Important skills a Tester should have

Important skills a tester should have

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After looking for several years at plugins for test management we finally found
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Key Features
Native seamless integration with JIRA
No need to learn or switch between
different applications
Perfect for agile & traditional testing
approaches
Manage, organize and track all your testing
efforts in a central place
Reuse test cases across your projects
Powerful REST API
Establish clear traceability between
requirements, test cases, and defects
Execute test cases and track results that
matter
Get real-time insights into your testing
progress with out of the box reports
Live statistics accessible to your entire
team

Benefits for the testers
No need to lear or switch between
different applications
Reuse test cases across projects for
regression
Link test cases to requirements and
defects
API support for automated efforts
Benefits for the teams
Informed decisions based on real-time
insights
End-to-end traceability and impact
analysis
Centralized Test Management
Save time and increase productivity

Why choose Kanoah Tests
Coordinate all test
management activities right
inside JIRA
1Testing right
inside JIRA
Take advantage of the built-in
reports to track the results and
measure progress
2Make informed
decisions
Kanoah Tests users receive
priority support, even
during trials
3Stelar
support

Why Testing Skills Are Important?
The number of people pursuing software testing as a career has grown
immensely over the years. The need to deliver quality products has become
the foremost goal of the software testing companies. So in order to achieve
this, need of good software testers is tremendous. [6]
When it comes to knowledge, skills and abilities, technical competencies
(things like scripting and security) typically top the list for software testers.
But recent conversations with software test experts tell another story. QA jobs
often go to the candidate with the best debating talents. [6]
Testing requires a great deal of knowledge of test design techniques to design
good tests that bring out the defects in the software when executing the
tests. Also testing requires creativity, analytical thinking, concentration and
willingness to explore. [10]
The following slides are the result of an investigation from several sources, we
have compiled the most relevant content [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8].

Analytical and Logical Thinking
The major objective of testing is to identify the hidden errors, not simply
prove that the software works. For a tester to be effective in his role, he must
be able to analyze the given business situation and judge all the possible
scenarios. He should have the capacity to identify and tackle unfamiliar
problems and should develop a strategy to validate it. Creating situations and
validating the application under test, before presenting it to customers, can
be done effectively only by a person who has strong analytical skills.
A tester should also be able to separate the whole into logical parts, and to
develop a logical argument based on relationships between elements and
propositions, as well as identify implications, relationships, redundancies and
contradictions without leaving any room for inconsistency and ambiguity.
Should also be consistent in analyzing and solving complex, multi-step
problems.

Analytical and Logical Thinking
A good software tester should be able to create multiple what if scenarios. He
should be able to put himself in customer’s shoes and apply all the scenarios
in the workflow of the application.
A skilled tester can dissect a product or a requirement through analysis and
reflection. An extremely skilled tester is able to see the larger context of a
feature while simultaneously understanding the pieces that comprise it. This is
essential when it comes to building a deep-enough understanding of the
product to focus on the right testing and assign appropriate priorities to
defects.
Without true critical thinking, it would be difficult to design tests that exercise
the code in a way that makes sense to the goals of the project. And a good
critical thinker can also identify their own gaps in understanding, knowing
when and how to ask for clarification. You can gain more respect from a
colleague by admitting what you don’t know than bluffing your way through
it.

Communication and Social Skills
Communication skill here includes activities such as reading and
understanding specifications, translating those into structured test cases,
reporting bugs and writing clear and concise reports to management. In
short, a software tester must have exceptional spoken and written skills in
order to excel in the industry.
A tester must be able to communicate his thoughts and ideas effectively,
using a variety of tools and media. He needs to develop and use this skill
throughout his career and should learn to communicate effectively to the
stakeholders so as to avoid ambiguities and inconsistencies. The language
should be pragmatic rather than philosophical, and arguments should be
supported by facts.
Testers are expected to be good listeners as well as good presenters. A good
software tester must have strong verbal and written communication skills.
They require a good communication with developers before,during and after
the project. The test reports, plans or cases which testers made should be
easy to read and comprehend.

Planning
Planning is nothing but writing the story of the future. A tester needs to have a
thorough plan and must develop a well-thought test strategy or approach. And
that plan must be in place before work begins on any software testing
assignment. It should describe the items and features to be tested, the test
strategy and levels of testing, pass or fail criteria, suspension or resumption
criteria, schedule, etc.
The plan developed should be monitored continually, and validations should
be done through organized system feedback. Sticking to the plan and
monitoring the progress in order to ensure timely delivery is key to any
software testing assignment’s success.

A sense of intellectual curiosity and creativity
A Tester should arguably be intellectually curious, should also believe in the
pursuit of knowledge as a value in and of itself. Should also love asking
questions and should not consider it a blow to his ego if he is wrong about
something.
It is intellectual curiosity that motivates and prompts a tester to identify
interesting questions about the software being tested. Thus, a tester should
develop the skill to see what everyone else hasn’t seen, to think what no one
else has thought of and to do what no one else has dared.
To be a good software tester you must have a GREAT attitude. An attitude to
‘test to break’ , detail orientation , willingness to learn and suggest process
improvements. In software industry, technologies evolved with an
overwhelming speed and a good software tester should upgrade his or her
technical skills with the changing technologies. Your attitude must reflect a
certain degree of independence where you take ownership of the task
allocated and complete it without much direct supervision.

Continue to learn and improve
Organizations and business environments change rapidly, which means the
approaches and processes that work well today will be outdated tomorrow.
Therefore, it is imperative that a tester place priority on noticing, adapting
and learning from change that is happening around him.
Testers should not sit in their comfort zones and defend their lack of
capabilities by providing the world famous defense motion of "I am only
testing this". Among many, one of the most important things a tester should
learn is the constant growth of the product domain.
Testers should have the brief knowledge regarding the latest technologies,
tools & techniques and they can also use them during testing. As there are
various tools and techniques for development as well as testing & every tool or
technique has some positive and negative effects.

Passion for Testing
The key to success in any work is having a true passion. To be a good tester
one should need to be passionate about what they do. One should have the
curiosity to understand the product that needs to be tested.
Testers may become ‘jack of all trades and master of all’ by doing testing of
various products in multiple environments. So testers must be passionate
enough to take the complexities as well as challenges.
A good software tester must have strong desire for quality. This desire leads
to great software testing skills. It develops ‘test to break’ attitude. A test to
break attitude is required to hunt escaped defects.

Think from customer's perspective
Each and every product is developed and designed for customers. Customers
may not be having all technical skills a tester is having, if you fail to keep this
in mind you might miss important bugs.
Always put yourself in customer's shoes.
Figuring out what a customer wants requires testers and others on the
development team to analyze what’s being said and extrapolate from those
conversations what is really needed.

Accountability
Accountability to the product you are testing: Enough testers do not see where
their product fits in the big picture. How does it affect the economy and
market, businesses and business movement, consumers and end users, etc. If
only testers can study this and realize the contributions they are making, the
work that they do will mean so much more and they will work so much better
due to the sense of ownership they have cultivated.
Accountability to the errors or mistakes that you have made: The testers who
admit to their mistake and do not provide unnecessary explanation that
wastes other people’s time and effort, are dependable testers. We then can
move away from blame to focus on the solution. Finger-pointing or shifting
the blame is dangerous too. I have experienced this with testers who just find
someone else to blame for their mistake and this costs a lot of unwanted
circumstances and bad feelings. Just own up and move on.

Domain Knowledge
A smart tester should be able to apply the knowledge attained over years of
experience with the domain, process, product, customers, mistakes and
successes in his testing.
Testers should have the detailed knowledge about the software or application,
whether they are not domain experts and this knowledge will help them to find
such errors which a user can face while using the application.
A person should be domain expert to understand the concept and basics of a
software or application. He must have good knowledge of the domain of the
application, to test it thoroughly. Must also know what should be the intended
behavior and what can be the break points of the application
Product Knowledge is NOT equal to Domain Knowledge: Knowing the product
is of course very important, but having the domain knowledge is vital. Not
knowing the domain in which the system under test comes from is not only
irresponsible but also dangerous.

Technical Skills
A good software tester must have strong Technical skills. They must have
proper knowledge about the coding skills in order to understand the
application, good communication with developers and write test automation.
Software testers should know the programming basics. A tester who can’t
program, at least basic programs, can’t be effective as a software tester.
The better your understanding of the application is, the better the bugs you
raise will be. If you can understand what a stack trace is and why it’s
happening, the more effective you’ll be in communicating what has happened
and why.
More often then not, you’ll start by setting up your own integrated
development environment on your own machine so that you can pull changes
as they’re committed by programmers and find issues sooner.
The more technical skills you have in your tool belt, the more effective you can
be as a software tester. But having strong technical skills and wanting to do
nothing but programming as the sole tester on a small agile team is a recipe
for disaster.

Do Testers have to write code?
Test automation is inherently a programming activity. Anyone tasked with
automating tests should know how to program.
Anyone who is serious about a career in testing would do well to pick up at
least one programming language.
Let’s state the obvious, professional testers need to know SQL. [9]

Top 10 programming languages
SQL or relational database skills.
Java, including J2EE and EJBs.
Perl.
Python.
C/C++.
Shell Scripting.
JavaScript.
C#.
.NET including VB.NET and ASP.NET but not C#.
Ruby. [9]

Top Automation Technologies
Selenium, including SeleniumRC
QTP
XUnit frameworks such as JUnit, NUnit, TestNG, etc.
LoadRunner
JMeter
SilkTest and SilkPerformer
Visual Studio/TFS
Watir or Watin
Eggplant
Fitnesse [9]

References
[1] http://www.placement-officer.com/2013/01/skills-required-to-become-good-
software.html
[2] http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/tip/Ten-skills-of-highly-effective-
software-testers
[3] http://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/top-5-things-tester-must-have-to-excel/
[4] http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/profiles/blogs/software-testing-skills-
that-you-must-have-an-overview
[5] https://watirmelon.com/2013/02/23/do-software-testers-need-technical-skills/
#testers-need-technical-skills

References
[6] http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/feature/Knowledge-skills-and-
abilities-for-software-QA-jobs
[7] http://www.guru99.com/software-testing-career-complete-guide.html
[8] http://blog.smartbear.com/test-automation/the-need-for-a-broad-skillset-in-
software-testing/
[9] http://testobsessed.com/2010/10/testers-code/
[10] http://www.testingexcellence.com/how-to-get-a-job-in-software-testing/

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