Building A Testing Team — Do’s & Don’ts
You’ve got the next big idea for a killer web, desktop or mobile app. It’s gonna change the world.
So what’s on your to-do list? Well, you need a slick GUI designer to make it look hot, and top-shelf product team to get the features & UX right. Oh, and you need some ace developers to make your app come to life. Good, now you’re done, right? I mean, yeah, you need to test it, but you can do that yourself… or have your developers do it… or maybe the intern… or your beta users.
Think again, says Rex Black over at eWeek. Despite what you might think, there IS a right way (and a wrong way) to build the testing team you’ll need to launch a high-quality app:
The right test team can sometimes mean the difference between a good application and a bad application—with serious security, performance or reliability problems.
Sure Rex, that sounds good in theory… but c’mon, how hard is it to find bugs… anyone can do it, right?
I’ll start with how not to develop a test team. Many IT managers—especially those who have never seen professional testing—assume anyone can do it. They try to get the job done with junior programmers, users or business analysts. While these people have a role to play, by themselves they do a poor job of testing.
Still not convinced? Maybe some stats will help you see the light:
For example, a professional, trained test team typically finds over 85 percent of the bugs in the software that they test. Users, business analysts and programmers are lucky to find 40 percent of the bugs. So, while we need programmers to unit test the code they write (and users and business analysts to acceptance test the applications as they go into production), most of the system testing should be done by a professional test team.
He goes on to describe the the range of skills you need to build the robust test team that your app deserves (and your customers demand), including domain expertise, technical skill and testing chops. It’s a must read for anyone charged with the task of building out there testing team.
There are numerous sources that talk about hiring a great tester or the difference between good and great individual testers (including this one from us) , but this eWeek article stood out because it addresses building the right TEAM — something we talk about a lot here at uTest.
I’d like to hear what you think the keys are to building a successful test team. Have you ever been a part of a great test team? How about a lousy one? What what the difference between the two teams?
Fantastic article! But wouldn’t it alos make sense to ensure that the team members are certified professionals? Since QAI has certified over 38000 profesionals from organzations like Infosys, TCS, Accenture, Satyam, CSC, IBM, etc, they understand the growing importance of testing certifications and introduced a rigorous program for freshers, professionals and managers alike.