Chronicles Of Testing

Audience – Testers, Developers, Business Owners and others who are reading this article Scenario – Actions and reactions to a rejected defect by the team Key takeaway points – Amplify your productivity at work by sharing all that you do as part of your role. Ask for sufficient time required to perform each of these testing tasks. Tester The defect we log is at times not accepted as a valid one. At times it simply is not reproducible. There are occasions when a server restart can fix a server error encountered on a web page. But the same is not conveyed to a tester, unless the team has to raise a request every time the server is restarted. Dev team - Do you keep your testers in loop at all times when you make changes to the delivered code? Testers - Do you ask for information on what fixed the defect? And say no to accommodating frequent changes to the delivered code. It is important for the entire team to be able to COMMUNICATE and be INVOLVED wherever an...

Testing is performed mostly based on initial assumptions made about the application under development/test. Specially, if a tester is involved in the initial stages of the product life cycle then clarifying the assumptions made forms a part of the testing activities. In order to clarify the assumptions made, it becomes necessary for the testing team to be an integral part of the project discussion meetings throughout the duration of the project, be it the meetings during product discovery stage, architecture review board meetings, change request meets and those that happen during the product design and development phase. Preparation for testing begins much before the requirements take the form of a functional requirement specification document. Based on the assumptions made testers start to gather information, set up the test environment and test. And while doing so, we may make more assumptions. How to convert the assumptions made early into valid test ideas? If you are involv...

It may so happen that in the busyness of trying to achieve n(insert any random number here) test case execution per day, one may lose the childlike curiosity to view a product or learn from it. Unless, we crave for newness in learning, questioning, implementing, listening and to be wowed by it - testing hasn't gotten curious enough yet. Testing skills can be enhanced by many ways: Testing solo Pair testing Testing with a team Participating in bug bashes Reading a book Reviewing bug reports Learning from a mentor The list is not exhaustive. We all learn from many sources and in unique ways. What have we learnt new in testing today? This question can haunt if we do not practice to hone testing skills everyday. Practice here can mean practicing to observe, test, listen, read, explore, record and report the findings. Testing ideas can be derived from such practices. Expected result of a test case may seem obvious, but each user’s behavior isn...

What is Software Testing? – Heck! Define it yourself. I have been thinking about an answer for the same but have found it hard to convey in one statement. Am I a born, reborn or a resurrected tester? I hope to find out for myself and the below article is an attempt at this. Testing – I will be using the word testing as I continue to write and as you readers read, read it as Software Testing. Here are my definitions of software testing. 1) Testing is a responsibility of representing information which is an essential necessity for bettering the application/product under test. 2) Testing is to learning to think well. 3) Testing is to understand the various contexts a system can be applicable in. 4) Testing is identifying the subtleties and extremities where the system can be used. 5) Testing is craving to dig deep into the system to look in the nook and corner to project the information that can awaken the product owner and the user to surprises and a wow-ness that...