Watch out for the second kangaroo

I drive to work on a sealed country road that (as a short cut) removes some of the regular traffic. It only marginally reduces my travel time, but it does come with some occasional obstacles. Aside from the lizards and snakes that cross the road, it is more often the kangaroos that you really want to avoid. My last encounter was during the past week. I was behind a delivery van and we were both making good time, when all of a sudden out from the cover of the tall, thickly growing weeds that line the road, hops a roo making haste for the safety of other side. The van and I braked enough to allow the roo a safe passage in front of us, but as soon as the roo disappeared into the foliage, out jumps another one following his mate! As the van and I hadn't come to a complete stop, this roo gave us both a major problem as he we were now all very close together. Not sure how- but we both avoided this second roo, and as the second roo made it across, the van sped off up the road again. I'm not one to repeat mistakes so before I continued my journey, I looked to left and sure enough a third roo was about to attempt to frogger across. I tooted my car horn and he turned back which was a wise move because oncoming traffic was also on the spot.

At work later that day, I found myself talking to a team member about the importance of finding and representing the most severe form of a defect. It occurred to me that when the tester found a defect, they raised the defect record without too much thought for whether there were any more similar or subsequent defects lurking close by. I explained to my colleague that a defect occurs within the system code in an unsuspected gap of oversight, neglect, misunderstanding or skill (or similar), with the point being that at the time that a defect is exposed the system should be considered vulnerable. The defect that they found may warrant a medium or high priority rating, but this is another point in time that the senior tester should be able to demonstrate their worth. Consider the variation scenarios that may elevate the impact of the defect priority rating. Consider what subsequent interactions may cause the system more pain and possibly crash.

How close might a tester have been to crashing a system when they were raising a defect for a low priority defect? When you find one defect, the likelihood of finding other defects increases. It can be hard enough to train a tester to design powerful, high yield test cases. As soon as they find a defect, they get excited, raise the defect and move on to a new test. Meanwhile the system sits in a compromised position, waiting for the tester to look a little closer/interact a little more and expose it's fatal flaw... but the tester resets the system state in readiness for their next test.

A quality tester

Aside from theoretical awareness and practical experience, how can we identify a quality tester?

Some testers have an uncanny ability to find obscure (though important) defects, others have extraordinarily high productivity and some have a highly technical proficiency. Whilst these abilities are important, what are the qualities that determine a well-rounded, high quality testing professional? Such a question may be posed within recruitment drives, personnel development initiatives and general HR discussion for teams that provide testing services.

I use the following list to describe the type of work and general approach that I encourage within the test teams that I manage.

A quality tester:

1. Maintains a positive, flexible, self-motivated and innovative approach to their work
2. Challenges assumptions, improves clarity and provides information of value
3. Considers test activities to be adaptive and evolutionary, designing a test strategy and plan that implements testing activities that suit the testing subject, its operational environment and stakeholder requirements
4. Employs cost-efficient and effective test methods, tools and resources
5. Will report the most severe instance of a defect
6. Takes pride in their work and ownership for defects
7. Is cognisant of (although undeterred by) the negative reactions associated with testing
8. Is able to examine systems in unusual ways and create situations that expose problems
9. Creates clear, concise and high-yield test cases that account for alternate flows and variable test input values
10. Will balance the need for focus and curiosity and maintains sound judgement in pressure situations
11. Participates in test theory evolution through open discussion
12. Able to identify, discuss and promote the benefit of testing activities and communicate effectively with people of varying technical proficiencies
13. Is a veracious learner whose primary skills are those of observation, investigation, analysis and evaluation

What are the important attributes that you seek in quality testing professionals?