Expectation from an Ideal Tester !

Hmm…..It can be a daunting task to jot down the expectations from an Ideal Tester. If we dream about it without limiting ourselves to any specific boundaries an Ideal Tester can be expected to be

• Having mastery over architecture and design of the system so that he/she can do excellent impact analysis of changes in the components or bug fixes and optimize the test scope and effort
• Very proficient in the system level requirements so that they can define the optimal coverage of requirements in testing and analysis and fill the gaps in requirements itself
• Having expert knowledge of customer and end user expectations so that they can be the representative internal to the product company to explore all creative ways in which the end user would have used the system.
• Very creative in exploring the system under test in ways that typical developers would not have imagined, so that all corner cases can be exercised and maximum number of bugs can be caught
• “Un-assuming” about the known design constraints of the system (testers should not accept the known design constraints of the system and should continue to challenge the system to enhance the capabilities)
• Very good problem solving skills to creatively reproduce the rarest of the bugs
• Extremely methodical, having excellent communication skills and documentation skills
• Ability to withstand pressure and say NO; this will come handy in several situations like development slippages eating into testing time or when project managers or development teams try to negotiate down the severity of the defects !

Many a times people think that testing is a low end job that “any Tom, Dick and Harry can do”. This is not true. Though some amount of testing can be done by “anyone”, just about anyone CAN NOT have mastery at the aspects that I have mentioned above. Experts from other functions will, in almost all probabilities do a very poor job if entrusted with a testing job. Hence in my view, testers should find ways to stand apart from the crowd by achieving mastery in the areas mentioned above and recognition and laurels will follow.