I don’t intend to sound like an expert on making things simpler. But I want my approach to managing test projects comes from experience and when getting to work it’s as simple as possible.
Basically, I follow some little rules to help me organize my team’s work. Here are my 5 simple mums to help you keep your testing simple:
Break down and conquer
There are hardly any really complex tasks, as long as you are willing to find a way to divide those tasks into smaller and simpler tasks.
Many times I meet the QA team managers who explain to me how they manage their work using a lot of excel sheets. When I ask why they work this way, they explain to me that they start with small documents and then it gets longer over time …
One of the first advice I give to managers is divide and conquer. By breaking a very long and complex test process into smaller and smaller module test cases, more flexibility and more precise coverage is achieved.
This advice is not only good for high test case volumes. If you look at all the test tasks and break it up into smaller test tasks then you will manage your team more effectively.
Let me give a particularly difficult example that people always use to explain why some tasks cannot run in module activity – Load test.
If instead of scheduling all load testing activities at the end of the test plan (based on the premise that you should only test when you have completed testing system performance and response time ), you plan to break down test sessions and focus more on specific components during development, you’ll be able to find problems faster and without having to rerun complex load situations complex and even more complex analytical operations to find the actual bottleneck.
My experience shows that by centrally running load sessions, you spend less time overall testing and achieve better results than working on traditional scripting – when all is done. ready.
The same goes for any test activity, break your complex test operations into smaller tasks and try to run them as soon as possible. This will help you find problems quickly and help your developers solve them faster.
Always keep an eye on important assignments
Managing any service organization revolves around tasks. You have many things to accomplish but your human resources are limited. No matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to do everything, especially not being able to do it all at once and never reach the level of coverage / thoroughness / attention you have. intended as originally intended.
Once you understand this, things are simpler when at any given moment you can only focus your attention on a few tasks. So it’s a good idea to clearly define what is the important task you want to focus on and make sure all of your teams are focused on it.
A good idea is to make sure that during your weekly QA team meeting write down important tasks or goals to achieve. Give your team a chance to comment on these tasks (or suggest whatever they think are important) and make sure you don’t miss out on something important they know and you do. is not. And keep this list where everyone can see it.
You can even start each week’s work by going through the last week’s list and keeping up with activities that have occurred around these tasks.
Just like “juggling the ball,” a big part of it is realizing that you won’t be able to keep all the balls in the air. At one point or another, you will reach your limit and some other ball will bounce, … It is a fact of life and of test management.
Classify tasks based on “Importance, complexity, and latest start date”
Directly related to the above point of view, it is necessary to classify and prioritize our tasks. This is the best way to know what’s important and what tasks will be performed.
Through the working process, based on my own experience. I know to use a simple approach where each of my tasks (I’m referring to small test tasks, not big manager tasks) has 3 separate and unrelated elements: Importance: What is the importance of the business or the priority your company has for this mission? Will it be risky if you don’t run this test? Rate it against Low / Medium / High. Test complexity: What is the complexity of the test to be run? This test can be done by any tester or only by experienced tester. Last test start date: This will reflect the closest time you can run the test, and it will still be relevant to your project. These 3 elements will give you a computational metric or any way to help you sort and filter your backlog and ensure that you always know what to focus on at any given moment.
Learn to say “No”
Oh, this is a difficult task! Probably the hardest on the list. You need to learn how to say no, and when to tell your client that you can’t do something that you previously said you would do.
As I said before, the reality of software projects is that they are ever-changing. And so you will need to be flexible and also need to inform the customer that this is the reality of the game.
The math is very simple: If you pull the blanket on one side of the bed, someone will be left alone …
Stop committing to tasks that you knew you couldn’t do before. Timely information is the key to making an accurate and compromising decision.
Provide complete information about your work
Prioritizing and saying NO comes with giving complete information about your job, your tasks, as well as your priorities and changes affecting your job.
By working in complete transparency with your clients and colleagues, you will show how professional your work truly is. You will also ask them to provide information and project plans to help you make better decisions for your team and for the success of the project and your company.
Source: https://qablog.practitest.com/5-simple-tips-to-keep-testing-simple/