6 Traits of An Excellent Software Tester
Software testers are the spine of all software testing company because they are the ones who are responsible to ensure the quality of the product or project. But how do you spot the ‘best of the best’ among software testers? Testing isn’t for everybody. It takes a technically-minded, creative person to be a quality software tester. While growth and implementation of the software are crucial to these organizations, there is a growing need for good software testers who love testing.
The requirement for software testing became significant as companies found that they could save more with the execution of a testing process. To thrive as a great software tester, one needs these six amazing qualities at their disposal:
Ability to Systematise and Prioritise
In the STLC (Software Testing Life Cycle), software testers are completely loaded with the testing activity. Consider a scenario where there are countless bugs to validate in testers plate, then first you necessitate prioritizing your vital tests which will assist you to make test execution smooth and based on priorities. Do not carry out the test cases without systematizing and deciding the priority. “Test for quality”. As you know, software testing involves a lot of artifacts, documentation, communication, and timelines. So, if you prioritize and execute the significant test cases then you do not need to cut down the cases in time pressure situations. You should bear in mind the historical data before manage, prioritize, and organize the test cases for execution.
Good tester should be a Quick Learner
Great software testers must be well acquainted with all sorts of technology. They must always keep up with the newest technology, open to learning new automation tools, use the newest techniques while testing, learn to come up with fresh ideas, and learn from their experiences. The duty of a great tester is not just to validate software programs but need to be passionate about their work and provide proposals to improvise the product. Software testing is difficult because you need to learn new things continuously. It’s not about gaining the knowledge and proficiency of a specific scripting language; it’s all about keeping up with the current techniques, technology, about learning to create ideas, about learning from experience, about learning automation tools, and in the end about constantly thriving.
Great tester must be Client-Oriented
Good Testers must always try to make their customers happy. They must recognize that clients don’t possess the same technical skills as software testers. Customers may not have the expertise in the technology or domain and may not have thought of all the circumstances and use cases that may come up. They must make the better use of their software testing skills bearing in mind their customer’s mindset while delivering the product their customers in fact demand. They must have the sound technical knowledge to execute tests on a regular basis, find out which tests must be automated at which layer, utilize the accessibility of various testing tools, provide valuable metrics to the organization and choose the suitable and latest set of tools to facilitate the testing effort.
Good tester should be smart at Reporting
For the complete day, you worked and worked and executed numerous test cases and marked them as either fail or pass in the test management tool. What would be your outcomes at the end of the day? The reality is that nobody would be interested in considering how many numbers of test cases you executed. People want a precise and short description of your complete task. So it would be always better to write your status report to the client as – what you found (with bug numbers), what you did (at max 3 liners), and what you will do after that.
Great tester should be Transparent in Testing
In the STLC (Software Testing Life Cycle), basically it is not possible to complete 100% testing, so never promise or don’t say on paper that 100% testing coverage will be completed. You should not concentrate on the 100% testing coverage but you must concentrate on the quality of testing. You should be transparent as the testing and QA activities, testing progress should be accessible to published or accessible to concern persons. Prior to starting every project you should recognize the threat associated with it and design and execute the test cases considering the risk. In the risk management, there are some significant things are linked with it Risk recognition, Risk analysis & Risk mitigation.
Should be a Good Observer-Keep track all things
A great tester should scrutinize and examine every single thing happening around you. They should keep track of all the minor and major things on your project. Observe the method of developing the code, kinds of testing and its purpose. Monitor and recognize the test progress and make essential changes if it is off the track in terms of testing activities or schedule.
In short, software testing takes a unique set of skills. You can hire qualitative dedicated QA team that comprises both soft skills and hard skills.
