Friday, April 27, 2012

What Makes a Great Tester Great?

Imagine a tester so awesome that his developers banded together to take him to lunch each day for months so he would stop logging bugs for a while. (That's a true story from Microsoft). That got us thinking – what qualities take a tester from good, to great?

They understand the user, and the business. Great testers can visualize the impact of the bugs they find on customers. They feel users' pain, and read what they say on forums and blogs –brave testers may even spend some time working with their help desk to get some perspective. This is also critical for prioritizing testing. The best testers know that they will only be able to run a fraction of the test cases they come up with, and they scope their testing so that the bugs most likely to affect the user are executed first. And the best of the best? They use all of that intel to anticipate the future needs of the user.

Passion for what they do. Good testers are genuinely excited about bugs, but not because they take pleasure out of finding mistakes and rubbing a developer's nose in it. Great testers understand the cost and impact of the bug on the bottom line and on people's perceptions – and they understand how expensive it is (in every sense of the word) not to fix it.

They understand the user. Great testers can visualize the impact of the bugs they find on customers. They feel users' pain, and read what they say on forums and blogs –brave testers may even spend some time working with their help desk to get some perspective. This is also critical for prioritizing testing. The best testers know that they will only be able to run a fraction of the test cases they come up with, and they scope their testing so that the bugs most likely to affect the user are executed first. Anticipate future needs and really understand the business

They have people skills. Testers can take a lot of abuse from programmers – so being great requires a thick skin, a sense of diplomacy, and a sense of humor. The best of the best won't allow themselves to be kept in a silo, either. You'll find them engaging with all parts of the business, curiously asking questions and working to really "get" the big picture.

Great testers are an extremely rare breed. They are also absolutely critical to shipping quality software. If you're looking for software testing services, or wish you had a tester like this, we can help. Contact us at info@ideaentity.com.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

What Makes a Great Developer Great?

From tiny startups to huge financial giants, companies are all increasingly reliant on the engineers that make great software happen. These engineers are often called ninjas or rock stars. But there are several things that separate them from the pack.

They don't eat elephants. Great engineers take small, manageable bites out of the problem at hand, and tend to value short releases, simple requirements and usable features. When this bite-by-bite approach is applied iteratively, rich and robust software will arise naturally.
They recycle. There is a strange drive in the software industry to ignore and redo what is already there. Ninjas leverage existing infrastructure, whether it is code, third party libraries, or web services – all in an effort to make their job easier.
They embrace their inner 3-year-old. Great engineers ask why… a lot. They are innately curious about the context their software is going to plug into, which allows them to understand the impact and actual value of what they are building.
They speak human. No matter how badly they might want to, great engineers don't lock themselves in the basement with a case of Mountain Dew. They play nicely on teams, speak up in meetings, send good email, and create rock-solid documentation.

Whether you need help finding a great engineer, or need to borrow our team of ninjas for a while, we can help. Contact us at info@ideaentity.com.