Probably when you start your career as a QA specialist you are excited about changes and challenges that you face. At the same time you could be warned from making some mistakes and breaking the project process.
First of all, it’s important to understand that after starting your career you are still inside the learning process and making mistakes is just a part of this process.Besides, making mistakes is learning.
Let’s take a look at the most common mistakes and try to understand how to avoid them:
- Lack of communication
- Try to fix the bug yourself
- Don’t think that you are a multi-tasking expert
- Writing bad bug reports
- Be afraid of asking questions
- Don’t give up
- Stop learning
- Begin testing before understanding the scope and requirements
- Fear of making mistakes
- Using the same data
1. Lack of communication
Communication is key to Software development, and therefore also to Software testing.
One of the most important skills a beginner QA needs to have is the ability to communicate well. He or she needs to be able to express what they are thinking or doing to many different audiences – Developers, Project Managers, Business Analytics, Product Owners, etc., all of whom have a different view of the problem. If a tester is unable to communicate he or she will get in trouble pretty quickly.
2. Try to fix the bug yourself
This is a basic and fundamental rule of testing: don’t try to do the developers work. It’s their job to find the root causes of the problem by debugging and fixing it. A tester needs to create a good test report with detailed steps to reproduce and actual conditions, screenshots and videos, so that the developer would be able to reproduce a problem.
3. Don’t think that you are a multi-tasking expert
Some testers really believe that they have this “special skill”, but in reality multitasking will not help you finish your work sooner. You’ll finish your work faster by focusing on one work item after another.
It’s common scenario when you get several “absolutely urgent” tasks at the end of a test cycle. Your teammates or colleagues would urge you to finish this work yesterday rather than today. Don’t try to do all the work at once. Try to estimate and prioritize your work and discuss real deadlines with your colleagues on the call. After that just finish the work piece by piece.
4. Writing bad bug reports
There are two kinds of reports that make your colleagues unhappy: bug reports that are filled with irrelevant information and bug reports that don’t contain enough detail.
Make sure your bug reports always answer the “What?”, “How?” and “When?” questions. Please avoid making grammar mistakes, misspelling, your personal opinion and incomplete sentences.
5. Be afraid of asking questions
Clarify all details and conditions, listen carefully and try to understand the big picture. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and think that exactly your question is the worst on the call. Your task should be clear for you.
6. Don’t give up
At the end of a test cycle or before a release, there is a temptation to close some defects because it’s an edge case or it’s not “easy to reproduce”.
Don’t forget that your priority is quality. Always analyze risks for the project. It doesn’t mean that you should insist on fixing every minor issue before release. But all critical issues that could affect projects should be found and fixed.
7. Stop learning
Software testing is a huge field of knowledge. Every day you’ll face new challenges where you have to prove that you are willing to learn and improve your testing skills.
Also additional skills and certificates will give you obvious benefits in the future like higher position in a team or better salary.
8. Begin testing before understanding the scope and requirements
It’s very important to understand the scope and the requirements of a new product before you start testing.You should read project documentation, talk to your team members, or use a quick exploratory test session to gather all the information you need to start with a structured and sophisticated test approach. It’s critically important to know what you are doing and what to do next.
9. Fear of making mistakes
Sometimes you can make a mistake and miss some defects. Remember that everyone makes mistakes, just pick yourself up and continue your job. Try not to repeat such mistakes in the future and remember all circumstances and actions that can lead to this mistake again, try to avoid them in the future.
10. Using the same data
Sometimes testers fall into the trap of the so-called Pesticide Paradox. Basically they repeat the same test cases over and over again with data, yet they don’t realize that these tests have stopped detecting new bugs.
QA’s are trying to make sure that the product will behave as expected in the real world, so cover as many different scenarios as possible.
And finally, don’t forget the rule: “Work hard – party hard”. Reward yourself after a job well done and be pretty sure that you deserve it.
WRITTEN BY: Alex Kulko, Speroteck QA team.