What’s a quality testing trick, technique, approach or idea that you wish you had known about earlier?
Perhaps, you wish it hadn’t taken you so long to learn, yet maybe now you can make up for it by sharing it with others. 
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It has to be What Is Exploratory Testing? PQIP: Four Simple Words To Level Up Your | Ministry of Testing . PQIP is labelled as an exploratory testing technique but its much more than that. I only introduced it this year and using it provided organic shift left conversations and gave Quality Engineers the empowerment to discuss design and feature ideas instead of being invited to “testing only” discussions.
I only found out about it when @simon_tomes referred to it in a club thread and thought it would be an ideal technique to use to get us involved in evaluating a prototype. It was huge success and it literally changed our perspective when talking about quality going forward.
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Another important one, and this certainly took some time in quality testing to come to: Testing riskiest areas first should be given precedence over stepping through requirements. Early in my career, I would spend equal amounts of time on everything-everything with more trivial consequences. I later realized the big time saver is prioritized by risk, complexity, and user impact and gets the biggest bugs out of the way sooner.
Another would be the power of “what if” questions and to think like the user, not like the documentation author. Sometimes the worst bugs lie in the “unwritten” test cases the real users are going to put to.
I wish someone told me this a lot earlier because this change in mindset would have made me a much keener tester and a more worthwhile resource to the team. Now I always pass this on to the new testers: Do not test just to prove; test more to explore.
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E2E test automation won’t solve the world hunger, like some managers may think.
Creating a test script that passes is the easiest part, either using AI or doing them manually with good knowledge of the DOM and the AUT .
The moment you create a test script that is maintainable, with a real UI and Backend cover and reliable (not flaky), then that’s a win!
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I believe being Quality person - focus should also be on white box analysis as much as it is on Black box side in earlier days and it naturally comes with time.
My pro tip would be to get involve in tech stack of the product. What services, what language, what authentication mechanisms are used, what are risks involved, how APIs are communicating, everything that goes beyond Black Box!
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First of all, that it’s OK if some things don’t work as expected, in all (or even some) circumstances. Occasionally it’s just not worth the effort. This one took a Good While™ for me to really get.
Second of all this question, especially after having investigated the context a bit and come up with … doubts: “Do we need to do this at all?”
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This is a great example…and for us, one we’ve been thinking about, as in, how to surface some of these tools/approaches/heuristics/etc.
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Exploratory testing and early operational acceptance testing was a game changer in my last role !
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For me it was learning to work with (and through) software engineers. How to engage with them to bake quality in, engage in systems thinking and drive for quality engineering.
Coupled with that is learning how to take myself out of the actual testing and instead let it be okay for others to be the hands on ones 
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One quality testing lesson I wish I had learned earlier is the importance of saying no to anything being pushed directly to production without thorough validation. Early on, I felt pressure to move fast, especially when juggling new features or landing pages, but I learned that taking the time to test properly and communicate concerns prevents defects and builds trust with the team. Adopting this approach not only ensures higher software quality but also makes managing multiple projects much smoother.
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