Testing the Waterhouse

I like to think of the above quote can be applied to newly formed agile teams starting up, and the relationships between the members of the team, the Developers, the QA members, the scrum master and anyone else connected to the team. Obviously not every team succeeds and blossoms into a beautiful relationship, but I don't think I've been on a team where there hasn't been at least the foundations of a good solid relationship in the team. Maybe I've been blessed, but I like to think that every one buys into what we are trying to do, and I also like to think that we all help members of the team come out of their shell by talking to them and discussing with them any problems that we have in a way that's not condescending and just generally a friendly manner.

We've all worked as part of a team as a tester before, whether that be in an Agile team where you work directly with developers or in a QA team in a more waterfall environment, but have we ever looked at how we can improve our relationships within the team? I'm not necessarily talking about nights out, although that undoubtedly helps, I'm talking about team relationships and enhancing them as you see fit. It's been a long time since I worked in a Waterfall environment, however, I think the same principles apply to waterfall as they do for agile when it comes to team relationships. When working in a team, the following are key principles that I think you should follow: Team first - Put the team first before any personal gain, if you are up for a promotion for instance, then don't just think about yourself, don't put your personal objectives above that of the team, this will be noticeable. Communicate freely with the team - Often I've been in teams whe...

Having recently read the following blog about how to improve communication from a developers perspective, I thought it would be interesting to have a QA perspective on it... Firstly, communication is key to being a good tester. When someone speaks about the skills of a tester, one thing that I think is one of the top things to look for, is that of a good communicator, someone can have the best technical knowledge and skills in the world, but if they can't communicate what they were doing or how they found a bug, then they would not rank highly in my book. So how can you improve communication between the QA and the developers, firstly, I don't think you should look at you all as being part of one team, delivering a quality software product, do not have an us vs them attitude, when bugs are raised late on, it's your fault as well as it is the developers fault, you are one team. There is no I in team.  To help in this, it can work in your favour to be careful when raisin...