- Item 13: Define Roles and Responsibilities
- Item 14: Require a Mixture of Testing Skills, Subject-Matter Expertise, and Experience
- Item 15: Evaluate the Tester's Effectiveness
- Test engineer self-evaluation
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Item 14: Require a Mixture of Testing Skills, Subject-Matter Expertise, and Experience
The most effective testing team consists of team members with a mixture of expertise, such as subject matter, technology, and testing techniques, plus a mixture of experience levels, such as beginners and expert testers. Subject-matter experts (SMEs) who understand the details of the application's functionality play an important role in the testing team.
The following list describes these concepts in more detail.
Subject matter expertise. A technical tester might think it is feasible to learn the subject matter in depth, but this is usually not the case when the domain is complex. Some problem domains, such as tax law, labor contracts, and physics, may take years to fully understand. It could be argued that detailed and specific requirements should include all the complexities possible, so that the developer can properly design the system and the tester can properly plan the testing. Realistically, however, budget and time constraints often lead to requirements that are insufficiently detailed, leaving the content open to interpretation. Even detailed requirements often contain internal inconsistencies that must be identified and resolved.
For these reasons, each SME must work closely with the developer and other SMEs on the program (for example, tax-law experts, labor-contracts experts, physicists) to parse out the intricacies of the requirements. Where there are two SMEs, they must be in agreement. If two SMEs cannot agree, a third SME's input is required. A testing SME will put the final stamp of approval on the implementation, after appropriate testing.
Technical expertise. While it is true that a thorough grasp of the domain is a valuable and desirable trait for a tester, the tester's effectiveness will be diminished without some level of understanding of software (including test) engineering. The most effective subject-matter expert testers are those who are also interested and experienced in the technology—that is, those who have taken one or more programming courses, or have some related technical experience. Subject-matter knowledge must be complemented with technical knowledge, including an understanding of the science of software testing.
Technical testers, however, require a deeper knowledge of the technical platforms and architectural makeup of a system in order to test successfully. A technical tester should know how to write automated scripts; know how to write a test harness; and understand such technical issues as compatibility, performance, and installation, in order to be best prepared to test for compliance. While it is beneficial for SMEs to possess some of this knowledge, it is acceptable, of course, for them to possess a lower level of technical expertise than do technical testers.
Experience level. A testing team is rarely made up exclusively of expert testers with years of expertise—nor would that necessarily be desirable. As with all efforts, there is room for apprentices who can be trained and mentored by more-senior personnel. To identify potential areas for training and advancement, the test manager must review the difference between the skill requirements and an individual's actual skills.
A junior tester could be tasked with testing the lower-risk functionality, or cosmetic features such as the GUI interface controls (if this area is considered low-risk). If a junior tester is tasked with testing of higher-risk functionality, the junior tester should be paired with a more-senior tester who can serve as a mentor.
Although technical and subject-matter testers contribute to the testing effort in different ways, collaboration between the two types of testers should be encouraged. Just as it would take a technical tester a long time to get up to speed on all the details of the subject matter, it would take a domain or subject-matter expert a long time to become conversant with the technical issues to consider during testing. Cross-training should be provided to make the technical tester acquainted with the subject matter and the subject-matter expert familiar with the technical issues.
Some testing tasks may require specific skills within the technical or subject-matter area. For example, a tester who is experienced, or at least familiar, with usability testing techniques should be responsible for usability testing. A tester who is not skilled in this area can only guess what makes an application usable. Similarly, in the case of localization testing, an English speaker can only guess regarding the correct translation of a Web site into another language. A more effective localization tester would be a native speaker of the language into which the site has been translated.