Testers Sharpen your Soft Skills

Do testers need soft skills? hmm it’s a question right ?. I think yes testers need soft skills to survive in the field. It just like an athlete train himself for perfection and fitness. In the
game court the player needs to use his skills perfectly otherwise he never be a star, As a Tester you are a knowledge worker and need your skills to empower your career in long run, need to keep your fitness in the domain . Gathering necessary skills will make a top performer.

Key areas to improve your skills

Key areas you should concentrate to improve your skills are Team work and Communication. Skills in these areas will help you a lot to climb the organizational hierarchy ladder.

Team Work.

Testing is all about collective team work. Tester should be a solid contributor to the team and at the same time he should be an independent achiever. I am sure you guys have heard few of the comments following in your career some where. “He is having bad attitude while testing”, “Answering and debugging his defects take so much of development time unnecessarily “, “He is always do negative testing, never consider the good side”, “He is not a team player”. It’s natural to hear all these because you are trying to prove the system is not stable where others are trying hard to build. Never mind do your duty to deliver a quality product, it’s your responsibility at the same time try to be in harmony with other departments.

You are an anomaly. Developers have a negative feeling for finding flaws in the system. Never be personal in testing, you are part of a team, share the knowledge in the team, presenting the defects is an art, this need a good degree of communication skills. Always try to make allies not enemies

Communication

This is the key in the profession. If you can’t communicate well, it does matters, even if you are a wonderful tester. You should be able to convey the ideas and your result to the team and to the management. The better communication skills will help you in writing good test cases (It is your job as a tester) and bug reporting, the problem you face in the bug reporting even though you have a good defect and if you are unable to convey the severity and its implication, nobody will consider it in the defect review meeting, or it will be set aside with comments such as not enough information, can’t reproduce. This is not a good thing any way.




Clarity.

You need to ensure the crystal clear clarity in your communication. Try to stick to the following tips, it can make wonders in your communication and obviously it will reflect in your career.

Written communication.

Well, when you are writing a test case, bug report or presentation make sure you present your idea and thoughts in a clear, unambiguous and logical order. Use Simple terms never try to show your depth of vocabulary, all your team members may not be as smart as you, they may be fresher, just keep in mind what ever you say or present should be understood by anybody. This will really help you, if your test cases are used in some hostile environment. Never give a chance to misinterpretation.

When you write a defect report, summarize the most important information about the defect at first. Then ensure completeness about the problem, Don’t miss anything, Describe the issue completely, how do you found the problem. For supporting evidence attach Screen shot, data used for your test.

Oral communication

If you have to present in status meetings, talk on official meetings or asking questions in a requirement presentation or to clarify your doubts with your team lead, interviewing people for your team, do a presentation to the team about some topic, you need a fair communication skill.

When you present something, stay focused, but remember never jump straight to the point or beating the bush around, if you do any of this you are going have boring attendees. First give a summary, then details, give room for questions, remember to present in logical sequence. Write down the points before presentation so it will help you to present the things in logical order or to remind you the point if you forgot something, anticipate the questions. You can have a self assessment about your performance and improve those areas you feel you are feeble.

Listening

When you attend a meeting or presentation don’t approach with prejudice or never stick to your agenda. Be a good listener. Listening skills are very important; if you didn’t listen in a requirement presentation you will loose crucial information. Imagine what happens if you go to your lead with a requirement as a defect?. When you are attend meetings listen to questions and answers. Listening skills are very important in Job interviews. While taking interviews if the interviewee is answering with out listening to interviewer’s questions, normally interviewer will drop the interview fast, simply because he can’t withstand a boring period and a bad listener.

There are ways to improve the listening skills, never loose a chance to prepare meeting minutes, if you are not asked, just tell voluntarily. For few days you will get edited meeting minutes from team members after review. If you are getting less editing in your meeting minutes you are a good listener.


This article can be found at the blog section of my personal site www.dileepk.info