Introduction:
Whilst testers have explicit skills they can learn, there are subtle qualities or traits a tester can develop to succeed in their role. During the lesson, Essentials meetup hosts shared a series of different traits such as curiosity and adaptability as examples of traits a tester might have. For this activity, we are going to expand the list.
Purpose:
Identification of beneficial traits a tester can have will allow you to develop them in yourself so you can excel as a tester. You’ll also appreciate that not everything a tester does is grounded in specific technical skills and knowledge.
Activity:
Spend some time reflecting on what traits you feel a tester needs to be successful, this goes beyond searching for what a tester needs to learn.
You can ask other testers on The Club or on Slack as well. It’s worth mentioning that not all testers share the same traits and some rely on specific traits more than others
Once you’ve identified some traits you feel are useful for a tester, share them on this thread.
A good tester should have good knowledge of the product they are testing, excellent verbal communication skills, written communication skills, understanding of the tools used for testing and analytical skills.
Similarly to the adaptability mentioned in the lesson, I think a willingness to learn is a valuable trait to succeed in a tester role. With technologies evolving and emerging as they are I expect there would be continuous learning required to stay at the forefront.
I can also see a value in a bit of healthy skepticism, in the sense that things should be questioned rather than assumed.
Apart from what was discussed so far, these are some additional traits that I believe testers should also have:
Thoroughness - As testers, we are supposed to make sure the product is as clean and user-acceptable as possible before it is released. While no one is perfect and bugs/issues always slip through, when we are thorough, we are in a position to do our jobs as effectively as possible with the best possible results
Persistence - Ties into the previous one a bit, but as testers, it is very easy for us to think that we are done with whatever we are currently testing and move on to something else. We need to dedicate as much effort and time to whatever we are testing before we are satisfied with what we’ve found
Perceptiveness - While many consider it a trait that we are born with, it can also be trained. We can train ourselves to get a good eye for detail, which can help us not only when we are looking for bugs, but also when we are trying to establish rapport with the developers and when we are trying to learn new things about our jobs.
Curiosity - wanting to know why does this thing do this and not something else is a key trait for a tester that’s been tasked with providing information on the thing (system, document, requirement, etc)
Communication - once you’ve observed a particular behaviour then knowing how to communicate that observation in a way that’s both concise, productive, and valuable (to the appropriate interested person) is another key trait.
Collaboration - now that you’ve communicated your observation you must be willing and pro-active in working with other people to understand how the observation affects the value assigned to the deliverable.
I am new to software testing and have no industrial experience but so far I have learned that a key trait on software testing is to look at the project as a whole and understand it from the beggining, understand the abstract idea all the way to the expected result.
Think as if the project was your on idea and deliver to the user what you would expect to be delivered to you if you were the user.
One of the main reasons I’m interested in Testing is that I hopefully already possess a lot of transferable skills. I’ve worked in Internal Communications in the past but mostly I’ve been an administrator (Environment, Education, Finance, Safeguarding), which has led me to be very organised, versatile, prioritise, and communicate to people on all levels.
I’m also a novelist and have a creative and curious mind. I actually think novel writing has similarities to coding (and testing) in that you need to have a very formulaic and structured approach, and if you change one thing in the story it can affect a whole bunch of other things. You also need a lot of persistence and perseverance to iron out every single error and see the project through to completion. And finally, you’re constantly putting yourself in other people’s shoes; both your characters and the readers. You need to consider how much information you need to give the reader, what do they already know or suspect? What idea are you leading them towards that you can twist later on. In a writing sense, the reader is your end user and I’d hope this thought process transfers well to a Testing environment.
I agree with all the ones mentioned above as well as the lesson. I would like to add attention to detail as i believe this has been helping me in my role since i became a Tester. Sometimes we can miss those minor things that can go to cause an app to break, so during manual testing i make sure i pay attention to everything as well as when i am writing my automation scripts.
I am also new to testing and I think that need to improve goes nice with traits that were mentioned in this lesson. You must not “stand still” and think that you have learned enough.
Flexibility, be prepared to jump between projects or priorities. Similar to adaptability.
Stoicism, ability to keep going in the face of potential adversity. Similar to pragmatism.
Positive/constructive. You are potentially looking for faults and how to ‘break’ a system, which can feel negative, so try to approach it positively. ‘It’s not broken, it’s going to be better!’
‘End-user’ oriented, ability to approach the system like an end-user.
Somewhat sceptical, trust in builds/fixes is gained, should not be expected.
I think a good tester should be a natural problem solver, and be able to come up with creative solutions when problems arise. They should also be able to communicate effectively as this is vital when sharing progress and having a group understanding of the results of the testing.
I think some traits that would be useful to a tester would be organization, a good communicator, and detail oriented. Being able to be organized in writing out test cases will help the tester to be more thorough and see where they may be missing steps that when executed could help with more detailed testing.
Being a good communicator is necessary because you work on a team. It is helpful to be able to be able to effectively communicate your findings or to be able to ask the appropriate questions in order to design better test cases.
Being detail oriented will help with capturing the appropriate level of detail need in order to communicate bugs or how a test case preformed.
I think a worthwhile trait of a tester is the constant strive to learn. If you always willing to learn then you are ensuring new knowledge will not leave you behind.
Tester always need to focus on the requirements based on that he need to test the product. Tester need some logical thinking , good communication skills between teams.
In addition to those in the lesson, I think it will be important to be inquisitive, proactive, be able to prioritise, organised, logical and observant.
If a software tester does their job perfectly they won’t even be noticed, but when something goes wrong they may be blamed for “not doing their jobs properly”.
Resilience would be very helpful in coping with the hostility from users and stress of looming deadlines.
Another good trait is being assertive and making sure you voice is being heard in meetings.
I feel like a good tester should have other skills such as:
Good communication to convert information to other teams in a way where everyone understands. Understand terminology when apart of a technical conversation or meeting when needed.
Attention to detail - The more information you are able to process as a tester, you are more likely to report most bugs and issues avoiding things from being missed and noted later in future; this saves more time and make you more reliable to other teams
To effectively produce various reports - most team are really dependant on the information given in a report. If a tester is skilled and has experience of how to deliver a report that is clear, precise and detailed, they will be able to cater to many teams that require different requirements of the report.