Golden rules for software testing

Read these simple golden rules for software testing. They are based on my testing experiences.

Its all about finding the bug as early as possible:

• Start the software testing process by analysing requirements long before development.

Make sure you have these 3 software testing levels

• Integration testing (performed by IT)
• System testing (performed by professional testers)
• Acceptance testing (performed by business users)

Don’t expect too much of automated testing:

• First let me state this : automated testing can be extremely useful and can be a real time saver. But it can also turn out to be a very expensive and invalid solution.

Deal with resistance:

• If you like to be instant popular, don’t become a software tester ! You 'll find out that you are going to meet a great deal of resistance... It is very likely that you will end up being the sole defender of quality at a certain point. Other participants in the project will be tempted to go for the deadline, whatever the quality of the application is.

• You should deal with this by reporting facts and figures in stead of opinions. It might take a while before your work colleagues appreciate the great job you're doing !

Do regression testing every new release

• Okay, you've tested your new development successfully. Great. But do the features of the application that you didn't change still work ? You really should test this before going live.

Let real users test with real data

• This one is obvious but who does it ?
• You cannot beat real data.

Give defects a test severity status :

• Critical (must have, no work around)
• High (must have, work around possible)
• Medium (not business critical, but wanted)
• Low (nice to have)

Let product owners deceide if a defect is to be fixed based on business priority:

• A bit obvious, but I've seen testers make this decision and assign business statuses
• Actively use these statuses for reporting and follow up !

This might be the most difficult goal to achieve:

• You should talk about exit and entry criteria with IT. When is software good enough to deliver to a test team ? Think about server errors, certain level of IT testing achieved, when and how to build...

• Same goes for business. What quality do they expect ? Who is going to make decisions on when to go live ? Make sure it is not you. Your role should be advisory.

Focus on the software testing process, not on the tools:

• There 's a lot of talking about test management software. Sure, they can be very helpful indeed. These tools probably will take a lot of work out of your hands... But don't forget : it 's you who has to define the testing process. No tool is going to do that for you ! Think thoroughly about how you 're going to organise your testing. You can be very successful by using basic tools like MS Excel.

From http://www.testertroubles.com/2009/05/golden-rules-for-software-testing.html