‘TestAway’ has been a phenomenal addition to my life both personally and professionally. I feel it has the potential of becoming the next big thing in the community space.
And I am saying this without any adornment based on my experience and interaction in the two high-energy events of Goa and Shimla and also as someone who is involved from day 0 to official cessation.
A look at the Goa and Shimla
Goa and Shimla TestAway both had their own flavour and enthusiasm.
I love sunsets over the ocean and Goa is certainly a good place to experience this.
Imagine this topped with a private luxury villa housing swimming pool and a terrific set of Testers from different corners of the country.
TestAway Goa venueSandeep Garg educating us with ‘Critical Thinking’ workshopAt Chapora fort with PD
After Goa, the next TestAway was planned keeping in mind the call of the Testers to have another one soon.
Originally the TestAway was thought to be an annual occurrence but we all know two TestAways has happened in less than 8 months.
After an event in a coastal backdrop, it was not less than obvious to have the next one in the Mountains. Shimla ticked the most number of boxes wrt to accessibility and availability.
And what an event it has been high voltage, high amplitude, high altitude everything high minus the attendees 😀
Preparation and Screening
The joy I was talking about is yet to appear 🙂 If you wondered what goes in making the TestAway event, stay glued, I would be leaking some details 😛
TestAway is based on the residence learning program, the concept is, selected Testers are invited for a 3-day learning and experience program.
Almost all the attendees are strangers and all we do in the 3 days is chat-share-connect-motivate-learn. It really works. Like when was the last time 15 different minds from different specialities and all equally passionate brainstorm, chat testing for 3 days and 3 nights. Imagine the outcomes of such elegant deep discussions you always wished to have with someone like-minded, won’t that be amazing?
Let’s talk a bit about the planning part. The planning always begins with a hunt for a location and then for the venue. Easy said than done. I find this as one of the most draining tasks in the overall planning and execution.
Risks are pretty high in the sense that what if the location or venue doesn’t work out. 20s of calls are made to hotels, resorts, villas, homestays for availability and pricing. Then the shortlisted properties are again evaluated on 50+ parameters.
Finding a balance between the luxury and pricing and negotiating with uninterested hoteliers is what I don’t love much 🙂 But that’s what the 1st step is for kickoff.
Next set of activities involve thinking about workshops, round table topics, games and other schedule-related things. While the TestAway page and related pages like invitation forms, etc are made live, other items like branding items, welcome kits are planned and orders are provided.
Stationery accessories itself has a list of 60+ different items to collate. All these activities too take ample time and energy as affording a 360-degree merchandise partner is out of the question. Moolya Software Testing Pvt. Ltd. do support TestAway while being a co-sponsor for the branding kits.
With less than 45 days left, screening candidates becomes a daily job. Sometimes they are busy, sometimes we, multiple calls are made explaining the concept of the TestAway, general QnA and seeking their expectations from the event.
It’s not always this straightforward and sometimes it turns funny too when candidates ask the places of the city tour that they will be taken.
We get some relief from the preparation once the squad is ready and WhatsApp group is created. Initially, the traction of interaction among the attendees is relaxed but once it picks up that fails to slow down and great relationships starts forging.
That’s the place where 15 Testers camped for 3 days 😀
One of the views from the balcony ?
Thats Ajay educating us in his styleOne of the team brainstorming sessionScene from a bomb defusal game. Friends reacting when you are not able to defuse the bomb 😀Outing to Mall Road, ShimlaFrom the Bonfire sessionMiss those peaceful morning walks up the hill ?
Shimla squad. Can you guess what they are up to 😀
Leaving for the venue
Post Goa, the core team thought of reaching the venue one day in advance as it would give us crucial time to plan out last-minute details. That was the reason we left for Shimla with one extra day in hand.
Mumbai to Delhi was a late evening flight. With 2+ hours in hand, we had assumed we would get the prebooked AC bus from Delhi to Shimla without any serious effort.
Unfortunately, the Ola driver was new to Delhi just like us and we were doing circles of ISBT without knowing ours has already departed. That 15-minute flurry from ISBT to ISBT (don’t ask me details :D) with all the branding items, sippers, T-Shirts, our luggage was crazy.
Drenched in sweat we were running with an inner surety coated with the hope that our bus can be late 😀 It wasn’t, our bus had left the terminal. Luck favoured us with a Himachal State Transport bus for that night, without double thought we boarded the bus.
That night didn’t stop entertaining us. From a young guy, who left open his bladder pressure inside the running bus to an old chacha threatening fellow passengers citing himself as the star of Shimla. Nevertheless, there should be ups and downs otherwise we know what a straight line in ECG means.
On the venue
D-Day is quite special for me as I get to meet most of the attendees for the first time and welcoming them is a good feeling. Post this, the clocks move super fast. Before we realise that we are making amazing conversations and friends we realise oh 3 days have passed and its time to bid bye.
As a volunteer, sometimes we are not able to participate in expert discussions which we wish to. But this never stopped me in putting my points or getting in touch with attendees and talk about something I liked.
One thing we have been lucky in both Goa and Shimla is that we had very generous caretakers. Suresh Ji and Deshraj Ji in White Haven Shimla never said no to any request made for extra aloo paratha or green Himalayan apples or extra cup of Tea. They very smilingly extended their help in whatever way they could be it putting our TestAway flag or making arrangements for cab on runtime. Our Shimla attendees were aware of the effort put by them and reflected their gratitude courteously.
Last pic
Its very heavy on heart to leave the place knowing all these moments are not going to continue or come back. And its heavy on the brain when the tempo traveller from Gozo cabs you booked from Shimla to Delhi eats up your brain for 2 hours in midnight at the Delhi Airport to settle out the unreasonable tolls and taxes.
In the end
I am left with a truth that Testing can be fun. I am left with event memories I do not wish to erase. I am left with friends I would always like to be in touch with. I am left with photos which I would see again and again and which will make me smile. I am left with a dream to repeat.
Disclaimer: This post is my personal memoir and does not represent anything from my employer or The Test Tribe community.
Get in touch with me in case you wish to be a part of or know more about it:
Software development is inherently very dynamic in nature when it comes to changing requirements. This, in turn, makes testing challenging as they have to absorb shocks of changes which may come very late in the development cycle. To collate such testing challenges we turned to our community and received wonderful responses from variedly experienced Testers.
Sharing it here with a view that it will help Testing fraternity as the saying goes ‘Life is too small to learn only from our experience‘
Arokya Samy
In Mobile testing, identifying the OS and mobile devices.
Trying to answer the question from the manager. Why did you miss this bug?
Convincing the developer to accept and have a look at the bug which he was citing as invalid
While working with customers tickets sometimes it is challenging to understand their problems and trying to replicate the same bug in the testing environment
Proving parallel automation support and maintaining success rate when your application is too dynamic
Mahesh Chikane
I would say something which I have comparatively faced fewer times but was definitely challenging and thought provoking – It was explaining my Testing. Why I test what I test. Why I follow a particular order in Testing. Why certain amount of Testing(X scenarios/ X cases / X hours of exploratory testing) is needed before I conclude my testing for that cycle.
I would suggest to all new testers – Try answering these questions. Probably to yourself first. Try to keep answers practical(Meaning, don’t just say, my gut feeling says three days I need). Backup with some reasons/data.
Trina Acharya
One of the biggest Testing challenges that I have faced and still continue to face is to be able to keep learning new things while doing complete justice to my current tasks.. To have a start and correct direction on it and also to be able to keep working on it so that I don’t lose touch with whatever I learned.
Abhaychandra Chede
Staying Current, A tester has to keep updating oneself with advancing technology. It is very crucial to keep current.
Work Pressure, this might mount around releases as a tester might have to put in extra time
Hamza Bhamla
Have I able to achieve the expected coverage of the feature? At times the creativity of the mind stops at a stage with a thought that this the maximum possible cases. However, there’s always something that is likely to be missed.
Ajay Balamurugadas
Why this small change requires one day of testing
Niraj Yadav
Preparing test data which is expected to as perfect as Production but the client refuses to handle Production data because it is not anonymized and nobody has the bandwidth to do so.
Interpersonal issues of teammates. One of the team members is too casual or lazy resulting in other members to be overloaded and cover up for him until the manager figure out a resolution.
Working under extreme time crunch during the last phase of release as most of the time is eaten up during development.
Working under a manager, management or client who doesn’t understand the importance of Testing rather Quality.
Writing Test cases in absence of proper design document and wireframes. It is much better to write cases parallelly during execution rather than duplicating the effort.
Vadeesh Budramane
Validate the below
Lack of bandwidth as testing was not prioritized during budgeting.
Too much of data to prepare
Test scripts are fragile. I end up updating the same scripts sprint after sprint
We are sure that you too must have faced one or other Testing challenges which had made you think deeply on the situation. Do write down your similar experience in the comment box below.
When we say Tools and Technologies we often forget techniques. For any Software Tester techniques should be the primary concern as it deals with the approach we apply to test something. ‘Technical Tester’, this word is often used in Software Testing but the meaning is taken as technological tester i.e. one who knows about technologies (Internet, Web servers, Databases, etc). Whereas Technical tester term is more about the skills and crafts required for testing, for example, designing tests, approach to exploratory testing, etc.
When we turned to our community as what do they have to say about bare minimum tools and technologies a QA should posses we received wonderful responses from Testers having varied experiences.
We thought of compiling the comments and sharing it outside the group so that our Testing fraternity is benefitted with content.
The tester has to have at least an elementary programming knowledge with a fundamental understanding of how software is built and run. If you haven’t learned to program, start small and learn continuously.
Below are the things which I think a Technical Tester should be doing(List is what I could think of while I wrote. There can be surely more).
Will you guys mind adding more to this list or suggesting if something should be removed?
Here it is (in no particular order):
Knows Different types of Testing. Knowing those at the core I mean and not just being limited to one tool. Remember, if the use case/understanding is clear, one objective may be achieved using many tools.
Understands the architecture of his/her application
By architecture I mean, what all technologies are used to form the complete application.
What exactly each of those is doing.
In what way they are connected to each other.
How do they communicate?
When a business user initiates a request, how the entire request-response flow works.
Understands the logs, or at least tries to understand. There are several ways like Google the exception or error, past experience, asking a developer and remember, making logical guess while reading and cross-checking with Dev if your understanding was correct.
Questions himself/herself why a particular issue is occurring while using all the logs available(front end, backend, web server logs, DB logs) whenever possible before routing to Dev. Same can be done in parallel if urgency demands.
Requests RCA for the bugs logged. Asks questions till the time it is clear
Explicitly asks for Impact area of the Bug fix/new feature
Requests overview of how particular bug was fixed
Requests overview of how the new feature is getting developed. Helps Dev to further assess the impact area, a better approach, etc.
May not be an expert coder but if situation demands can code. More the better here.
Always thinks of how to automate basic routine stuff. Something as simple as Build deployment or Executing Automation suite.
Thinks of innovative approaches to test and still follows a set process.
Does research about the new technology/jar/upgrade being taken and looks for information on open issues. Also on its compatibility with remaining Tech stack.
Understands the value of automation, and decides what to automate and makes sure it is being automated right.
If not fluent, decent with Database queries and is ready to learn on demand. Remember knowing everything is best but knowing basics/nothing and being ready to research as needed is ‘human’.
Probably repeating, but an understanding of different types of Testing. For example, Security Testing. It’s ok if you cannot hack or find critical Vulnerabilities. But at least test for basic flaws like other customer data in export, URL tampering, open admin pages, easy guess passwords, XSS wherever you can, etc.
Knows how to use browser developer toolbar for different purposes like checking response, request, response time, 404 errors, etc.
Testers should be full stack Tester. This term ‘Full stack QA’ was later beautifully elaborated on another community discussion by Mahesh and Ravisurya, posting their excerpts as it is
A lot more technical, not just a bit. The more, the better, as elaborated below:
Monitoring production logs especially after deployments has benefits of its own. And if the tester does it regularly then there is a lot they can discover through those logs.
If as a tester, you are not yet doing production deployments then I suggest you to start doing it and make sure to check production logs (or logs on other environments for that matter). If for some reason, you do not own deployments then try to spend at least one short session for monitoring your application’s production logs, every day. That’s what I mean by “Monitoring session”.
Monitoring sessions can also help you identify technical bugs, errors or warnings, which might not be directly affecting the end user but still warrant attention and fixing. It’s hard to identify such issues in regular functional testing which usually has a big scope of its own.
As a tester one should gather as much as knowledge possible for whatever one is working upon. There isn’t any minimum technical or programming concept one should learn. Rather it should be let’s learn and explore as much as possible.
Just as technical understanding would help the tester understand the product a little more from a developer perspective, the knowledge of management skills would help them make use of proper time estimation techniques, RTM, criticality matrix and even create it accurately if needed.
There’s a need for every tester to have the holistic approach – TechFuncMan (technical, functional and managerial)
TestAway was a long dreamed event for the Testing Community. It came out in a wonderful fashion and the experience was one of a kind. We asked Geosley Andrades (Associate Engineering Manager at Cornerstone OnDemand) to share his experience of TestAway and he very gladly accepted it. Below are his experiences in his words hope you all will love it.
The Dream
It all started with a casual discussion over the snacks post The Test Tribe meeting. Few tribals including me were discussing how cool it would be to plan an outing for the Test Tribe Members.
The day was not far. I realized “Dreams do become reality” when this one of a kind flagship event of “TestAway” was announced as a part of The Test Tribe one-year celebrations with the community reaching around 1500 members in such a short span. The destination of the TestAway was Goa, I would have never imagined I would go someday in Goa for learning.
The Self-Realization
This was an invite-only program where only selected 15 passionate testers were to be invited post screening of their profile. Filling the application form, I was so excited that this was happening and wished I could be selected to witness and be part of such an exclusive event.
I did have double thoughts when I came to know it was not for free and we had to shell out from our pockets. Seeing the amazing lineup of topics and activities of TestAway helped me erase the concerns of money over the only chance to rediscover myself as a tester.
Finally, the names of the attendees were out. I felt happy to be on the list. I thanked God for this very chance and took an oath to make the most of this opportunity.
TestAway came in a nice way and at the right time to me. The beauty of community, learning and networking with the elite group of testers was what I always wished to have.
Day One – Bring it On
Thursday, 7th March 2019 – The day had finally arrived. Set with all the packing, I caught my flight to Goa – the land of beaches, sun, cool breeze and coconut trees.
Waited for fellow attendees to join me at Dabolim Airport and the fire lit instantly. In no time we were discussing Testing over some quick bites. That’s when I realized I am here for serious learning.
Sandeep Garg the Master of Note making, Rahul Singh the Gamer Boy, Arokya Samy the entrepreneur, Sharath Kumaraswamy the Aerospace Drone Guy, Arjun BM the Micro-Community Builder joined me on the journey to our Test Away destination “Ziva Villa” by Villa De Goa a private luxury villa in the Candolim, North Goa.
The Test Away Flag flew high on top of our villa and I knew our organizer’s Mahesh Chikane, Founder The Test Tribe and Niraj Yadav, Event Manager for TestAway had made sure all arrangements were in place before our arrival.
As soon as rest of the testers reached the venue, introductory conversations erupted. We felt like one family, one team there on a common mission to create an impact in the testing world. Ajay Balamurugadas, Wizard of Testing took center stage in leading the war cry – How is the Josh? So loud was the “Josh” I am sure must have reached 3 villas far away 😛
Collecting our swags, we freshened and headed for lunch. Resetting ourselves we jumped on to our first interesting activity “Gamifying Testing”. It was an interesting game based on the principle of minute observation and test of memory.
Though the rules were pretty simple but it demanded a great deal of team coordination, observation skills and an excellent strategy. Our strategy was basically assigning 4 quadrants of the UI to 4 individuals and one person would focus on the center and link these 4 quadrants. Not sure if this was the best strategy but my team did manage to eventually win this game.
This was followed by another interesting game wherein we had to guess which Product or Company a person might be thinking by asking only five specific questions. This was difficult where none of the teams were able to crack out completely. But we surely enjoyed every bit of it and improved on asking intelligent questions round after round to eventually crack the strategy.
After this amazing fun activity we sat down for a Tester’s Roundtable where we discussed on the “State of Testing – What wrong we have done and how we can Improve”. The roundup was concluded with pain areas identified and solution on how to overcome them.
Roundtable discussions
Now, this didn’t end here. We were introduced to a superb strategy game called the “Mafia” – modeling a conflict between two groups – the mafia and the villager. At the start of the game, each player is secretly assigned a role affiliated with one of these teams. The game has two alternating phases: one, during which the mafia may covertly “murder” a villager, and two, in which surviving players debate the identities of the mafia and vote to eliminate a suspect.
The game continues until all the mafia have been eliminated or until the mafia outnumbers the villagers. So addicted where we to this game that this has lived in our hearts even after TestAway. We did pledge to play this game sometime when we meet again.
Day Two – I want More
Friday, 8th March 2019 – With all excitement we kicked off our day with Aqua Zumba. Disha Reddy was fabulous in making us move our hips in the Swimming pool. It was nice fun to have all the guys splash and jump in the pool for couple of hours.
Aqua Zumba
After a yummy breakfast, we went on to attend a workshop on “How to Test anything faster and better” by our testing Guru Ajay. Ajay enlightened us on techniques of how to set the right strategy and mission. Tips on how to make your brain an idea generator and a thinker rather than a storage device.
He encouraged us to get out of our comfort zone, do things differently, take every opportunity as it comes. He ended his session with a beautiful quote saying, “Testing is a goal for life, is a way of life”.
Breathe Testing. Enjoy Testing. Life is Short.
WorkshopBomb Defusal game
Ajay also introduced us to two great games. First one was a bomb defuse game – “Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes” – This game task a player with disarming procedurally generated bombs with the assistance of other players who help another team with the bomb instruction manual. Winning this game requires the presence of mind, excellent communication and team work.
Second, Ultimate tic-tac-toe a board game composed of nine tic-tac-toe boards arranged in a 3-by-3 grid. Players take turns playing in the smaller tic-tac-toe boards until one of them wins in the larger tic-tac-toe board. Compared to the traditional tic-tac-toe, strategy required in this game is conceptually more difficult and challenging.
We then went to play War of Cards with a superbly crafted deck of Test Sphere that gets testers thinking and talking about their testing. Testers brainstorm, coach, share knowledge and experiences on the concepts mentioned on a card randomly pulled out. The Team which gives the best explanation wins.
Siquerim beach walk
After Tea, we headed straight to the Coco and Sinquerim beach to enjoy the cool breeze, waves and sand. A walk I will cherish all my life making our bond of friendship even stronger. With a bunch of crazy clicks and our war cry shout, we headed back to our villa.
Post dinner, we continued to play our favorite “Mafia” game and later on testers utilized the rest of the evening for 1:1 mentoring and discussing great Testing ideas.
Sinquerim beach
Day 3 – Just Can’t Get Enough
Saturday, 9th March 2019 – All charged for a bright new day we headed to Chapora Fort also called as the “Dil Chahta Hai” Fort on our bikes. Riding through the lanes of Goa, passing by colorful vintage Goani houses it was all nostalgiac stuff. We sat down and just soaked in the view and place for an hour before returning safe and sound to our villa.
Today we had another workshop on Storytelling (Less Talk more exercise again by Ajay). We discussed on how to write effective testing stories and open our mind to think of NLQ –NEXT LOGICAL QUESTION and be ready with the answers for it.
Another workshop was on “Design Thinking” by Sandeep where he threw light on the solution based approach of solving problems. His insights gave a new meaning on tackling complex problems by understanding human needs, reframing the problem in human centric ways, brainstorming, prototyping and testing.
Each one of us then went on to present their own Audience curated story. Which resulted in coining Manjunath Batti as the “This Guy”, Savita Patil narrating a fairy tale love story and Trina Acharya stunned with the outcome of it all.
Sharing your story
Evening was time to be merry. We headed for candle light dinner to Mama Cecelia’s Beach Café – a shack on the Candolim Beach front and had good laughs over lighter talks and jokes that evening. Sharath stole the evening that day with his standup comedy. We all just couldn’t stop laughing. The day ended with our ritual a game of “Mafia”.
Dinner by the shack
Day 4 – Saying Goodbyes are Hard
Sunday, 10th March 2019 – After a nice breakfast. We wrapped up the TestAway Learning Experience with Mahesh and Niraj gifting us certificates and memento to take home with us.
I literally felt nostalgic writing the final testimonial and deep within my heart wished to have the next TestAway soon. As I complete this I will miss those conversations, the fun, the learning, the Mafia which Priyabrata Das, tried to capture in his photography. Silent Girl Anita Gujrati was no more silent, the spark of knowledge had ignited not just her but us all. I certainly admit “These were the best days of my Life”
Thats me
We are sure you must have loved Geosley’s experience of TestAway. Please feel free to share your feedback, suggestions, queries in the comment box below or shoot an Email on [email protected]
Sharing some of the amazing testimonials that we received from TestAway attendees.
First I want to say Thank You to the organisers for inviting me to this wonderful event.
Before coming here I was filled/my mind was filled with lot of questions. What is Tester career, where is testers career path, what to do get something in my testing path. I got answers for all of these and my mind is now relaxed now.
Savita Patil
TestAway is an awesome experience where you will love and enjoy lots of Testing related things.
Manjunath Batti
TestAway organized by TTT was one of kind from and for the Testing Community. It was an excellent learning platform and helped in unlearning many things which were not good practices.
Kudos to Mahesh and Niraj for organizing it perfectly. Ajay’s and Sandeep’s workshop were amazing and it opened new avenues and perspectives for me. I will look forward for more such events in the future 🙂
It would not be wrong to assert that Software Testers meets maximum stereotypes in Software fraternity. And it’s not only other guys stereotyping Testers, in fact, many times they themselves tag the label. But the matter of fact is that a bulk of stereotypes are greatly generalized and stands without a base.
We asked people from across the Technology sector to share what they think about Stereotypes Software Testing professionals face in their sphere or something they themselves have faced. We received wonderful responses and here we are collating them.
Let’s have a look at the most common stereotype a Software Tester faces
1. Developer to another Developer: Testers won’t understand this, they are not technical people.
This is one of the greatest stereotypes of the 21st century. It is imperative for any Functional Tester to understand the underlying technology in order to do a comprehensive testing. Not all the developers are technical and not all the Testers are non-technical.
2. Every Manual Tester wants to be an Automation Tester.
Though its a matter of opportunity still those who have tried out both know how difficult it is working as a Functional Tester and how boring it can be scripting Regression Test Cases and troubleshooting failed Automation Cases.
3. QA Manager: My job is to prepare dashboard, status reports and share those.
This comes from both the sides, Managers, and Testers.
Some wannabe Test Managers stereotype the Manager role. Planning out strategy and helping the team with whatever the situation requires is also Managers responsibility. Testers feel their Manager just forwards the Email and does nothing.
4. QA Manager: Testing doesn’t take more than 1/10 of development effort, why is your estimation more than Developers
Really. There isn’t any hardcoded fact. What if the Product is extending its support to a new browser. In such a case development efforts are negligible but QA has to perform and extensive testing.
5. A Recruiter: Don’t you think your notice period of 60 days is more, testers have a lesser notice period
No comments 😀
6. Developer to a Tester: Your job is the easy bro, log bugs and then leave for the home on Friday, spoiling our weekends ?
7. In managerial meet: In any case, Dev freshers would not like to report to a QA manager ?
8. Senior Management to a QA Manager: This guy doesn’t look complete fit for the Development role, please see if you can utilize him in Testing. Testing to kar hi lega(He should be able to do Testing though). 😐
9. Senior Management: What are we waiting for? Automate everything 😀
Automation is trending, isn’t it?
10. Senior Manager to QA team: Why do you people always raise a critical bug at the end?
No excuses but a stitch in time saves time 😛
11. Don’t go near the QA cubicle, they will throw a new bug on your neck 😀
12. Developers to Testers: You people always think Negative
Of course not, haven’t you seen the Test Suite? Positive cases are a lot more than negative scenarios 😛
Do comment if you loved the post. And do not forget to share the stereotype that you have faced in your professional experience and especially how did you handle it.
Disclaimer: We have tried our best to keep the comments from the contributors as original as possible.
Special Thanks to the contributors of this post (Shrinivas Kulkarni, Abhaychandra Chede, Aditya Prabhu, Arokya Swamy, Mahesh Chikane, Shreya Khillare)
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