Top 5 Challenges of a QA Tester: Day #1

Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
~Chinese Proverb

Top 5 Challenges of a QA Tester

There are completely valid reasons for each of these challenges and I am in no way claiming that QA is the only job that has hurdles to overcome. But the challenges I experienced as a Software Quality Assurance Professional, I found to be unique to QA. Let’s look at each of these challenges so that you better understand them before you have the pleasure of their acquaintance.

Challenge #1:
Lack of Respect

This view has evolved because too often companies fill their QA departments with gamers or other computer literate humans that have the ability to launch software and follow basic instructions. They are labeled “QA testers” or “QA associates” or “QA engineers” for no apparent reason other than it must look better on a budget report or an account ledger than “warm body”.

Though there is nothing wrong with these people, they are by no means Quality Assurance Professionals. These people are certainly NOT quality assurance engineers. And I don’t even know what a “quality assurance associate” is supposed to be. These people are gamers that are able to follow the steps in a test case – thus they perform “testing” and are therefore considered “testers”.

This is not their fault. This is the fault of the companies that hire any warm body they can find, tell these people they are testers, and then are surprised when their product ships late, over budget, and not as functional as it should have been. Then the company asks, “How could this have happened?”

The belief that these companies seem to hold is that if anyone uses the product, they are testing it. They will tell the company what is not functioning. If there is a piece of functionality missing that this “tester” doesn’t notice, then maybe it wasn’t such an important piece of functionality anyway.

You should understand by now that real Software Quality Assurance Testing takes practice and skill to be performed effectively. A tester must be able to do more than simply launch the program.

Unfortunately, since many companies do not seem to truly understand the value a true Quality Assurance Professional can bring to a project, they may hire “testers” that are not at all qualified to wear that title.

When these “testers” are viewed by professional developers and producers, they appear (accurately) as not up to the task. When the company calls them “QA”, they leave a stigma for real Quality Assurance Professionals to contend with.

This “throw-as-many-warm-bodies-at-it-as-you-can” or “shotgun-testing” style of QA has proven (at least in the short-term) to be very cost-effective for many companies. It does not, however, ensure professional testing of the company’s products.

These gamers are happy to get paid to play games for a living – and I am not here to judge that – but they are not trained in proper testing methodology, bug reporting, or bugbase use. They are not real Quality Assurance Professionals!

That the company calls them “testers” is where QA begins to lose the respect of other departments. Often these employees do not act professionally, but they do represent QA.

These are the main reasons that other departments do not respect QA. This is the environment you have chosen as a challenge. But take heart: History has clearly shown that a small group (2-3 people) of elite testers will outperform a larger group (20-30 people) when working head-to-head on the same project! In fact the results are not even close!

To overcome this lack of trust that may greet you, just follow the lessons outlined in our courses:

• Consistently deliver hard data results
• Stay up to date on the status of your project and the issues affecting it
• Add value in every endeavor
• Never stop learning

As you master the lessons in our courses, you will quickly overcome the view others may have about QA. You will build trust among your peers and will be seen as a professional who will add value to any project you are a part of.

A priest asked the dying Spanish statesman and general Ramon Maria Narvaez, “Does your Excellency forgive all your enemies?”
“I do not have to forgive my enemies,” answered Narvaez, “I have had them all shot.”