12 Best Practices To Improve Your QA Testing Skills

As you go through these QA best practices, keep in mind that your dedication and effort will ultimately determine how successfully you grow in the ever-changing world of software quality assurance and testing.

QA testing skills

Foster an environment where QA is a team responsibility

Everyone involved in the delivery process is responsible for creating the best possible product or service. As a QA best practice, start by making sure all requirements and necessary acceptance criteria are met for each story or item the team will be working on. Encourage developers to create good unit cases for their code, and encourage peer programming and peer review.

Test early and often

Correcting the problem in the early stages of software development will save the organization a lot of effort and resources. Best QA practice, make sure you organize your work in a way that allows you to anticipate potential problems and re-motivate the team to incorporate QA activities at every stage of development.

Get involved in pull request testing

Even after you go through the review process, it’s a good idea to go PR and check the changed files section. An extra set of eyes will come in handy whenever you notice problems in the code itself and will help you become more familiar with the code you’ve written and the changes implemented in each section.

Build trust

To gain trust as a quality tester, you need to facilitate optimal communication, such as admitting when you don’t know something and asking for help when needed. Sometimes your team will be made up of people of different backgrounds, nationalities, and even time zones, so another best practice is to try to communicate as clearly as possible to avoid misinterpretation.

Use communication channels like slack and Microsoft teams

Part of your job as a QA will be to let other professionals know that they did something that caused the program or application that they put time, money, and effort into creating to fail. This can be even more difficult when communicating with remote teams.

 Adapt to change

It is vital for a QA tester to stay up-to-date on new techniques, tools, and certifications related to QA practice so that you can always adapt your approach. You will soon see that tasks that seemed difficult at first really only required determination.

Write good test cases

Grooming stories are the key to identifying all the requirements, acceptance criteria, and test data necessary for you and others to execute your test cases in the future. The importance of writing clear steps and providing details becomes apparent when you and others need to return to the test cases after some time to re-execute them and perform regression testing.

QA management tool

There are many reasons why using a QA management tool is a best practice. First, management tools can help you track your work so that your coworkers, peers, and managers have an overview of what you’re working on.

Combine test automation and manual testing

Even if the QA Tester will not be programming, the need to be precise in describing the steps taken and saving evidence of the result is very important.

Use continuous integration and continuous delivery

In some older models, such as the Waterfall Development Model, activities are focused on the idea of ​​handover. when one team completes its tasks, the project is then handed off to the next team, with responsibilities and activities remaining isolated.

Maintain good evidence of software bugs

Although you may find many defects during software testing, keep in mind that documenting them properly is one of the most important things to work on. There are many ways to track evidence of bugs found, such as taking screenshots and recording the screen using QuickTime Player on your computer. There are many tools that you can even add as browser extensions that can make your life as a QA tester easier.

Be resilient

Resilience is your ability to face hard times, bounce back and move forward. Resilient people experience setbacks and stress, but they use their strengths and seek help to overcome challenges and overcome problems.

Conclusion

This list of QA best practices is not definitive, but I hope you find them useful as you continue your journey as a QA.