What does it take to form a software testing team?

Finding a teammate: The so-called clever woman can't cook without rice, and the first step must be to recruit people (at this time, there must be a general direction for the team's goals, which will be explained in detail later); Of course, the company is not a local tyrant and its budget is limited. It is estimated that people who are usually very awesome are not willing to come over. Under such circumstances, how to find the right teammates? Good: discover potential stocks and then cultivate them in the team (how to keep them after cultivation, we will consider them later). (For more exciting content, please poke: experience sharing: how to do agile development well)

At this time, I went online to find or analyze some qualities and hard skills that the next excellent tester should have, so Xiao Ah listed the following points as several conditions for finding teammates according to his own collection and understanding:

1, familiar with a language, with coding experience, preferably with a trained background, which is very useful for future automation and continuous integration;

2. Good logical thinking ability and divergent thinking ability, which are very important qualities of an excellent tester;

3, good initiative, a certain degree of self-motivation (in the early stage of the team, don't recruit people to fool around, it will definitely be a devastating blow to the team);

Of course, the recruitment requirements can't be written in this way. You should write it simply, so that you can receive a lot of resumes (because people who have proved themselves to be awesome generally don't submit resumes), and then you can start screening resumes and interviewing for jobs according to this requirement. ....

Well, after a period of hard work and negotiation (during this period, my communication skills will be improved unprecedentedly), we finally formed a preliminary team, although there are only 5-6 people in this team at present (the boss said that the team will continue to expand with business expansion). And these 5-6 people do not all meet the above conditions (it is too difficult to recruit suitable teammates, so we can only wait and see).

Team goal: The next thing to do is how to make the team work as expected. No matter what you do, you need to have a goal, so does the team. First of all, what are the goals of the team? Of course, your own yy is not enough. Here are some ways to confirm team goals:

1. Find relevant responsible persons to confirm their expectations, including superiors, developers, testers, technical support personnel, etc. Because everyone has different concerns, for example, testers expect to see their progress.

2. Think about how to better support the future development of products.

3. Think about how the test team can do well from the company's perspective (if any). For example, a game team has 654.38 billion users, and our performance test may be a challenge.

4. See what other excellent test teams in the online and industry are like.

Through the above methods, Xiao determines the team's goals as follows (have you found that the testing team actually has many other goals besides ensuring quality and saving costs):

Release valuable, high-quality and competitive products (the company's expectation);

Feedback product quality faster and find product problems in time (development expectation)

Continuous technical improvement to better support the future development of products (expectations of superiors);

The skills of personnel can be continuously improved, and there is a clear development direction (the expectations of testers);

The whole test work is more technical (the tester's expectation);

Good team atmosphere, everyone can work in a relaxed environment (tester's expectation);

The team is stable, and the turnover rate of key employees is relatively low (expected by superiors);

After the team goal is formed, the next step is to decompose the goal and form a concrete plan that can be implemented to support the corresponding goal; For example, what can be done to release valuable, high-quality and competitive products? This piece requires the test manager to have the corresponding goal decomposition ability. The following aspects can be used for reference:

1, improve everyone's business understanding ability, which is the basis to ensure the quality of a product;

2. Improve everyone's ability to understand needs and ensure that our products are what customers want;

3. Continuous integration of automation and functions to ensure that the final basic functions of products are guaranteed by automation;

4. Test based on code and business logic to better ensure the code quality of products;

Then make specific implementation plans for each decomposed goal, such as: improving everyone's business understanding ability; What is the goal we want to achieve (it can be quantified as much as possible and conform to the smart law, otherwise it is difficult to evaluate). Through analysis, we assume that Xiao will achieve the goal according to the following plan (which reflects the planning management ability of the test manager):

1, everyone divides their own responsibility modules, and the younger one is responsible for the module division of the whole product, and each module can be strung together (this reflects the business analysis ability of the test manager).

2. We need to confirm the business logic of the corresponding module with the corresponding developers and make the business logic of the module ourselves.

3. Explain the modules that you are responsible for in turn and arrange questions to ensure that everyone can be familiar with the business of other modules.

After the plan is determined, arrange the corresponding time, and then analyze the risks that may occur in the process of achieving the goal by yourself, and try to solve them in advance, such as several risks that may be encountered in this process and the corresponding solutions (this reflects the risk analysis and control ability of the test manager):

1, there are too many modules, and everyone's energy and time are limited, so it may be impossible to get all the modules done; The corresponding solution is to allocate modules according to their importance and let the corresponding developers train others.

2. The uncoordinated development leads to poor communication and can't achieve the expected results; The corresponding solution is to communicate with their boss and seek cooperation.

3. Some testers are not competent enough, resulting in poor understanding of the module business they are responsible for, which can't meet expectations; The solution is: identify and track the process in advance, so that excellent people can take on more responsibilities.

4. The module is too complicated, the analysis is very difficult, and many developments are unclear; The solution is: determine in advance, and stop or change modules as soon as you find that you can't do it, so as to save everyone's time and avoid discouraging everyone's enthusiasm.

Of course, we may not be able to predict all the risks, but we just need to solve them in time when we find problems in the future.

Team Process and System: No rules can make Fiona Fang. In order to make the team move towards the goal better, we need to ensure this through a series of systems to avoid the inconsistency of everyone's goals. So how should we formulate the whole process and system of the team? The following suggestions are for your reference:

1, the system must serve the target, otherwise it is not needed (of course, the target may need to be improved);

2. There should not be too many systems, and we need to give everyone some free space;

3. Each system needs a corresponding reward and punishment mechanism, otherwise it will be different;

4. After determining the system, you should treat it equally and set an example by yourself, otherwise no one will abide by it;

5. The system should be discussed with team members, which will be more credible and easier to form a departmental culture;

6. Don't conflict with the company's system;

We assume that Xiao has formed the following team system through the above analysis methods (others are improved as needed):

1, department assessment process and system

2. Tutorial system

3. Vacation and overtime system

4. Technical improvement system

5. Sharing and communication system

6. Departmental activity system

7, inspection personnel work guidance and system

After the completion, we will discuss and improve with you, and finally reach an agreement, and we will confirm with you every time in the future (it is not recommended to update the system frequently, which will make the system lose credibility and will not appear piecemeal)

Division of labor: after the team goals and specific plans are determined, it is definitely impossible to rely entirely on yourself, so it is necessary to arrange suitable work for the right people. This can not only cultivate everyone's ability, but also make them more focused on the direction of the whole team and some key events (here we need to test the manager's ability to recognize and employ people, find out the advantages of everyone in the team and use them reasonably). There are also some methods on the internet here, and you can make up for them yourself. So who does a team need? The author provides the following reference according to his own experience:

1, project manager (later trained as a team manager)

2. Technical talents (responsible for the technical upgrading and planning of the team in the later period)

3. Product experts (able to be very familiar with the business and requirements of products)

4. Testers (completing the daily testing tasks of the department and constantly improving the testing skills)

Personnel training: after recruiting the right people or arranging them in the right place, we need to train these people to improve their ability; Here, the test manager himself is required to have corresponding skills; For example, if a test manager can't automate himself, or even has no contact with automation, then unless another automation expert is found, the automation of the team will definitely take many detours; So how to train the corresponding personnel? Take the training of automation personnel for example (other aspects also adopt similar methods)!

1, choose 2-3 people with good coding ability;

2. According to the previous experience, choose the automation framework suitable for your product.

3. Let everyone choose some use cases with the most basic functions (which need to be tested frequently) and try to automate (because the above does not necessarily give time, it is recommended to use the extra time at this time, or squeeze out time to do it yourself, otherwise it will be difficult to explain to the above if it fails);

4. Run quickly after completion, so that everyone can see the effect (if it is unsuccessful, you can find it quickly), which can improve everyone's confidence;

5. After determining the scheme, continue to invest extra time to show the effect until the development and the above feel that automation brings value. At this time, the input personnel will naturally be required to go in (the golden age of automation will come at this time), and at the same time, their work will be more recognized;

6, from the automation personnel to find better ability, focus on training, let them start to be responsible for the whole automation project; When it is fully competent, it can be liberated to do other planning work;

Well, after the ability of the whole team has been cultivated to be competent for the corresponding work, you only need to be responsible for the future development direction of the whole team and constantly encourage everyone to improve the combat effectiveness of the whole team.

Of course, human resources are the most important. First of all, these conditions must be met: the Loadrunner test tool can be used, and the tools are interlinked. As long as you master one, the others will be solved. Familiar with linux, log, database, operating system and C language. ?