Day-To-Day Activities of a Software Tester

Before diving into the daily activities within the career of a Software Tester, let’s start by understanding why software testing is important.

Why is Software Testing important?

Software testing is vital because if there are any bugs or errors in the software, they can be identified early and rectified before the product is delivered. A properly tested software product verifies dependability, security, and high performance, which leads to saving time, cost-effectiveness, and customer satisfaction. Software testing must be carried out because it improves the software application’s effectiveness. It ensures that the application should not result in any failures because it may lead to extra expenses. 

It also helps stakeholders understand the risks involved in implementation of the software and check whether or not it meets the business requirements and technical requirements that led to its initial design and development.

That’s how software testing helps us. 

Life of a Software Tester

The daily tasks of a software tester are not limited to only checking the bugs in software. The goal is to ensure that their company’s software products are as effective and glitch-free as much as possible. Testers are naturally curious creatures, they are always asking “what if” questions regarding a system. They think outside of the box. Basically, without software testers, there wouldn’t be someone dedicated to identifying the issues within a software which might cause it to not function properly. 

In the development cycle, every team plays a key role. The software development team focuses on delivering code and the QA team ensures product quality. Each team prioritizing a specific focus, going to the market can only be a success.

Requirement Analysis

Testers are involved in requirement analysis activity to ensure that the requirements identified by the Business Analyst and accepted by the customer are measurable. Also, this activity gives inputs to various stages of SDLC to identify the availability of resources, scheduling, and testing preparation. Below are the activities QA needs to perform.

• Analyze each requirement from the specification document and use cases.
• List down high-level scenarios.
• Clarify queries and functionality from stakeholders.      
• Provide suggestions to implement the features or any logical issues.
• Identify defects against the specification document.
• Track the defect from the specification document.
•  Create high-level Test Scenarios.
• Create Traceability Matrix.

Before performing any tests, testers will also need to review and analyze the specifications of their company’s software.

Testing software

The first task is to test the software that the tester will get from the developer team. The tester will check the product for any bugs that may hinder its performance. After that, they will need to report the bug.

In the role, you will be responsible for reviewing and implementing systematic test plans. You will work with software developers and project members to determine the project scope and requirements. 

Duties:

• Executes test cases under varying circumstances.
• Documents and evaluates test results.
• Detects, logs, and reports program bugs and glitches.
• Tracks defects and helps troubleshoot errors.
• Reviews test procedures and develop test scripts.

Coordinating between departments

A software tester deals with a lot of coordination tasks in their day-to-day activities. Ensure that developers have the right amount of information and data to fix an error.  The software may not only have bugs in the development stage but also in the design stage or other phases. Other than that, the tester needs to meet the customer needs and take into account the feedback too. There are a lot of coordination tasks. The software tester may also have to collaborate with departments and teams to guarantee a glitch-free delivery.

Some strategies are:

• Respect and understand another department’s role.
• Encourage approaches by other teams.
• Try to build a friendly relationship.
• Prioritize the project.
• Agile and pair testing.
• Share ideas but do not emphasize implementation.
• Accept that human beings can make mistakes.

When all the testers and developers work in harmony, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.

Test planning

A vital part of the activities of a tester is to promptly check all emails and understand the requirements of projects. According to that, they will plan an appropriate testing methodology and mechanism to maximize time efficiency during testing. 

By following the below steps, testers can write a test plan:

• Analyze the product.
• Design the Test Strategy.
• Define the Test Objectives.
• Define Test Criteria.
• Resource Planning.
• Plan Test Environment.
• Schedule & Estimation.
• Determine Test Deliverables.

Reporting

As a tester, if you locate any bugs then you should report the bug them as soon as possible. The whole concept is to identify issues so that the management can make the right decision. Identifying bugs or conducting test cases is one part but the other important part is relaying the test result to management. You should inform if the things mentioned below occur:

• If there are any critical issue that the management team should know.
• How many tests do you need to test.
•  Any blocker issues which block your testing.

Testing tools

Software testing tools are used in different stages and phases when checking for bugs in a software. A tester may utilize management tools to manage the scheduling, logging, reporting bugs, communicating with clients, executing test cases, and making documents. Execution and performance tools are used by testers to carry out automation testing and judge the performance of the software. Identifying the right tool can guarantee a bug-free and market-ready software. For any business, it is important that the system/product doesn’t crash or fire critical errors because prevention is always cheaper than a hot bug fix.

There are some factors to choosing a proper testing tool that is needed to do carefully because it influences your business results.

Factors when choosing testing tools:

• Licensing and its price (Price of the tool depends on the type of License (per user), run time, open-source, etc.)
• Good test reports
• Training and guideline
• Support cost
• Level of skills and experience

Wrapping

As a software tester, you need to know a lot of skills to achieve daily tasks.  Every day may not be the same and you may face new challenges. But you have to be ready to face the challenges every day. 

However, these are the basic and most important activities that you often spend your time on. A day in the life of a test will become much more meaningful if you do your best job around these activities. 

Don’t limit yourself to the same tools and methods to test every software. Innovate and experiment with a variety of tools. Come up with new ideas. Don’t give up. I believe unless you enjoy your work, you will not perform well. Then your job will be a thankless job. Don’t give up if you can’t find any bug for the first time. Try and try and remember you have a special skill set to show it off.

So far, I hope that I cover all the basic day-to-day activities of a software tester in this article.