A Solo Tester's Journey to Quality

Let’s talk about an army of one, but with infinite superpowers! ⚡

Like a teacher who single-handedly conducts all students and checks their work submissions, give feedback and maintain discipline we are referring to the ‘Solo tester’ in a team.

              For the solo tester reading, a tight virtual hug to you! 🫂

(psst..solo developers, we hear ya!)

In the previous edition, we discussed “Changing Tester Roles” and how some teams work without dedicated testers.

However, this edition is about a team with One QA, not none 🙃

In case you are still wondering if testing is all that important, we recommend reading Dave Cheney’s Why test at all? And Vincent Ferreira’s work on What is the best time to hire your first QA?

A tester’s job isn’t easy.

They battle to ensure software quality across various dimensions, including functionality, usability, performance, a touch of security testing, accessibility testing, and more.

Sowmy Sridharamurthy shares in a post the struggles of testing talents being under pressure from DevOps working practices to be an expert in all facets of application administration.

The quickest way to isolate yourself and have your teammates shun you is by falling into the trap of thinking, “I am alone; therefore, I must remain alone.“, writes Dennis Martinez as he shares tips to integrate with the rest of the team.

Lisi Hocke recounts a situation where she felt burned out and shares how she worked her way out of it.
Read Dear Future Me: I Am Not Alone.

What is an acceptable QA:Developer ratio? 🤔

Often, in a scrum process, there would be one QA for a team of many developers in a squad team.

Some teams have ratios like 15:1 or 4:1.

Carlos Arguelles writes about the Paradigm shifts with different Dev:Test ratios and how things changed going from 1:1, to 10:1, to 100:1.

💡We are curious, how big or small is your QA team?

“Watching the ratio, thinking it is telling about the work we do in the categories of “dev” and “test” makes little sense. But watching the ratio as how many people advocate for quality and how many actually think of and implement solutions to improve quality makes a lot more sense.”

states– Maaret Pyhäjärvi

Let’s look at the bright side 🔆

Being a lone tester implies being on your own.

This means you have the power and responsibility to build up the team. You can build the process and set quality standards for your entire team.

That is an advantage, right? Shaheen Sultana felt the same.

But it is not all easy.

For beginners, here’s how to start in a new QA team: a survival guide for a beginner QA tester from an experienced specialist.

We need to talk more and push information into our teams, says Callum Akehurst-Ryan.

Bas Dijkstra shared on LinkedIn that he is convinced that a lot of problems we experience as a team could be solved more easily if people would just pair up a bit more often.

Lisi Hocke takes pairing sessions to another level!

She took a testing tour where she paired with many different people from different teams, did hands-on exploration, and carefully crafted every pairing session in a blog, which is one not to miss!

💡You can be a pig or a chicken says, Mike Harris noting how he works as a tester for 2 different teams

From an interesting 5-part series by Dawid Dylowicz on First week as a QA Lead in a startup – 5 steps for 5 working days; irrespective of whether or not you are a lonely tester, these tips come in handy.

The author of Blazing New Trails: Tips For The Lone Tester, Kate Paulk shares some great ideas to hande challenges like priority juggling, cultural and/or communication issues, legacy code, unreasonable deadlines, inflexible protocols or procedures here. 

Set goals for you and the team. What are your goals for the QA? 

Depending on your preferences, you can do things like learning/improving your testing skills, your automation skills, your ability to read code (this can help a lot when it comes to tracking down bugs and working out what to target), and learning aspects of business analysis. 

The possibilities are endless!

Quality is a mindset even when no one is looking.

Sometimes testers need to coach. Check out the PoP framework based coaching and Coaching tools for testers by Mike Harris.

💡Tried RiskStorming? 

These activities enhance collaboration on testing ideas across a team and build the confidence of the business in the testing being done.

How about transitioning from solo to being a testing couple?

Vernon Richrads shares 3 perspectives that might help while making a career move when you are the solo tester on the team.

You are enough. You are adding value everyday.

When you’re the only tester in the organization, you need to be flexible.

On the plus side, it’s rarely ever boring because there’s always something new to deal with. Only that, you need to keep upskilling coz anyone can be replaced (Psst! Whether AI can or cannot replace humans, its human creators can be).

What’s trending at Testsigma?

• Here’s a very interesting holiday special webinar for you on the 14th of December, 2023

Ensuring a Seamless Continuous Testing and Delivery Pipeline: A Tester’s Holiday Checklist with Akshay Maldhure

Don’t miss out on this exciting blog contest

Here’s all you need to do 👇

• Write a blog rewinding your journey as a tester in 2023
• Email your content draft to community [at] testsigma.com
• Make sure to include [2023 Contest] in the subject line.

Please note that the last date for submissions is December 9, 2023.

So,

We come to the end of this month’s edition. Of course, the journey of a tester continues.

We’re not just one QA but one team with one goal.

Let’s continue to make testing an enjoyable and effective activity for the whole team.

We dedicate this edition to the solo testers in your teams, going the extra mile to ensure your tickets are done and the product is shipped. Also, a shoutout to all supportive dev teams who appreciate their only QA.

Until next time,

Testsigma 💚

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