Sapient Testers of India!
There’s something important going on in India. It’s called Weekend Testers. It seems to be the beginning of a truly Indian version of the Context-Driven School of Testing. It’s a sapient testing insurgency!
If you are a tester in India (or you aspire to be) and you want to be a GOOD tester, then you should get involved with this or start something like it yourself.
I taught in India, years ago, planting seeds at Wipro and Mindtree. Michael Bolton has taught there a few times, since. I’ve been working with Pradeep Soundararajan and Shrini Kulkarni for a while. I just discovered that Matthew Heusser has also been mentoring some of them, too. I’ve blogged about other Indians who test. But this is the first organized community of skill-bearing software testers I have seen in India.
I hope it’s the beginning of something big. You deserve it. Plus… when there’s enough of you, and some of you get into management, perhaps you’ll invite me to come out and teach again. I’d like to go back for more.
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Hi James,
Its really nice to see this information in your blog.. Thanks.
Tester from India.
~Bharath
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:17 pm
awesome…
November 24th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Hi James,
I am tester from China,
As far as I know, there is no such infor or ET practice in China.
[James' Reply: I know nothing about Chinese testing.]
Next week I will be practicing ET on a project according to your article <> which written several years ago.
Now I just want to hope you can give me some detail data about using ET. First I write my personal method here:
1. Identify the purpose of the product 3-4 hours
2. Identify functions 3-4 hours
3. Identify areas of potential instability 2-3 hours
4. Test each function and record problems 15-18 hours
5. Reporting and summarizing the practicing record 3-5 hours
[James' Reply: If you're referring to the General Functionality and Stability Test Procedure, remember that it was designed to be a formal process of ET dedicated to a specific purpose. For your purposes, it might be too narrow.
Also, remember that the tasks are not done in order, they are done simultaneously. Exploratory testing is a natural, integrated process-- like having a conversation. You don't need a procedure to do it. The reason for the GFS process was that Microsoft needed a legally defensible form of ET.]
The other data about this project here: coding 500 hours testing 150 hours. after this testing acitivity, I will practising ET on this project.
Now for me the big problem is that after I finished the ET, the lead want me to pop up the data, the most important is the bug quantity and quality. I am so scared about the output if it’s very bad. So unconfident now.
[James' Reply: Well, bugs aren't up to you. You don't create them. You don't know what you will find. It sounds like you are new to testing and your company is just throwing you at this problem. You shouldn't have very high expectations.]
My goal is building the ET team like you, so hope you can help me about this ET practice (the precious chance here).
Any suggestion is welcome and hope some day we can see the “Weekend Testers” in China.
Thank you very much.
Jerry
November 24th, 2009 at 10:11 am
i am not a tester but i desperately wanted to be please help me to be the best of the best one……….i really need to know what qualities and what practices, what knowledge level needed to crack interview right now i am a geospatial engineer in Rolta Mumbai……….do help me out.
regards,
Ashish
[James' Reply: Contact one of the weekend testers, first. Or Pradeep Soundararajan. Get involved in that.]
November 24th, 2009 at 11:42 am
It’s very important to share experience and help colleagues to improve their skills. Hope we will have in Russia such groups, since today software testers here are not seem to be interested in professional off-line communities.
November 30th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Oh what a shame that 3pm IST is 10:30pm NZDT. Do you know of anything similar in other timezones?
[James' Reply: Not so far. But heck, it's the weekend!]
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Is it me or is this just another way to outsource/off-shore QA and test jobs overseas?
[James' Reply: It's not any way to outsource. It's a way for Indians to begin to develop themselves into excellent testers. As a citizen of the world-wide brotherhood of testers, I welcome this.]