Tag Archives | Self-criticism

10 reasons why You are NOT a Professional Tester! — Part 1

By on November 28, 2011 in Management, On-Going Improvement, Testing Intelligence

There are many places where testers are not treated as professionals, in the same level as other members of the development team. We can blame the rest of the world for this, but the truth is that most of the fault falls on us and on how we approach our work.

Look for testers who approach their job professionally and invest time on aligning the value of their work with the needs of the Organizations, and you will see places where the testers are appreciated and treated with professional respect!

What are the reasons many testers are not considered professionals? Some of the answers to this question are inside this post, and the ways to solve these issues are relatively simple and straight-forward!

(This is the first part of this article, I didn’t want to make a post that was too long to read. The second part will follow shortly…)

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Testers!! know your Business (and don’t do that of others!)

By on May 23, 2011 in Best Practices, Bug Reporting

Some time ago I wrote a blog post called “Principles of good bug reporting” that talked about the basic things that make a good bug and helps testers not make the typical mistakes that then to make other members of our teams criticize our bug reports.

Jerry Weinberg commented on this blog saying among other things “I don’t think testers should be prioritizing bugs”, and looking back at what I wrote I now agree with him, I was only half right on asking tester to set their severity and priority grades correctly.

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A tester should know when to Take a Stand!

By on April 12, 2011 in Communication, Management, Test Process

Sometimes we as testers will run into situations where we disagree with the rest of the team. We might thing that a bug should be fixed, or a feature should be redesigned, or even that more tests should be run…
The problem is that many times we are afraid to raise our voices and try to persuade the rest of the team to do what we thing is right. And even when we raise our voices we don’t manage to communicate this need clearly to the rest of our team.
Here are some ideas and examples of how to take a stand and do it in a way that will make your team see your point clearly.

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It’s not them, it’s YOU!

By on October 3, 2010 in Communication, Management, Testing Intelligence

Stop blaming your development for not being able to influence your team as a tester. The change needed depends on you and not on the rest of your team.
Take charge of the value you add to your team and you will see how you start becoming part of the decision making staff.

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A chance to take a look back

By on August 30, 2010 in Best Practices, Communication, Management, Testing Intelligence

After a break of 2 months from posting I found myself reviewing the subjects I’ve talked about in the past in this QABlog. I found some interesting points to revisit briefly before renewing the regular posting.

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Testing the image in the mirror
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Why a good tester needs to be Self-Critical?

By on May 31, 2010 in Communication, Management, Testing Intelligence

Self-criticism is one of the most important traits of good testers, something that allows us not only to communicate better but also to improve your effectiveness as a tester.

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