Before, I was mostly focused on ticking the checkboxes, running through test cases and logging bugs, often without adding much detail to my reports. But something was missing. So, I started shifting my mindset. I started exploring ways to add more depth to my testing. And most importantly, instead of rushing to the next ticket, I started investing time in the “what if?” of the one I was already working on.
What You’ll Learn:
Techniques to move beyond traditional testing.
How small changes in bug reports can make a big impact
Why asking “what-if” is a tester’s secret weapon
After reading, share your thoughts:
What’s your process for writing bug reports?
Have you ever had a wake-up moment in your testing career that made you change your testing strategy?
Thank you for sharing this. That moment when you realize you have been on autopilot really hits home. I think a lot of us have gone through that silent shift from just executing to actively questioning & observing. It is not just about logging bugs anymore but uncovering the story behind them, right?
The big shift happened when I sat in on a post-launch retrospective & one of the stakeholders asked, Why did not we catch this earlier? I realized had technically done everything right, but maybe I had not tested thoughtfully. That’s when I started viewing test cases more like conversation starters rather than finish lines.
“What-if”, That single question opens up so many dimensions like performance, edge cases, user empathy.
“bug reports”, adding short context like, “Here’s why this might matter to the user.” It helps stakeholders prioritize better and gives bugs more than just a fail label.
If this mindset shift has influenced how your team interacts with your testing work? like do developers or PMs treat your input differently now that you are going deeper rather than just ticking boxes?
As for my inputs and opinions are concerned, I would say yes, they do hold more weight in project-related discussions now.
It didn’t happen overnight. Consistently pushing myself and thinking beyond the usual has gradually increased my visibility and made my voice and presence stronger than before.
Reading the book Thinking Fast and Slow was a paradigm shift for me.
I learned that everyone has biases, including myself.
That completely changed my approach from “I am doing the most of testing” towards “My entire team should do testing”.
More brains = more diversity of thinking, more diversity of test ideas etc.
Totally get what you mean! It is easy to fall into that trap of thinking, I have tested it enough, without realizing how much our own biases can limit what we actually see. Getting the whole team involved really does open up more creative thinking & different angles you might have never considered alone.
Also, I have got this to Let’s all own this. That is a big leap & honestly, it makes testing feel more like a team sport than a solo job.
Since making that change, have you noticed your teammates getting more into testing too? do they bring in ideas or spot things they might not have before?
Tbh, the things I tried was on my testing strategies and plans, so the change was majorly reflected on my parts.
There are some changes in team’s perception also toward the testing. They are considering exploratory testing as a critical part of testing and even separate time is alloted for it like couples hours apart from the time allocated for functional testing and api testing.
Also team is now more aggressive toward unit testing, adding evidences as screenshots or screen recording or api responses is mandatory in every PR else they will not get reviewed or approved.
Even for me, it was and it will always be a completely different moment when I became part of the community, and MoT was the first community I had joined last year.
1 Year later, I’m now part of many communities…but yeah, first one always remains special.
