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hi friends welcome back to a new video if you're new here my name is Madeline and I work as a quality scripts analyst for a software company basically I test software today's video is about skills that I have learned and developed as a software quality assurance analyst and skills that I feel like I use every day the goal of these QA videos for me is just to help people who are looking into this job people who are maybe hearing about QA for the first time or they're interviewing for this kind of position I think it's a great job it's a great way to work in Tech without being like a developer or knowing how to write code depending on the type of QA you are I also feel like there's not a ton of content out there about it it's kind of a newer job I guess but I think it's a growing industry so this is just to kind of share my perspective hopefully give some information as always little disclaimer this is just based on my experience I've only worked as a QA on one company been there for about two and a half years now but I definitely don't know everything like there's more things I don't know than I do know but happy to share my experience also I work as an manual QA primarily we are working on automating more things but that's a newer part of my job most of my testing is manual the first skill that is so important that I use every single day is time management as a QA you are most likely working on multiple things at once for example for me I'm usually working on at least like three or four issues at a time I'm also working on a peep of our test repository sometimes I'm like developing training for other parts of my team we also have automated tests that we work on weekly plus creating like project documentation and just helpful documentation for other parts of the system there's a lot to get done and some of it is more urgent than others so I always start every single day by making my to-do list for the day I will list out my meetings and what time they are at I will make a list of everything I want to do and then I look at that and try to prioritize it what are the most pressing issues which is usually what is time sensitive some deadlines are not set by me we have like our weekly release deadlines so I know if I'm testing this issue and it's installed to a testing environment it needs to be ready to go out by a certain date for me that's Tuesdays so that deadline is set I'm not changing that so anything that is dependent on that deadline is going to kind of take priority depending on where we are if it's a Thursday then obviously I have all the way until Tuesday but if it's a Monday or it's Tuesday then those issues that are going to be in that Weekly release are going to be pretty high priority prioritizing my list helps me still make time for the less urgent work that is like still important to get done it just doesn't have as hard of a deadline so something like the test repository upkeep and organization that's just an ongoing thing obviously there's no deadline where it's just going to be done because we're going to continue creating tests and adding to it but since I have my tests prioritized and I take care of the most urgent things in the beginning of the day I can usually make sure I have time for those other less urgent things at the end of the day no Day is Like perfect and my days are not the same someday might have a lot more meetings so I might only get to focus on the more urgent things after that but I always give myself at least like five minutes in the morning even if I know in my head what I'm going to work on first I still make myself like take inventory write a to-do list prioritize it at least for me most of my day what I work on when is like kind of up to me like I said you have those deadlines that like your whole team has but whether I'm gonna work on issue one or issue two how long I'm going to spend on those that's kind of up to me I did be flexible even with my daily plan because things can come up my team lead can tell me hey this issue just was created it's really high priority can you work on this today and I'm going to switch gears recalibrate my to-do list and focus on that that actually happened today [Music] the next skill that has definitely been strengthened by working in QA for me is critical thinking maybe more accurate to say like comprehensive and logical thinking not saying that I am always like this but I mean especially at work I try to be as thorough and critical as I can can we use a job that is very focused on small details because at least in my experience the issues I'm testing are at least small code changes we're just changing one thing at a time bit by bit in my experience I'm the person who's supposed to focus on the little details like if there's supposed to be a period there is there a period there does the button look exactly like it should like that is what you're checking for as QA but then you also need to keep a bigger picture perspective of the project as a whole all those little details add up to the larger like user experience it's a bit of a give and take but I want to think critically about the small details but then how those play into the bigger picture does the small detail make sense for the user does it also make sense for the project at the end could this cause problems down the line with something else and thinking like that just comes with time and experience especially with whatever application or software you're testing like you'll get to know it so well you'll start to find things that are more likely to break or things that are connected for me it's definitely been a growing process because I in my normal life if something is broken or just odd or like not a great user experience I'm very quick to just accept it and be like oh this is just how it is but as QA you're the person you're supposed to ask like is this how we want it it's kind of hard to fully explain but I feel like that all falls under critical thinking being observant which I'm not super observant so that's a skill I've had to learn [Music] the next skill that I use hopefully every single day or I try to is logical and clear writing when you're writing tests it's not like you're writing an essay or you're writing a story you're writing doesn't have to be like beautiful and whatever but it does need to be clear and logical it needs to make sense not just to you but also to developers to anyone else who might reuse whatever test you've created to someone who an auditor who might be reading through your test trick of being a QA is that sometimes you're testing very like complex processes you have to learn how to break that down into simple test cases that are clear I think one way I try to do this if it is like a complex issue where there's just like a lot of moving Parts maybe a lot of things interacting I will just literally list out every single variable and try to just do almost like if then statements if this is true and this is true then this should happen if this is true and this is false then this should happen if this is false and this is true you know kind of sometimes it helps me to see every single interaction and work through the flow so that way which is just like very basic testing if you've done this for a while or you have like certifications and everything you're probably like yeah but I started out with no experience and this is just something I kind of learned as I've been in it break it down as simple as possible list out every single scenario you can think of yeah logical and clear writing especially about technical processes can be a challenge if you don't come from a software background you can do it you can get there you took it really got to slow down break it down piece by piece and just those very rudimentary if this happens this should happen if this happens then this happens then this happens then this should happen they get complicated but those help me this next one goes kind of right along with that and that is the skill of organization this can be in the form of note-taking documentation your mental organization but I would say don't just keep it all in your head write it down either on paper or some type of note-taking application like I said earlier probably working on multiple things at a time for me I have a chart of all of the issues I'm currently working on I have a section for defects or bugs that I've found I have a section for defects or books that are fixed which I just move it over to that section and use like the strikethrough and then I have a section for notes where I put like what environment it's on if there's any special testing considerations I need anything I need to remember I put it in that little notes section if I need to ask the product manager something I have it all there in one table we do use an actual software to like track defects and everything so it's kind of double but this is just for me so I don't like lose it in that software I don't know I like to have my own little version to keep track I've learned to not just trust that I'll remember something especially because once I leave work I don't usually think about work until I go back the next day so it's super nice to walk in and already have notes of where I left off on anything especially over the weekend I get like a weekend refresh in my brain and all of it's gone so having the notes reminds me where I was but keeping that organized is so important because if you just have notes on paper everywhere that doesn't work for me it maybe it works for some people all of our brains are different find a system that works for you another way organization comes into play with QA is in how you organize the knowledge you gain about whatever it is you're developing to share with the rest of your team app support maybe the end users it could really depend on your situation QA has like a very intimate knowledge of what went into creating that page you know the ins and outs of it how to use it how not to use it so being able to use your logical writing and organize that knowledge in a way that it makes it shareable and useful to those other groups is a huge skill okay I feel like I talk about this one all the time but the next one is communication it's just so important if you work in a team and if you are a QA then that means you at least work with the developer you're at least testing someone's code communication can facilitate a process and make it run smoothly or it can cause like a breakdown and just make things slow down I always say err on the side of over communicating use that logical writing use the organization give as much information as possible usually when you're asking a question like if I'm asking a question to my devs I want to give as much information as possible I don't want them to have to come back and ask me like one two three four questions before they can even start looking into it because they didn't give them complete information that's going to happen sometimes it's okay but give me more information is better than not enough to a point I guess like you could just go off and have a lot of not useful information but you'll hone that skill you'll figure out what is the useful information in your specific job so that's one part of communication but I think also communicating from a place of best intent and always approaching a situation like giving everyone the benefit of the doubt assuming that everyone has good intentions I think makes for a much more enjoyable work environment appreciating the role and the work that everyone is doing and letting them know that they're appreciated makes a huge difference okay this last one might be the biggest one or it's a skill that I don't feel like I had before working in QA and now I feel like I do I feel like it's just like second nature to me now and that is learning how to troubleshoot something naturally if something is just like wrong or broken I am so quick to just accept it and move on with my life but as QA it is so important that you are able to notice something is wrong and then go back and figure out where the breakdown is for me I don't know any coding languages so I'm not going to be able to go in there and look in the actual code but I need to be able to go back like retrace my steps and give like Recreation steps say I clicked on a button and I got the wrong pop-up or something I don't want to just immediately go tell the devs this pop-up was wrong I want to be able to know in what scenarios it was wrong are there any scenarios where it's correct so if that happens on testing first I'm gonna go back redo it make sure it wasn't some fluke error thing if it does happen again then I'm going to change one of the variables those variables that we mentioned earlier for the logical and clear writing change one of the variables that I'm testing see if it still happens maybe I change one thing and then it works correctly so that I know in this scenario it reacts this way in this scenario it reacts this way not to say that it's always possible to narrow it down so nicely and neatly code can do crazy things and things you wouldn't think touch or interact will and sometimes like I truly won't know why something is happening but I'm still going to get as much information as I can the way you do this you kind of end up with like a mental checklist of things you need to check off pieces of information in those times where like you can't find a whole lot of information it is at least helpful to know that it's doing this in every scenario trying out as many combinations of those variables to troubleshoot it is still really helpful one tip I do have for troubleshooting is take screenshots as you're troubleshooting I know so many times I've run into some kind of defect and then not been able to recreate it or sometimes I'll get really into like troubleshooting looking into something and I'll forget which scenarios I've already tried or which ones it was broken on which ones it was working on so I've gotten a lot better at just like always taking the screenshots so that I can at least to go back and remind myself of what I've already tried because like you can kind of get yourself going in circles if you don't keep track definitely recommend that take a screenshot or a note or a video something to remind yourself of what you've already checked alright guys that's gonna be today's video thank you so much for watching if you are QA you have any experience or you have any skills to add to this list comment them down below or any questions let me know thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time