Name your 3 top testing skills. ONLY 3, you can do it

[mcgovernaine (Áine McGovern)]

Name your 3 top testing skills. ONLY 3, you can do it.

We had some rather interesting answers to this request on Twitter and LinkedIn. I really want to know what your 3 are…

[devtotest (Joe)]

Learning
Imagination
Tenacity

[robertday (Robert)]

Deviousness
Pessimism
Memory

[wildtests (Stu J)]

Care
Curiosity
Courage

[chris_dabnor (christian dabnor)]

Creativity
Affability
Passion

4th would have either been singing or dancing.

[brian_seg (Brian Segurson)]

Systems thinking
Bug advocacy
Learning

[undevelopedbruce (Bruce Bruce)]

Asking Questions
Writing Things Down
General Weirdness

[katepaulk]

Not knowing where to find the box to think outside of
Serendipity (i.e. accidentally landing on the scenario that will find problems without even thinking about it)
Having a brain (and using it)

[testerawesome (Luke Liu)]

Be aware of the power of our Tester Mindset
Keep focusing on risks and quality
Know the right time to STOP testing

[mcgovernaine (Áine McGovern)]

Interesting skills, I think Deviousness might be my favourite tbf

[mcgovernaine (Áine McGovern)]

Is Serendipity a skill that’s repeatable? Or is the skill curiosity?

[mcgovernaine (Áine McGovern)]

General Weirdness for the win.

[katepaulk]

Serendipity is a skill - it requires knowing what you’re doing to the extent that you bypass conscious reasoning to land straight on whatever the problem happens to be. Which would make it something of a composite skill since it’s melding observation, general weirdness, knowledge of users, and then picking the one aspect of all of that which is most likely to be fragile.

I can repeat it a lot.

[priti_testrig (Priti Gaikwad)]

Learning…

I love to learn new things…

[holytester (Dimitrios Manikas)]

Memory
Attention to Details
Learning Capacity

[lrossell (Lynn)]

Integration Testing
Interrogating Developers for information
Reading between the lines (Requirements)

[mcgovernaine (Áine McGovern)]

I’m now thinking of this Masterclass with Alexandra Schladebeck - Exploratory Testing: What are microheuristics and how can you find and use them? I love that you’ve taken Serendipity as a skill. Makes me happy. I think we shift the definition, from an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident, to an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident repeatedly on purpose

[arcigo (Armando Cifuentes González)]

Curiosity, I always ask, perfectionist

[raks (Rakesh Arrepu)]

• Imaginative
• Experiment
• Curiosity

[m.pawloski (Mary)]

User perspective
“Combativeness” (I try and back up what I find with proof rather than opinion)
Common sense (this works well in combination with user perspective)