Trying to teach testing skills and judgement - eBook

I read yesterday an interesting ebook on teaching testing skills written by Rikard Edgren.

The ebook can be found on the testhuddle.com site(site registration is required for download):
http://testhuddle.com/resource/trying-to-teach-testing-skills-and-judgement-ebook/

It describes Rikard's efforts on creating courses over 2 years for teaching testing to people that just graduated university.

I have selected from the book a few details that are useful for new testers:


Things that a new tester should learn about

> Asking the right questions

> Critical thinking

> Understanding what is important

> Rapid learning

> Seeing many perspective and test ideas

> Selecting effective test strategies

> Capturing serendipity

> Realizing when testing is good enough


Books that a new tester should read

> Lessons Learned in Software Testing – Cem Kaner, James Bach, Bret Pettichord

> Essential Test Design – Torbjörn Ryber

> Exploring Requirements – Daniel Gause, Jerry Weinberg

> Explore It! – Elisabeth Hendrickson


Testing Fundamentals

> Introduction to testing

> Think like a tester

> Test Strategy

> Exploratory and scripted testing

> Test design techniques I (function testing, domain testing, specification-based testing)

> Test design techniques II (risk-based testing, scenario testing)

> Bug reporting

Take your testing career to the next level - What changes are needed for advancing in your career?

A few changes will be needed before you start the journey to the next level in your testing career.


Start today

Your career is important as your personal and professional life depend on it.

Take action today.

If you want to see change in your career, start today!



You need to learn things that you don't know yet

Growth happens when you do things that you are not doing currently.
  
If you keep doing what you already know and do, change will most probably not happen or happen very slowly.

Or it may not be the change that you want to see.

Learning new things should become a part of your daily routine

To go from your current level to the next one, you have to learn many new things.

How fast you get to the next level depends on how much time you dedicate to your       learning and how often you do it.

If you try to dedicate a few hours every day to learning, 2 things may happen:

1. get into the habit of continuously learning and looking for new things to learn about

2. your skills and knowledge will start increasing relatively soon


An important question about learning new things is: 

How can I find the time for it when I am already so busy?

The time is there for you every day.

At work, while your testing is blocked because the application has critical issues, you can use the time for learning new things.

When you are waiting for the test environment to be set up, you have time for learning.

When waiting for another tester to review your scripts, you have time for learning.

Read this article for a very detailed discussion of the method.



Taking ownership of your learning is very important

Going to the next career level is easier and faster if you take ownership of your learning.

This means that you are responsible for

1. Selecting what you will learn about

2. Finding resources for your learning

3. Practicing the new skills and knowledge

4. Researching solutions for problems

Expecting that an employer sends you for training at all or to a training that is actually useful is something that you should not depend on.

I am not saying that you should not accept training paid by your employer.

Accept it and learn from it.

But do not make this type of training essential or the main source of training for you.




Ask for help when you don't know what to do next

Learning new things means that you will run into many problems.

Every time you don't know what to do next, ask for help.

You can do this by talking with someone who has more experience, posting questions on forums or searching how other people solved similar problems.



 Getting better happens in time

Going to the next level in your career requires time, patience and perseverance.

This is valid for any new skill that you ever learnt.

Think about the time that you needed for learning a new foreign language, a new sport or new hobby.

Did you learn skiing or swimming in a week?
Did you learn french in a week?

I don't think so.


Learn while working on small personal projects. Blog about your learning

Work on a small project while learning a new skill.

This way, your learning will be disciplined and oriented towards a specific goal: completing the project.

For example, if you are a manual tester who wants to learn test automation, start a project for applying test automation to a public site.

Also, start a blog and write on it about your learning and your challenges.

At the end of the project, the project materials and the blog articles will be the evidence that you need for using the new skill and knowledge on your resume.

When going to an interview, developers and graphical designers have most of times portfolios with samples of work they did in the past.

Writing about your learning and testing experiences on your blog can be your own work portfolio.

Read more about a tester portfolio here.





You should seek challenges

Challenges will show you what you don't know and force you to learn even more.

Challenges will help pushing your knowledge higher and higher.

The challenges can be self-imposed or can be job-related.

Take your testing career to the next level - What is the next level?

Where do you want to go from your present situation? 

What do you want to do in the future?

These are questions that you should ask yourself when advancement in your career becomes important.


Possible next levels for a tester are:


1. Specialize more in what you do

You can do this by exploring in depth the type of testing that you know already.

Let's say that your current job is manual tester.

You do manual testing by 

- creating test plans and test cases

- executing the test cases

- finding bugs and logging them

You can expand your manual testing skills and knowledge by learning

• exploratory testing: test without creating first test cases; exploratory testing consists in simultaneous learning of the application, designing test scenarios, executing them, finding bugs and logging them

• lateral thinking: learn to think creatively and out of the box about using and testing a system

• mind mapping

• test design techniques

• testing tours

2. Become a cross-functional tester

You can become a cross-functional tester by expanding your knowledge and skills in types of testing like 

- test automation

- performance testing

- usability testing

- accessibility testing

- web testing

- mobile testing

- web service testing

- become more technical


Being able to do different types of testing makes you more versatile, multi-faceted and multi-talented.


You can also expand your knowledge and skills in disciplines related to testing like

- software development life cycle: development and testing processes

- source control systems

- code reviews

- unit testing

- set up and monitor test environments

- log analysis

- scripting


The multiple and diverse skills will allow you to target many types of testing jobs in the future.


3. Change the direction of your testing career by focusing completely on a different testing type

You can decide that you will just do test automation or performance testing in the future, for example.

Being focused on one direction only means that you will have more expertise but also that the number of jobs that you can apply for will be smaller.


4.  Become a test consultant


5.  Become a test lead

Take your testing career to the next level

The next posts are about what to do to take your testing career to the next level.

These things were helpful for me and they may be useful for you as well.

Let's start with a few questions that will each be answered in the next articles.

1.What is the next level  of your career? 

2. What changes are needed for advancing in your career?

3. How should you choose the next career level?

4. How do you go from your present situation to the next level?

5. How do you practice the next level skills?

6. How do you get a job at the next level?

7. How do you measure progress about improving your skills?

Interview Tips

1. Prepare for the interview by studying the company and more important, the products of the company.

Imagine that you are already working for the company.

How would  you test their product?

What testing strategy would  you take?

What testing types would you use?

What would be challenging for testing that product?

How would you test creatively the product?

Prepare a short presentation that highlights your preparation to test the company's product.

Attach a mind map that highlights the testing strategy and planning

2. If possible, get details on the interview's agenda, the type of the interview and who will attend it.

Learn more info on the persons that will attend the interview from their Linkedin profiles.

Prepare for the type of interview if it is unusual.

3.  Attend only interviews for positions that you are really interested in, that really excite you. 

If the position is exciting, your level of enthusiasm and motivation will be high and this is important for the client to see.

Be confident that you can do the work.

4. Be prepared to answer any questions on your resume.

Think ahead of time of possible questions that you can be asked.

5. Make sure that you answered the question.  

It can be helpful to even ask “Did I answer your question”.

6. Be concise

Answer the question but do not deviate from the topic.

Avoid talking too much.

7.  If you don't have an answer for a question, don't try to guess. 

It is better to say "I dont know" instead of guessing.

8. Answer questions using the STAR method (situation, task, action, result)

Provide examples from your work by telling short stories that highlight the situation, task, action and result.

9. Do what you can to get the job but be relaxed about the outcome of the interview.

The hiring decision is out of your control and you may not get the job even in your best day.

Try to have fun at the interview and learn as much as possible from it, especially on things that you do not know yet in your profession.

10.  Ask good questions about the job and company. 

It is important for you to learn as much as possible about the position before being hired:

- tell me more about what you are looking for from the successful candidate

- tell me more about the current and future projects

- why the position is available

- what is challenging for this position

- what are the expectations of your manager

- what is the work style in the company

- what are the day-to-day responsibilities for this role

11. During the interview, do not rush with the answers. 

You can think for a minute or two before answering difficult questions.

  

12. Be prepared to explain why they should give you job. 

Why are you the best fit? 

Why should you be hired and not someone else?

What do you bring new to the client?


13. Be prepared to explain why you want to work for the specific company and not for other companies


14. Know your short term and long term plans, make sure they align with the ones of the company

15. When the interview is attended by people with different positions, adapt your answers to the position/level of your interlocutor.

When talking with someone who has a director position, there is no need to mention very technical terms as they may not be familiar with the terms.

16. Try to go to the interview early and as relaxed as possible.

Exercise a bit before the interview or take a walk.

17. At the end of the interview, express your interest in the job and ask for next steps

18. Do not discuss salary expectations in the first interview. Wait until you get to the short list of candidates. The client will make the proper offer to the right candidate

Why Are Testers Uninterested in Upgrading Their Skill Sets?

Article published today on the uTest.com blog:

http://blog.utest.com/2014/11/21/why-are-testers-uninterested-in-upgrading-their-skill-sets/