11 Ways You Know You’re a Tester..

When you know, you are a tester ….

Some specific characteristics of a REAL TESTER, from my pen:

#1. When a bug, seen but not reproduced, makes you sleepless:

While testing the application related to online transaction, you observed that there were two debits for single transaction. You tried to reproduce but failed. You tried for number of times to reproduce it by changing the system, the browser, the credentials etc. but failed to reproduce.

As a tester, you know it’s a critical bug and if seen in real time, will affect the customer and company both.

And when that thought of ‘how to reproduce the bug’ makes you sleepless….. yes, you are a tester in real term.

#2. When developer marks the bug you reported as “Not able to reproduce” for two times in a row and every time you run to him to help:

Being a tester, one needs to develop patience. Yes, no one likes the person who finds issues in others work. It’s a human mentality. Therefore a tester needs to learn better communication in every term, be it written or verbal.

If a tester gets frustrated on being asked to help the issue reproduction, there are really fewer chances to get that issue fixed. And as a tester, you are not supposed to just report the bug but at some level, you need to track them and try to get them fixed.

And to do so, providing every relevant detail is mandatory. Even after doing so, if the bug is labelled as “Not able to reproduce”, don’t be disappointed. Be positive and help the developer to reproduce it. Result? Next time, developer will make sure that he had tried all the options to reproduce the issue before asking you to help. 🙂

#3. When you get a new idea of testing the application, while shopping in the supermarket:

You are exploring the newly opened super market and you saw that section called Live Coffee… You will get curious and will go and check what that section offers. And after seeing almost all the coffee brands available at single place, if you get an idea of providing unit converter on front page of website you are testing, which is intended to provide weather forecast for any part of the world, yes, you are a tester.

#4. When you can visualize the whole working product while testing a specific module:

While using staircase, if you can understand that the stairs are the only way to go to the other floor of house and how the house would look or affected, if the stairs are made of different material or different shape, yes, you are a tester.

Because when a tester tests the healthcare application module to calculate the sugar level, he knows this calculation is going to be an input for next calculation and the final calculation is going to be user’s sugar level…..you will never make mistake in testing it thoroughly, Will you?

#5. When you argue at every level possible to delay the release due to those critical random bugs observed:

Let’s say the application is going to be released tomorrow. After getting final build, when you did a round of testing, just to ensure its perfect, you saw system crash. You tried to nail down but no success. After trying for five times, again there was a system crash but after that there was no issue. When you ran to project manager to inform him about the issue, he will ask you to calm down and not make a scene for a random bug. He conveys to the team and management that we are ready to ship the product.

And with this scenario, if you are able to show guts to argue, if you are able to communicate with every stakeholder about the risk involved and if you are able to earn sometime to investigate, yes my friend, you are a tester.

#6. When you like, participate and encourage in generating new ideas:

As I have always said, the primary duty of every tester is – to generate test ideas. And believe me, when you practice that religiously, you will always get better at testing. And how this idea generation happens? Well, play strategy games, word scribble, Sudoku. Participate in chess competition. Ask the team to have 15 minutes break, gather in cafeteria and throw random questions like – how would you know if the tea has sugar or not. Answers will be anything but it will definitely create a loop of ideas. This will help in boosting up confidence as well as thought process.

#7. When you are habituated in writing summary points, every day:

A tester, who can describe his day in five points at the end of the day, has learned documentation well. Yes, during daily job of testing, we find many issues, report them, track them, test different modules, and create test cases and many more. But ultimately, whether asked or not, if you accustom yourself to write down them as bullet points, you will be an achiever. Because to be successful in any field, it’s very necessary to understand what you are doing, why you are doing so, describe it well and get an idea about future work. And believe me, by writing that summary report every day, you will get all those answers.

#8. When you note down your learning and apply it without fail:

Missing an issue is not a problem but missing the same issue again is a big problem – that is what I always state to my team. Everyone makes mistake but those who learn from it are the one who gets improve. And as we are prone to make multiple mistakes, it’s better to document our mistakes and relevant learnings. And looking at it in future, you will realize how much you have improved.

#9. When you keep sharp eye on what changes made for new release and can think of what could have been affected:

As a tester, it’s very important to know what changes you are expecting for the build you are going to test and how the changes have been implemented. Even if you do not get clear answer from development team, always emphasize on demanding the information. And once that information is available, understand what has been done with the application and how the changes are going to affect the whole application functionality, overall.

Ultimately, if you can understand that changing a track from station A to station B, by turning it via station C, is going to increase the travel distance by 117 km and it will not be acceptable by the travelers, yes, you are a tester….cheer up. 🙂

#10. When you believe that learning is the only option to be better:

No one knows the alternate of Learning. If you do not learn, you are prone to be cast off and believe me, no one wants to. So, never get satisfied. Always learn more and implement it and see the difference. A real tester is the one who knows that learning test case management is equally important as test case execution. I think, I had conveyed my point. 🙂

#11. When you feel proud for whatever you are doing because you know it’s the best:

Yes, that is the most important characteristic of a tester. No matter how you are being treated, you know that you are doing best job in the world because you are helping in improving something/someone, for good.

About the author: This article is written by STH team member Bhumika M. She is a project lead, carrying 10+ years of software testing experience. She is totally into testing and loves to test everything exists.

And with this, I am concluding this article, by claiming, “Yes, I am a real tester”.
Would like to hear the same quote from you too, dear readers.

Happy testing, as usual…..