Thursday, April 19, 2012

Questions worth finding answers for, before you start to test.

I have drafted below the list of questions that are worth to ask before you start your testing tasks.
Answers to few questions can be got from the stakeholders & few by yourself. These are not focused on security or performance or any form of testing, they are generic to any project.

I hope to get few more from you once you skim through them.

Phase-1:
  • What is the objective of the project?
  • What is the scope of the project?
  • What are the risks involved in the project?
  • What is the objective & scope of testing this project?
  • Who are the real users of the product that is under test?
  • Which quality criteria must be the testing activity focused on?
  • Will I get a demo or overview of the project?
Phase-2:
  • Will I get access to the code?
  • Is there any kind of documentation available, if not who are the stakeholders of the project?
  • Will I get the contact details of them?
  • What is the configuration of test environment?
  • What is the configuration of production environment?
  • Which features are more riskier than others?
  • How often can I get the builds?
  • Have I spoken to the audience of my test reports for what is expected?
  • What is the expected frequency of status reports by the stakeholders?
  • What are the deliverables expected from me?

4 comments:

  1. I think we shouldn't limit questions to any phase. Questioning must be a free flowing skill that must be used throughout the project. If you are trying to group questions under multiple heads, Phase-1 and Phase-2 are just fine; however, if you are delaying asking questions, that is a problem.

    Rgds,
    Pari

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  2. Hi Pari,
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this on.

    "I think we shouldn't limit questions to any phase"
    Yes, I do agree with this.

    The reason I have given or shown the questions in different phase is that: The questions must vary based on the context that you derive from the answers which you get in each phase.

    For instance if the answer given to "What is the objective & scope of testing this project?" by the customer is "Only derive the scenarios to test by looking at the requirement documents as the project is in requirement gathering stage" then there is no point in asking the
    question "Will I get access to code?" as mentioned in phase-2.

    Questions have to be timed well based on contexts. '"Making a huge list of questions & shooting them to the stakeholders at once is not a good approach" is my thought.

    Regards,
    Sunil

    ReplyDelete
  3. Such a good post! Thanks for sharing and guess i will be back soon on your blog!
    testing interview questions

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you for sharing these questions on software testing .It is worth and very helpful.

    ReplyDelete