Today i had an interesting discussion on the role of the testing with an upcoming tester Debasis from Chennai, in India.
Debasis: Hi venkat
Venkat: what's up debasis
Venkat: going great. Happy Testing and more posts on my blog these days.
Venkat: That's interesting. let me ask you some stuff on Testing
Venkat: what's the role of testing in SDLC
Debasis:The same as of parents in the upbringing of a child
Venkat: oh. That's interesting. But don't you see it's the role of the management more
Debasis: Okay b4 I cud answer, i want ur definition of SDLC
Venkat: The process used to develop software the phases involved init
Debasis: But to me the processes can be of many types and of different approaches. Assuming that I am following a generalised SDLC approach…
Venkat: go ahead.
Debasis: The role of testing is to ensure that the intended user gets a good quality product after the release
Venkat: hum. good quality product. great go on.
Debasis: But that in no way mean that the Product is Completely bug free after testing
Venkat: So what do you mean by a good quality product then. Are you acting as a quality police in order to get the good quality product out.
Debasis: what do you mean by quality police
Venkat:Look at this post to get some info on quality police
Debasis: oh no. I have not seen a quality police in my entire career. There may be ppl claiming to be quality police
Debasis: But my role is to point out important defects as quickly possible in a given SDLC phase
Venkat: that's great to hear and expecting the same. u r coming on the track now. This is the role of testing.
Debasis: Thanks…
Venkat: Catching up important defects in early stages helps a lot. This is how you can become the headlights of the project as James Bach used to say by giving the right information at the right time.
Debasis: Yes u r right
Debasis: And to try and get them fixed b4 a Product release
Venkat: hum wait a while let's discuss on fixing the issues part at a later stage.
Debasis: oh ok.
Venkat: How do you know that the bug that has been discovered is critical or not.
Debasis: Simple. If the defect is such that which may/can bother the stake holders of the product, them I assume that its important.
Venkat: Are you assuming ? Will there be any evidence for this bias.
Debasis: might be checking with the docs and stakeholder will resolve the conflict.
Venkat: That's good to know.
Venkat: let me come back to this. Are you trying and get the issues fixed b4 a Product release
Debasis: yes. It's my job to get all the issues fixed that are reported by me.
Venkat: Does your bug reports clear for the deveper to re-produce the same.
Debasis:Yes there are really good.
Venkat: Does your bug reports contain complete information on the bug. A story about the same and helps developers to reduce their debugging time for the issue.
Debasis: And I as far as reproducibility of an issue is concerned, I am thankfull to god to have been gifted with gr8 bug reporting skills
Debasis: Also sometimes I am assigned to try n reproduce some hard to reproduce issues posted by other testers
Venkat: that's great man. So what do you mean by trying to get the issues fixed.
Debasis: Convincing, motivating & helping the developers to get the issues fixed.
Venkat: oh is it. Why do you need to do it. Let me ask you some thing different. How many times did the developers tried you to convince, motivate and helped you to uncover more issues in their code. Think for a while on this.
Debasis: What ?
Debasis: Hmm.. May be u r rite. Will definitely think over it
Venkat: you have given the enough information on the issues so that they can be re-produced or to debug the same. And more over you have also given it's relevance wrt it's stake holders.
Debasis: But isn't my job to get my issues FIXED? If they r really imp.
Venkat: No way. That's the role of the management. If they are really imp, they will get it fixed. Why should u worry about the same and spoil the relationships with the developers.
Debasis: hmm, good point. will try to ponder about it
Venkat: most of the testers here in india see Testing as a support function to the development. So this has been there in their mindset.
Debasis: But I don't. I see Testing as an important part of SDLC which can't be substituted by anythingelse
Venkat: That's great to hear. If that's the case, i don't expect the statement, But isn't my job to get my issues FIXED?. how many times did ur dev team asked to report bugs on their code ?
Debasis: May be u r rite. Will definitely think over it
Venkat: The role of tester is to catch the imp bugs at the early stages and give complete info on the same as qucikly as possible. It should contain all the required info for that issue to reproduce.
Debasis: Sure, thanks. Any way, I enjoy chatting with you
Venkat: i want an upcoming testers like u to be very clear on the role of testing and the role of tester. Once this is clear, you can explore on the skills that are required for that role and improve the same. hope this helps
Debasis: Thanks again for sharing ur views on testing with me
Enjoy the reading and share your views
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