Test Consulting — Do’s and Don’ts

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Software testing has evolved consistently & aggressively over the past decade and has become an indispensable vertical for supporting software product development and deployments.

Today, testing has changed its face into a concrete quality culture encompassing a variety of activities including(but not limited to) :

• Test case design and management based on PRDs, domain expertise and prior product experience
• Test automation for functional and non-functional validations at all product layers(UI, Service, DB)
• Cultivation of a quality-first approach in PMs, developers and other stakeholders
• Supporting continuous deployments through automated delivery pipelines
• Large scale executions of automated tests to simulate app functionality in the real world

and many more…

What does this suggest?

Clearly, the need of the hour is to develop software testing skills of diverse nature, focussing at all aspects of the product from technology and business perspectives.

It is vital for professionals in QA consulting roles to understand the product, it’s value to customers, roadblocks in growth and other aspects before framing the correct course of testing required.

Before diving deep into the desired consulting norms, below are certain things that we SHOULD NOT do as test consultants :

1. Panic: New client, huge team size, geographically distributed workstations, team expectations and unfamiliar technology stack — these are few things that causes a sense of panic in QA consultants when they join a new client space. However, panic would only result in committing mistakes, reduction in observation power, feeling of anxiety and overlooking the learning opportunities.
2. Trying too hard, too early: Just when consultants are getting in the system, they feel the heat of expectations and start getting driven by the quantity of delivery by fellow engineers and the value-add propositions they aspire to deliver. These pressures don’t let them acquire stability in the team and leads to low confidence and work quality.
3. Over-Commitment: In an attempt to impress the client, create a strong image upfront or lack of complete environment knowledge, consultants tend to make unrealistic commitments. They should rather take time to analyse resources, priorities and timelines before making any commitments.
4. Breaking the chain: It’s a bit natural to interpret the unknowns as anomalies and start trying to change things the way you’ve seen in the past. This leads to a lot of disturbances in the laid down processes of a team. Test consultants should avoid introducing sudden changes which potentially, can break the current flow that other stakeholders are accustomed to.
5. Imposing Suggestions: In an attempt to justify the role, consultants might get carried away and try to impose their suggestions(or feel bad when their suggestions are overlooked due to certain reasons). This is highly probable in a big team where a new member comes in and follow their own working style without considering the opinions of other members or problems at hand. It would lead to disparity within the team and a lot of resistance to accepting changes.

Hold on! Before we develop any negativity from things we aren’t supposed to do, it’s time to switch our focus to the brighter side and look for the Do’s that test consultants can adapt to for moving up the value chain and ensuring consistent quality output.

Based on my experience, there are certain principles which can help QA folks become more efficient in conducting their responsibilities as test consultants. They are:

1. Know the problem: The first step towards being a valuable test consultant is to clearly understand the reasons for which a test consultant is onboarded on a project. It’s vital for them to know the areas of concerns, improvements and value addition that the client has its focus on. Build a good database of knowledge about the core problem areas and focus on assimilating yourself within the system, to come up with a better strategy for tomorrow.
2. Understand expectations and fill the gaps: Every client has its own set of expectations. It’s important for test consultants to know what kind of testing activities would add more value for the client in any given circumstances like increasing automation coverage, documenting test cases, induction of quality culture in developers, executions & maintenance of existing automation suite or any other such activity. Realising and wearing the correct shoes at the correct times is absolutely necessary.
3. Be observant: It’s obvious for a lot of consultants to feel lost when they see so much happening on the ground that they’ve never witnessed before. But the key is to hold on the nerves! Observation skills come really handy in such situations. Read all emails & communication pieces going around, attend all meetings being a good listener and go through any documents available. While other teammates help you onboard, the best way to learn is observing yourself.
4. Be flexible: The art of unlearning is crucial. Acquiring technology, terminologies and operation knowledge specific to the client is a basic need. Test Consultants need to be flexible and ready to learn new technologies, automation strategies, different test management tools etc. whenever the need arises. Holding on to some particular skill set and avoiding changes that may bring you out of the comfort zone is catastrophic to the nature of test consulting.
5. Don’t rush: The urgency of making a mark at the client site is desirable, but not at the cost of quality and consistency. Rushing unnecessarily can potentially backfire in terms of out of sync output, bad quality work and confusions. Avoid it at all costs! The solution is to give yourself good time to comprehend the situation, keeping a shared understanding with all stakeholders about the progress you’re making.
6. Identify what’s not working: With each unit of work they would do themselves or observe being done by other team members, consultants are bound to get a solid understanding of things happening on the ground. This should be used as an input to identify broken pieces and things that are not working/not adding any value. This is one major expectation that clients have from test consultants. Consultants should focus on extracting and eliminating noise forming the base for a profitable delivery.
7. Build trust: No prizes for guessing how invaluable trust is when it comes to a client-vendor engagement. A test consultant, when newly joins the client space, has to build their image from scratch. Building a place in the team is a direct consequence of the level of trust that people have on your skills, commitment and work delivery. The best way to build trust is by doing good work on the ground and showing the value that the client needs. Gel up with the team, share skills & learnings, respect each other’s time, trust their abilities and be there for support when needed are a few tips to build trust amongst the team members. Without it, you’re not going too far!
8. Know the vision: Wonder why did the client need testing in the first place? What is their end goal? Who are the target customers for the product they are building? Answers to questions like these are necessary to gauge the vision. Every organisation has its own vision and mission — and they build the teams which are aligned to it. Test consultants should be able to understand their role quite clearly in this setup and should be able to fit themselves in this chain. With an understanding of the client’s long term vision, a better testing strategy can be created, more focussed processes can be implemented and most appropriate technology can be chosen.
9. Measure performance and act accordingly: One critical aspect of being a good test consultant is to periodically measure how successful the product has been over time. This can be done with the help of gathering data from product managers, through business updates, town hall meetings etc. at the client site. Measuring success can help you deduce the value of your contribution to the product. This gives you an opportunity to improvise, innovate and implement different strategies based on the need. The road to becoming a good test consultant has milestones like effective test planning, efficient automation, productive release management, conscious efforts of comprehending customer needs etc. All these milestones should regularly be scrutinized and improved for moving forward smoothly.
10. Keep Experimenting: The biggest room in the world is the room for improvement. This implies that while learning what the client wants you to do, never stop trying out stuff that can potentially help in improving the overall productivity. Although only the results of the experiment would tell if it’s worth the implementation, any new learning is definitely worth a try!
11. Take Ownership: Being a consultant doesn’t limit responsibilities. A test consultant is as much part of the team as other members. A guru mantra of being a successful test consultant is to not consider yourself as a consultant at all- be part of the glories as well as the valleys for the team. Take equal ownership of what the team is delivering and become a pillar on which the team can rely.

Well, there could be many more such points on the above list. However, what’s important is the spirit that test consultants should inculcate within and strive for excellence. The above principals could help in benchmarking standards and bringing uniformity in the thought process.

We still, and would continue to, rely on people to make approaches successful!

Happy Testing.