QA analysts and software testers have a unique way of thinking distinct from that of software developers. Having a certain way of thinking the developers are able to test the code they write themselves, but sharing the responsibility with testers is a necessary condition for focusing common efforts on the work and making the most of it on the way of reaching the desired goals. Also, this attitude helps to reap another invaluable benefit like obtaining an independent opinion of highly experienced and professional testers.
In most cases, leading testing services companies do not rush to hire employees only based on their professional skills, they decide in favor of the candidates with out-of-box thinking, priceless personal quality in addition to required experience and knowledge in the testing field. With defects being present in software products, independent testing can be conducted at any testing level.
However, the independence cannot replace knowledge, therefore the developers can be quite successful in discovering defects / flaws / errors in their own code.
The Levels of Testing (From the Lowest to the Highest)
- Tests are created by a person who writes a program to be tested (low level of independence).
- Tests are created by other people (for example, by members of the development team).
- Tests are created by people from another organization that is not involved in the development phase (for instance, independent testing team) or testing specialists (for example, usability and performance testing experts who provide service quality assurance).
As a rule, people and projects have goals that must be achieved. People tend to change their plans in order to reach the goals set by their executives and other stakeholders, e.g. tracking defects and confirming that objectives of the software being tested are met. Accordingly, it is very important to set clear and achievable testing goals.
Once failures/defects/bugs are uncovered during testing, this fact makes some people upset because it can be considered as critics of the product and its creator. Therefore, testing is often referred to as a destructive activity even if it is rather constructive in terms of risk management.
So, defect finding requires curiosity, creativity, professional pessimism, critical eye, attention to details, excellent communication skills for interaction with the developers and, of course, the experience which can be necessary to make suggestions about software failures.
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