What areas do you think an organization should focus on for improving tester's efficiency?

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Permalink Reply by Shruti on January 30, 2008 at 12:11pm

I think before moving further to advanced focus area it’s necessary to build tester mentality .Afterwards we can follow this approach
1. There should be training sessions for all new testers for basic testing knowledge. In Indian testing industry people underestimate testing process and have an attitude of take it easy.
2. Emphasize on importance of domain knowledge for any kind of project and client's expectation.
3. Experiences from past for same kind of engagement. Best thing which happened from tester’s perspective and worst thing which was missed from testing .In short, lessons learnt.
4. Then comes, technology. I personally feel, knowing what is inside the system is as important as knowing the system as a whole. Tester should know the project architecture. For this point what we can do is involvement of tester in the project from requirement gathering phase and direct interaction with developers.
5. Testing efficiency increases if we focus on white box testing and have out of box thinking capability. Tester should have basic knowledge of technology used in each layer of the project architecture. e.g. In Web based projects tester should know Webs services, backend DB, interactions between servers, language used.
6. Once tester has indebt knowledge about the system inside and as a whole, he can analyze on tools and automation to be used in that project. Again here we need expertise in knowing all the available tools and automation possibility which can give best results.
7. Root cause analysis of any issue found by tester plays very important role. Tester should not concentrate only on finding bugs rather he should try to find out why this issue? I know this is practically possible only when we have time .But if a tester makes it a practice it will help him increase his efficiency and will give him deeper and broad view of system from inside. This approach will help him finding which part of system is prone to errors and what other parts in system can have same issues. Initially this approach takes time but believe me it gives ultimate result in long run.
8. Last but not the least, Testers efficiency depends on attitude to break the system. Though the statement is very bookish but in my experience knowing the fact that nothing is perfect really helps us in improving the quality and finding issues.

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Permalink Reply by Pradeep Soundararajan on January 30, 2008 at 2:25pm

1. There should be training sessions for all new testers for basic testing knowledge. In Indian testing industry people underestimate testing process and have an attitude of take it easy.

How about training for old testers? Are they good enough? What training? Training on how to write test cases?
How do you know in India, testing is underestimated? Did you survey? If you heard it from someone, could they be wrong? Could they hype things? Could they lie? Could they say that without survey?

2. Emphasize on importance of domain knowledge for any kind of project and client's expectation.

I get laughter when I hear testers talking about client's expectation. I am sure you have a mobile phone and you have become the customer for the company, did they ask you what you expect or did something think that for you?

Domain knowledge - cool! Most people don't know how much they know or don't know about something or even if they did, they might not know to translate it.

3. Experiences from past for same kind of engagement. Best thing which happened from tester’s perspective and worst thing which was missed from testing .In short, lessons learnt.

The problem I think exists with most of us ( that includes me ) is: we don't acknowledge learnings and hence dont remember. What I think you thought when you said , "experience from the past" - is events and not really learning.

Then comes, technology. I personally feel, knowing what is inside the system is as important as knowing the system as a whole. Tester should know the project architecture. For this point what we can do is involvement of tester in the project from requirement gathering phase and direct interaction with developers.

Why do you think companies like Infosys have an independent testing services unit away from developers and why do you think large companies outsource testing to them?

Microsoft outsourced some testing of Vista to Aztec and other companies in India, why?

5. Testing efficiency increases if we focus on white box testing and have out of box thinking capability. Tester should have basic knowledge of technology used in each layer of the project architecture. e.g. In Web based projects tester should know Webs services, backend DB, interactions between servers, language used.

Ha ha! Good joke. What is out of the box? You want the tester to be confined by white box and then ask to go out of the box. Looks like out of the box thinking to me.

6. Once tester has indebt knowledge about the system inside and as a whole, he can analyze on tools and automation to be used in that project. Again here we need expertise in knowing all the available tools and automation possibility which can give best results.

No one in the project knows in depth about the system they build, test, maintain, support or sell.

7. Root cause analysis of any issue found by tester plays very important role. Tester should not concentrate only on finding bugs rather he should try to find out why this issue? I know this is practically possible only when we have time .But if a tester makes it a practice it will help him increase his efficiency and will give him deeper and broad view of system from inside. This approach will help him finding which part of system is prone to errors and what other parts in system can have same issues. Initially this approach takes time but believe me it gives ultimate result in long run.

RCA is a process oriented activity. Most companies do it - let me know if you have come across any tester who said, "I participated in RCA and I learned a lot"

8. Last but not the least, Testers efficiency depends on attitude to break the system. Though the statement is very bookish but in my experience knowing the fact that nothing is perfect really helps us in improving the quality and finding issues.

Well, the system is already broken and the tester finds it. He doesn't break the system.


-- Pradeep Soundararajan - http://testertested.blogspot.com - +91-98451-76817 - pradeep.srajan@gmail.com

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Permalink Reply by Pradeep C on February 11, 2008 at 1:22am

The answers mostly are common, Process, Technology, Techniques etc. My interest is in knowing what are the critical enablers for the organizations to consider the creation of ability as a sustainable measure and the current best practice followed by organizations in this regard.

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Permalink Reply by Pradeep C on March 8, 2008 at 3:49pm

Wooo... that was a very long reply. Appreciate the same. While what all you say are appropriate can we evolve a structure for assessing the companies on these parameters. While there is an expectation, many times the change does not happen because there is no supporting infrastructre.

So let us say, we need to list down the categories and factors in each category, then we can collect some data to study the current state and then reach the conclusion of how the organization should implement them. Because each organization has to prioritize their efforts in this direction.

Let us collate the factors. Others.. can you add into the same list without getting stampeded by emotion...

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Permalink Reply by vijaysavalagi on March 2, 2009 at 6:13pm

I thought it would be a nice topic to answer. so here it goes. it's how i believe, so do reply me your thoughts on it.
Factors that enhance the efficiency and productivity of an employee are:
Instead of only organizations role in developing the employee’s performance, it’s better to discuss about the Factors that enhance the efficiency and productivity of an employee or an individual. What exactly you will do to increase your efficiency and productivity at work place?
Many of us never plan things. How many of us are working for the love of work? How many of us plan and dream and work towards that dream, in a realistic sense. If you have a better and clear idea on this, you have the answer for your question. All other points are just like fuel and enhancers.I've felt for a long time that the masses have the wrong approach when it comes to work and play. People generally play their time off around their work and many work themselves to a point where their efficiency, creativity and productivity are at an all time low, not to mention their health, before finally conceding that they needed to take some time off to recharge their batteries. This means that time off is often not fully optimized. However, the more I studied successful people the more I realized that they had a very different approach. First of all successful people do what they love and because of this they are naturally more successful. Yet successful people still regularly schedule time off to relax, spend time with family and friends, experience new adventures, reflect and contemplate, etc. The thing is that they tend to schedule their work around their play.
Peter Thomson, the UK's leading strategist on business and personal growth advises:"Always book the 'time off' before you book the 'time on'."Life is not just about hard work. Life is also meant to be enjoyed. What you gain through taking regular time off is immeasurable. Benefits include improved health and well being and also increased profitability. With improved health and vitality you are better able to perform in your business and your efficiency increases.Well, hope I am not bugging you with so much of gyan. Actually, I never did these things which I mentioned above but just answering to your question so that you can follow and become a successful person.At individual level, read and read when ever you get time. If you don’t get free time, make free time. Apply your thoughts, try solving interesting problems and puzzles, read books on different subjects ranging from arts, science and fiction etc. do attend seminars on technology, involve extensively in discussion forums, bug your seniors with interesting topics, do try to plan yourself, balance your professional and personal life well. These all aim at personality development. According to medical research, it’s proved that a person’s efficiency reduces after 50 to 60 mins of continuous work. So it’s better to take 10-15 mins of break after every hour of work to deliver better.
About organizational role in improving your efficiency and productivity include
• Mantra of successful management – 3 A’s ie Acceptance, acknowledgement and action.
• Don’t promise if you can’t keep the promises. It’s more dangerous than promising itself.
• There is a saying as “Yatha raja tatha praja” which means leaders set the examples.
• Lay down the plans and set the realistic goals. Communicate them through every level of an organization accordingly.
• Set the goals for each level of management accordingly because it’s not mandatory that same goals applies for each level of management.
• Never change the work hours frequently. It affects performance of an employee. Human beings are not machines, they need time to adjust to the new conditions.
• Single work model or process won’t work for each department or each application or each domain.
• Set the healthy office environment.
• Set the office environment in such a way that an employee feels happy and fresh. Use colors, ambience, ventilations accordingly.
• Conducting brainstorm sessions, to extract individual thoughts. Many minds, many interesting thoughts and ideas.
• Organizing seminars, competition, making all the team members to involve in meetings, taking opinions.
• Organizing group events, where you teach them to work as a team. Just working alone will not help in companies. Everyone should work as a team. So may be outings, camps, small trips where you can do all such activities. Builds trust and closeness among employees, which in turn can work as a team. Helps in finding leadership qualities among the individuals.
• Should provide a library in organization, where you can spend some time when you are free during the working hours. (Instead of wasting time in the canteen or making time pass on social networks for dating, chatting, what do you say?).
• Make proper project planning; give enough time to the entire department so that they come up with better ideas. If there is not much time, then come up with better strategies. Hard work will not work that time, so you got to be a smart worker.
• Organizations should gauge the performance of all the employees and should award and reward them, to boost the good employee. By this, others can also learn many lessons.
• It’s important to arrange the project closure meetings to discuss the bad and good processes followed by individuals as well as organization. Always try to learn from the past experience.
• In my thoughts, last but not the least – provide a standard salary for roti, kapada and makaan. A person can do well only when his basic needs is satisfied. Or else one will be thinking about personal life during working hours and vice versa.

I wonder how many companies follow all these things. Well, I hope no customer or employer has that patience to improve an employee. All are running here to make name for themselves, fulfill their dreams and book their share of profit. So don’t wait till an organization spends so much of time and money on you. It’s better to equip yourself to give a better efficiency and productivity at work. You won’t get much time in between the projects running, every organization work under tight schedules. Competition is the biggest challenge. Organizations should follow some of these points for some one who is on bench, instead of making them sit on the bench just to show that they have XXX number of employees working for them. Once they feel the profit/margin pressure, they just simply layoff the employees. So it all depends upon us, we wait for the organizations helping us or we all equip ourselves to help the organizations.

cheers........
Vijay,

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Permalink Reply by E M V Ravikiran on June 6, 2008 at 9:29pm

Testing is not a job of certification, testing is a job of making the customer happy, its a job to make feel the client the project in and out are good, so the basic step every organisation to look a head is to focus there attention on Testing. Nothing in this universe cannot be tested every thing can be tested with different logical way different process different stratagies,
1) Organisations should look a head for the testing teams effectiveness, thats not by rewarding people by certifying them as the best tester, thats only by having a mutual understanding in a project with the combination of developer and a tester.
2) should step in a systametic process right from the begining of any project or a product.
3) V-V model is the best model for any organisation to introduce to improve the testers effeciency.
4) let me give an example for this, lets say a web page is accesssed by a customer by entering some details after entering the details its should update in the serever but if it fails as the server is down then the page displayed normally is page not found, but if a tester is introduced in the initial stage of the project at requirements phase a tester can suggest the customer or raise an issue to customer, intimating or asking which page to be displayed when the server is down. .
5) A tester should be given an access to check the in and out of the application which includes white box testing by all means with suffecient time span to keep his complete ability on to it.
6) Tester should be trained on the new conceptes, organisations should concentrate on perodical updates and make the team upgrade it. which will let the tester think in different ways for tesitng
7) Efficiency of tester is indirectly dependent on the organisation process.
8) Every CR should have a reson for testing. The reason should be clear to tester to analyse what effects the business logic.
9) By all means testing is not a hard job to do. its all the logical way to bring the Quality. Quality doesn't mean the no. of bugs found . thats all about the tester responsibility defined in the organisation to check the projects or product standards meaning the conditional way of testing, behavioural, looping, Auditing, Stress, time outs all etc which are grouped together to bring the Quality product or project. this responsibulites should be predefined in the organisation structure.

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Permalink Reply by Bhargavi M: My Age '-1'? on June 10, 2008 at 10:51am

1) Organisations should look a head for the testing teams effectiveness, thats not by rewarding people by certifying them as the best tester, thats only by having a mutual understanding in a project with the combination of developer and a tester.>>

Could not understand the sentence completely. Did you mean,rewards to a tester do not help?

3) V-V model is the best model for any organisation to introduce to improve the testers effeciency.>>

How can you say? This model might be the best to you in your experience till now. It cannot be same for others too.


By all means testing is not a hard job to do.>>

Testing is not hard. Its true But did you know good testing is hard to do?

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Permalink Reply by Amit Kumar Agrawal on June 9, 2008 at 7:21pm

I think there is no common recipe for all the organization to improve the tester’s efficiency but the approach they can take could be common one.
Apart from all the technical and functional training that people talk of, I think all the testing activities should be broken down into small activity cycles / Project cycles and there should brainstorming after every activity cycle to find out the following factors:
1. Effectiveness of the testing cycle.
2. It’s out puts.
3. There should be discussion on what is the training need of the tester’s for similar activities ahead.
4. Approaches of doing it effectively and try to zero on the most appropriate one.

There are few advantages of this approach:-
1. When the testing activity is done as small projects the testers know the end of cycle. (Normally testers do the testing as an activity with no end to it.)
2. The outcome and approaches for each activity cycle can be an input to the next activity cycle
And it can be continuously improved upon.
3. If the approach is followed diligently then the organization will have clear knowledge of the training need of the testers be it technical, functional or soft skills.

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness further the testers should be rotated among different type of testing activities.

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Permalink Reply by Rohit Sharma on February 25, 2009 at 2:40am

We are software tester?

Not just by job title. I mean, deep down, is software testing in your blood. Do you think like a tester?

Think about this Answers:

Sometimes we tend to forget what we are actually looking for

Q1. Who Watches the watchmen?
Q2. Don’t you think the biggest bugs are the hardest to find?
Q3. Isn’t that the more bugs you find, the more there are?

You people get answer what our job is.

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Permalink Reply by shahjerome ambrose on March 3, 2009 at 11:34am

Its important for us to remember that quality is only as good the line delivery by the rest of the stakeholders prior to testing.

2 ways to look at tester efficieny.

1. Individual
Tester efficiency = Bug find rate : test executed
Rather difficult to quantify in small number of samples but would give some indication over a longer period

2. Test group efficiency
Test efficiency needs to be compared against another value. Example test find rate to dev test find rate or test to customer find rate.
Find Rate of Bugs compared to Development

Ratio of test capture between dev test vs tester capture

I am not including customers find rate here because bugs escape to efficiency there can be compared

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