Questions and answers every Monday: how to perform tests when the project is idle

Original article published on 13:57:42

The question is "How to do this when the project is idleTestWork", But I think we are more concerned about what we should do when the testers in the project team do nothing.

First, we need to divide the following:
Scenario 1: The project is coming to an end, especially when the project has been submitted, but it still needs to be maintained later. In this case, developers have been removed, and many companies use a tester as maintenance personnel to clean the battlefield,OthersThe tester has nothing to do at this time. You can have a holiday :) the maintenance staff left behind may also experience time vacuum, and also have a holiday :)

Case 2: The project development speed cannot meet the testing speed. The reason for this may be that the company wants to follow the formal process, that is, to join the test team at the beginning of the project. At this time, due to the initial stage of the project, the demand is not stable or even being defined, and the development staff is hard to start with, and the progress is slow, the so-called test plan and training by the tester end in the light of the end, and the tester once again encounters a test time vacuum;

Case 3: The tester waits for the completion of the developer module. In fact, many testers are currently working onBlack box testing, Especially manualFunction TestingThis is what most companies did at the beginning of the test team. This led to the failure of the tester to do anything before a certain module of the developer came out, because the developer could not help,Unit TestThe test plan and solution have already been prepared, and the tester has started to have nothing to do.

Case 4: new users. (It doesn't mean that new users are involved in negative testing. After all, I am exploring it slowly, and my current capabilities are just entry-level .) Why do new testers become idle and have problems with their abilities and experience. Developers have made great efforts to write a module and give it to a newbie for testing. After writing a few use cases based on what they have learned and a little experience, they feel that they cannot write any more, then there are naturally fewer use cases, and the test workload is much smaller, so the testers will naturally be idle.

What should we do in this case?
The best way to solve the problem of "idle and idle" is "nothing to do ". At first glance, this sentence seems to be taken for granted, but I think it is still not comprehensive, because sometimes the crux of the problem is not people themselves. The so-called right remedy can be taken to the disease:
For case 1 and Case 2, it is obvious that this is not a human problem, but an organizational structure problem. Generally, we recommend that you change the number of testers throughout the project process, ratherTestIf the team is directly bound to a project, everything is fine, which leads to a waste of resources. At the beginning of the project, the test and analysis designers were the first to join the project team. Most of the time, they were the test owner. As the project development began, they gradually joined the test case implementer. At the end of the project, gradually exit some testers. The tester first exits and then enters another new project and gradually enters another cycle.

For case 3 and case 4, there are a lot of people here, so this requires reasonable allocation of testers. Reasonable personnel allocation is particularly important in project activities. Most of the time, our first impression is that the most important project has the strongest allocation. Sometimes this first impression is actually wrong. Not all tasks of the most important project need to be completed by a strong person. Similarly, in a small project, a relatively experienced person is required to take the lead. New testers can also take this opportunity to quickly improve their own capabilities to better complete the test. We also need to note that the comprehensive skills of testers do not advocate a tester to be comprehensive, because such results often generate a huge volume of gold, however, we should be involved in important testing areas. For example, we also needLearningProgramming knowledge.

When we find that we have nothing to do during our work, we should first reflect on the reasons for this situation, either the situations I mentioned above or not. The solution to such problems is simply to learn to avoid this situation, and then to solve this situation. We will talk about how to avoid this problem. We will continue to talk about how to break this situation.

Now we will not discuss why this situation occurs, but will directly discuss how to "pass the time ".
Method 1: learning. This is the easiest thing to think of. Yes, learning. When we have time, we must take the time to learn. What to learn depends on our own interests, our weak links, and the company's needs. This is a good way to pass the time. However, it should be noted that some bosses do not seem to like this kind of employees who use their money to do their own learning. After all, they hope that you can directly create value and maximize value.

Method 2: Write a document. As far as I know, many Chinese companies do not have standardized or unified internal test document specifications. Therefore, it is advantageous for the company to establish a set of standards. This will make the boss better off, you can also take the opportunity to sort out your own ideas. As for what documents are written, there are many such as various test document templates, test document specifications, and test management specifications.

Method 3: Take a vacation and take the opportunity to take a break. This is the next policy, because it may make developers feel that testers are idle and idle. In the spirit of uniting the masses, we should choose this policy with caution.

The personal opinion above is for your reference only. Please contact unque.wuchaodong@hotmail.com if you have any suggestions
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