Pride of being a software Tester

Many people (including testers i know) feel that software testing is a less brainy / easy to achieve task . They always rate software developer as the supreme. and see testing as peanuts .This is a highly wrong way of thinking . Software testing is a priced job . It requires special thinking abilities and out of the box approach . And definitely it is not an every man's job . It is really tough to become a good software tester .

If you are a software tester and are feeling bad about it , first find whether the job is too bad to get you exited .If it is , then quit it and find which gives you satisfaction . One should be proud of there job . And one can give good output and be happy only if he is satisfied well with his job .

Revenue per employee graph for few biggies

Problem with setting Testing Targets keeping testing case count in mind

In my 5 years of experience , i observed a very common problem when test plan is written and the application is tested with the plan . ie "Managers seeing only the Testcase count and setting the time frame for testing"

Testing Targets are normally set based on various factors . They differ based on the application under test . If it is client based urgent requirement , we will have some factors which mainly depend on the delivery date and quality . But for a product that can be released with some time delay , the factors vary . Being a product based company , we have the liberty to take more time . But the main problem i see in many managers here(even outside) is that they calculate everything based on the count of the cases . Planning based on count is good , but planning everything only on the basis of count is damn wrong . There are variety of factors that come in to picture here and some of the disadvantages are below

1. All the cases are not same . Some cases take more time to validate and some take less . So when setting a time frame , it is always better to have a bit extra time

2. Time for some extensive testing . Testing plans written exactly based on the test case count with tight schedule will not give the tester a free hand in testing . For example if a tester is asked to test an application having some 500 cases in 5 days . He will test only the testcases . He wont be thinking to crack the application . He will only try to finish of the cases and submit the reports . Although that would be suffice , it will no way enhance his skills or the product .It is always better to give some extra time and freedom to test .

3. A tight schedule might force the tester to skip the cases . If not credited or not planned well , the tester might end up being under pressure which will make him to skip some cases and hence resulting in breakages .