So in 2016, I started researching into whether Universities taught Testing as I was finding graduates had no idea about our amazing careers. This lead to the realisation that a lot of what makes great testers canāt be taught in a lecture theatre as part of a course. So I asked the community then to come up with a list of the most important things that make a good tester. Below was the top 5 back in 2016, are there other skills which would be seen as more important now or as important?
Curiosity and Question Asking
Good Communication
Problem Solving & Analytical Thinking
Continuous Learning
Coaching & Facilitating
Would love to find out if there are other skills which we now need when starting outā¦
Thanks @sjprior. As a tester who wants to grow their career, itās all good and well to see skills listed in this way. In truth though, the list by itself is a bit vague and doesnāt help me to take action at all. Sorry if that sounds negative. For each point, I am more interested in āHow?ā for a tester. All those points could apply equally to a developer or heck, a successful anybody in that case.
My brain: How do I cultivateā¦
Curiosity and Question Asking?
Good Communication?
Problem Solving & Analytical Thinking?
Continuous Learning?
Coaching & Facilitating?
Now even though Iāve had 2 years experience, I still donāt think I am in a position to say whether or not I am an awesome tester. In any case, this is what I would say to anyone who is new to the testing world (with your 2016 list).
Cultivate curiosity and question asking. For everything you are given to test, ask āWhyā for everything. Why is criteria developed in this way? Why isnāt it done in this other way? Why do I have to to test it this way? Why canāt we test it now but later?
Cultivate Communication Skills. Notice when you disagree with people, how do you respond? How could you respond better? Notice when you spend too much time in meetings or calls. Can you spot where time is wasted on emailing? How do people see you? (are you approachable?)
Cultivate Problem Solving & Analytical Thinking. How much of your work is autopilot and boredom? If you answer all of it then thatās wrong. You need to be proactive, ask yourself what areas have you not explored or applied?
Continuous Learning. Read MoT daily, subscribe to RSS/emails in the testing world. Cem Kaner, James Bach. But donāt just read random stuff, how does it apply to your work? Keep a learning diary to keep track of your own progress.
Coaching & Facilitating - Iām not a coach but even as an average tester like me, you can post on forums here and share your thoughts and knowledge on your testing journey. You can teach your tester colleagues how to do something better.
For 2020, I donāt know what the next top 5 or 10 skills list will be. But my hope is if anyone responds to this post, please expand and donāt just put āBe a problem solverā. What does that mean on a day to day basis?
I hope that has helped people here, donāt just read the list, do the list.
Hey @pwong, absolutely, this is not the complete detail and I intend to build out a blog series on the top 5 skills. I did a few blogs and a talk on these topics before but didnāt dive into the details of how you could hone each of these skills.
Thanks for sharing the blog Simon. I would agree with @jesper that the list is still relevant, but maybe each point is relevant in a different way? The context has now changed with more focus on remote work or other testing trends that I donāt know about (Iāll leave that for experts to input on).
For example for remote work, āGood Communicationā to me means jumping on calls with team mates (and relevant parties) to get things done. Iāve seen bad examples where people ended up spending too much time in instant messengers (me included). Itās worse when there are disagreements in the chats, you canāt read people through text. Those are better placed in actual calls so they can be settled smoothly.
Anyway, I will wait for the experts to comment. I will be interested in what they have to say since leaders have better foresight than underling testers like me.
This happens alot (re people using email/chats rather than calling each other up). I would say to anyone that starts to see this happen, arrange a call
The skills I would say are 1) courage - donāt be afraid to ask questions. Thereās never a silly question 2) listening skills - be able to REALLY listen to the customer and what they want (that might be getting info from your product owner and asking thought probing questions). 3) collaborator - talk to your team members and work through problems together. 4) critical thinking - asking āwhat ifā and āwhyā 5) understanding of what risk based testing is and how to apply itā¦ Thereās a few
Understanding your product and for example, if you touch this bit of code - it will impact another area is also worth exploring with your team. I think you get better at risk based testing through experience, so being open with your team about risk is a good idea.
Other things like OWASP and the top 10 are another thing worth exploring.
Hope that helps in some way! Iām sure lots of other people would be happy to advise. We could start another post to see what other resources the community can share if you like?
Agree this is still a good list Simon - you know my thoughts on how important visibility is to a testers success, but as this could fall under continuous Learning as well as communication it doesnāt change the high level list for me.
So Iāve tried to revamp MakeATester this year with the help of my Testing Peers co-hosts. We have agreed to collectively contact all 110 universities which teach Computer Scienceā¦
So far, we have contacted 50, only 7 have testing related module and only 25 of them teach anything around Software Engineering.
Once we have finished contacting all of them, we will pull it all together and identify 1 or 2 universities we could work with to enhance their testing related offerings.
As far as the skills listed above, not sure how we teach them, but we can help grow them by ensuring the right type of learning, engaging them and unlocking the willing-ness to find out more
