Time: 1 hour: 15-minute meeting per team member and 15-minute reflection.
Purpose: In this activity, you will meet key members of your team. As a tester, you are part of a team. Building up a rapport and an understanding of your team members expectations and views on testing and quality is essential to your role as a software tester.
Introduction: You have started to establish your own definition of testing, but everyone in your team has their own understanding. For you to be able to advocate for your views and to work harmoniously as part of a team, you need to find out about the current development process and gain insight into key team members’ perspectives of testing and quality.
Your team members will also be an excellent support network for you. Having good working relationships your team will allow you to bounce ideas off them and collaboratively build great software.
The skills gained in this activity will be useful to you throughout your career as a software tester, it’s an excellent idea to meet key members of any new project or at any new place of work.
Task: Identify 3 key members of your team and invite them to have a cup of tea for a one-to-one chat about testing and the current software process at your place of work. Consider meeting folks with a range of job titles including:
- Product Owner
- CTO
- Developer
- Test/Dev lead
- Test/Dev Manager
- Scrum master
- Tester
- Business analysts
- Project Manager
- DevOps Engineers
- Support
Ask each key member:
- What the current software development process looks like to them
- What their current views are on Testing
- What is quality to them and the most important aspect of quality to them?
Reflect on their answers and how this will affect you as a software tester. Think about:
- What are the similarities and differences between different team members views? Why do you think this is?
- How will their views affect the project?
- How will their views affect how you work and communicate with them?
- How can this team member support you and your testing?
- How can you support them in achieving their quality goal?
Be ready to feedback your findings at the next Essentials session.