We often hear this phrase in a statement from our peers or colleagues across teams, irrespective of their job title. “It’s not my work, I am a tester, and my job is testing the product, and I will not do other stuff apart from it.”
What do you think as a Tester?
Most of them think that the testing is simply finding the difference between Expected and Actual results and anything beyond that like below is not my job.
- User Experience Problems
- Requirement Problems
- Data Inconsistency Problems
- Compatibility Problems
Being Quality Engineers/Quality Assurance people, we should take expansive views of each and every perspective of the product.
Quality Engineer Mission Should be,
Our mission is to inform our team best of our ability, about any problems that could adversely affect the product’s value. The value defines the importance.
As a tester, if we consider the whole equation of a product like how it is designed, implemented, tested, sold, used, maintained, and upgraded in cycles. it will add good quality value to the product.
Frustration on Testing!
Another situation where the tester will get frustrated when placed in a difficult situation like below,
- When the tester finds an issue apart from product requirements and developers might claim that it will not happen to the customer.
- When you find sporadic issues.
- Whenever your fellow developer provides bug fixes at the last minute of release which rushes your testing.
- When the tester reports usability issues that are not acceptable to developers.
- When you report forecasting issues considering futuristic environment change.
In the above cases, You could say it’s not your job to interpret ambiguous specifications or to test something in such a rush but consider first whether your expectations are realistic and whether there’s an alternative way to get what you need.
In another way, the developers in your project team should consider you as a value instead of a troublemaker.
Don’t expect everyone to understand about testing!
Everybody in your team or organization is expertise in a specific domain or area, they have their own perspective about the same.
when you get into their domain, your perspective is going to be different(it is nature).
It doesn’t mean they don’t care about quality or Quality engineering practices. They probably don’t understand the impact.
An essential part of the role of testing is to explain testing to our clients/Product Owners/Change Control boards/Sponsors. If you do so they will come and defend/support us on the stand.
As Quality Engineers, our thoughts should be shared in a polite and respectful manner. Don’t expect everyone to understand about testing! instead, explain the pain points behind your thoughts and decision(Process and quality engineering ground rules).
Be a good steward, instead a burden to the team. Stewardship behavior is common for all sorts of professional approaches.
Happy Testing!
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