10 Habits to Help You Speed Up Testing

by T Ashok @ash_thiru on Twitter

Summary
In today’s age of speed, technology/ automation is seen as the key enabler for rapid QA. Yes, it is indeed, but the limiting function to speed is one’s skills. And this is where good habits come in. Here are TEN good habits for QA that can help you speed up significantly.

Habit #1  Practice… Practice… Practice..
Practice exploration. Practice looking for bugs. Practice modelling behaviour. Practice writing tersely. Practice scripting. Practice observation. Practice.. Practice.. so that you can unconsciously do, speedily and well.

Habit #2  Focus… Focus…
Focus on the who. Focus on the what. Focus on the where. 
Focus on the what-for. Focus on value. 
Relentlessly discard the noise, the unnecessary.

Habit #3 Analyse… Analyse…
Should I regress this? Should I look for this issue? 
Should I test on this environment? Should I document so much?
Should I really do? How much should I do? Can I do lesser?
Constantly analyse as to how to do less.

Habit #4 Steer… Constantly steer…
Course correct. Adjust. Revise Improvise. Adapt. Repeat.
As you do, continually revise becoming quicker and better.

Habit #5 Immerse… 
Be aware of the act now. Stay in the present. Be mindful.
Immerse yourself ‘stopping’ time, accomplishing more.
Explore immersively, centering to see everything.   

Habit #6 Sharpen…
What issues matter for who, where and why? What is the business benefit? What is the user experience? What may be the potential impact?
Stay purposeful. Sharpen the objective.  Setup the route. Stay on it.

Habit #7 Simplify… Simplify…
Too complex to understand. Break it down. To complicated to execute. Decompose.
Relentlessly simplify. Never muddle the clarity. 

Habit #8 Discard… 
Learnt that this is not working? Discard. 
Figured you were wrong? Discard.
Saw something better? Discard what you did.
Metamorphose all the time.

Habit #9 Organise… 
Setup goal. Plan. Do. Observe. Take notes. 
Distractions happen. Problems surface. Chaos threatens. 
Yes, that is natural law. Stay organised, in the mind. 
Discipline, structure smoothens disruptions, in the mind.

Habit #10 Leverage… 
See patterns and exploit it. Observe others work and improvise on it. 
See parallel in other disciplines and apply it. 
Use smart checklists.  Use tools. Reuse strategy, scenarios, scripts.

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