of people, spending more time in making a document is “WASTE OF TIME”. Spending the time in focusing the document to make it fancy would never give you a job satisfaction to a great extends.  Instead of spending more time on documentation it would be better to spend some of those times in testing a product. Always try to make the document as simple as possible rather than focusing to make it as a fancy. Writing some “X” number of test cases or “N” number of scenarios would impress the stake holders. But it doesn't make productive when the documentation that was prepared is a “BUGGY” one.

It is always good to know how to balance a time between a testing (investigating) and documenting. The most important is to know to make documentation as simple as possible with more informative.  Something I wish to say is that

Practice to make a document more effective in short time. Or create a template of your own that could cover the all the necessary information.

Spend more time on testing the product and make a work more productive.

So, documentation is a part of the tester’s job.

If you are already doing that “kudos”. If you have something better than what I have shared please share with me.  I see “Sharing is Caring”.

Thank you

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