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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Let’s Make a Great Workplace for Testers and Developers

“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.”

Establishing a software development, pairing up with a fair amount of developers, testers, can be insanely tricky at times. I mean can a developer and QA have a healthy relationship? This is one of the hottest and the most emerging topic across the globe. Testers vs. Developers - Let’s delve into the details!   

Part of the problem is the process of web development itself. No kidding! Being conventional in nature, these methods continue to act as a disruptor. As a result, more and more companies are getting obsessed with DevOps practices.

Where the difference lies?

The aim of testers and developers is ultimately the same; it’s just that they do follow a different path to achieve the pre-determined goal. I personally find these two departments more like Tom and Jerry- can’t live with each other / can’t live without each other. More importantly, it doesn’t mean that a tester’s motto is to spoil the work done by developers. I mean result can be positive only when both the teams collaborate effectively. Let us understand their perspectives in depth.

#1 Gathering requirements and analysis

As the point implies, here the appropriate requirement is gathered from stakeholders; this basically includes suitable necessities of the application. The document is later on shared with both testing and development teams to know their point of views in detail. For example, if the end user asks to have a no special character in the input field.

- Software Developer- Writes the code for inserting an input field by keeping a healthy check on what a user enters any special character. As a result, an error is thrown, or a proper error message is displayed.

- Tester- Tester, on the other hand, will check the stated requirement and will keep multiple scenarios in mind such as:

  • Special characters are included in the input box, what to do? Do you think it will display the same or a different message to the user?
  • What if the user copies and pastes any combination of special characters and alphanumeric characters into the input box?

#2 Application design

After collecting data and doing adequate research, it’s time for developers to start their designing procedure on the particular app. This includes developers reviewing of the design documents before implementation.

Testers from their understanding and creative thinking analyze all the possible scenarios for all new features, enhancements, integrations, UI update, anything mentioned in the requirement. They create test cases, sanity, and data so that when the application comes for testing, they are ready with their testing parameters.

#3 Implementation phase:

From a developer’s perspective, they are focused on building appropriate functionality that is “requirement.” For them, functionality that works perfectly and effectively matters the most.

Whereas from the tester’s perspective, it is the exact opposite of a developer. When a developer focuses on implementing the functionality, testers apply all of their creativity to test the functionality. This means if a developer misunderstood the requirement and god forbid, if the testers apply, chances of failure in the application will increase.

#4 System Testing

Now it’s time for developers to upload the application to staging /QA environment featuring a defined set of functionalities that have been implemented by the developer in that particular sprint/release.

As a result, software developers’ end up uploading an application with a notion that the functionality implemented is developed perfectly as per the requirements specified; they are just giving application to the testers to re-verify.

For testers, apart from desired functionality, there are many other different ways an end-user can think to use a particular application. I am talking of the task the testers require using in their creative thinking and explore every possible scenario.

#5 Maintenance phase

Last but certainly not the least, the phase is all about checking the combined effort of Testers and developers. The final application after implementation is sent to the user to use it live. Luckily, if it is working as desired, then there is no problem. But in case, if there is any deviation, it again requires the combined effort of both testers and developers in the maintenance phase.

It’s all about coming up with the best product.

Best Way to Make Developer and QA Relationship Healthy

  • Share your strategy with developers.
  • Avoid considering that you will mark it as an issue at the later stage.
  • Build friendly relations with developers, this will make them feel comfortable to share anything with you.
  • Keep your issue reporting style positive; make sure it shouldn't it should not hurt someone’s feelings.

Conclusion

Of course, there’s a lot of confusion and misunderstanding going around, but we are professionals we don’t wait for some magic process to make everything run smoother. We are here to make things happen! After all, delivering a high-quality experience to the user should be at the paramount.


Author Bio:

Charles Richard is a Business Analyst at Tatvasoft.co.uk. and A passionate writer who loves to write that matters and believes that writing is the best media to express what you want to share with the rest of the world.