TL;DR
This post gives brief overview how you can, as novice tester, certify as Agile Software Tester.
Software Testing Modules
Knowledge for Agile Software Tester could be organized in several modules:
- Foundations – every knowledge starts on firm foundations.
- Bug Advocacy – how to sample important bugs form pool of found bugs.
- Domain Testing – how to sample important test cases from infinitive number of test cases.
- Risk Based Testing – how to sample important test cases based on feature importance and likelihood or impact of feature failure.
- Specification Based Testing – how to organize product specification in order to create effective test cases.
- Use Cases And Scenarios – user will never use product feature in isolation, but it will combine features in various scenarios.
- Exploratory And Scripted Approaches – In exploratory test you learn product by using it. Every next test case is created based on results of previous one. In scripted approach you automated actions in order to support your exploratory approach.
What you need to learn?
You need to understand what are key testing challenges and that you will need to make tradeoffs to cope with them. Then you will develop skill with several testing techniques. You need to choose effective technique for test objective under your constraints. Good testing always involves good critical thinking and rapid learning. After testing, you need to be able to create effective work products in order to communicate your testing findings. Before testing starts, you need to be prepared to plan investment in documentation, tools and process. And yes, effective testing is collaborative effort, with remote or local teammates.
What is next?
So far you know how software testing is divided in reasonable modules. Divide and conquer, this is effective approach to become Sherlock Gregory of software testing! I recommend following companies for certification:
I certified with Association For Software Testing certification course. In order to better prepare yourself for those certifications, I recommend to follow up this blog. Next blog posts will explain certification materials, provide real examples and my insights based on several year experience of applying that certificate on real projects.
