Testing Mindset: Should we compete against each other?

                          

I participated in a recent competition conducted by www.99tests.com

There was a restriction of 40 testers and limited to 4 days contest. I saw few new testers join this contest. Whenever I join the contests, I do not jump in right from start. I wait for few hours and watch the bugs logged. I observe what areas are being tested, what testing oracles are being applied and so on. One of the advantages of starting late is that I get to know the thought process behind bug validation. What kind of bugs are termed as invalid and what bugs are accepted - these are useful information for me participating in the contest.

So, this time too I waited for sometime before starting my testing sessions. There were close to 20 bugs logged and some of them were validated too. The top three listed on the leaderboard were unknown to me. I love this challenge. New faces, new application and this application was a bit tough to understand. I felt the users had more of read-only access and no rights to create the data. It was different from the usual applications where the bugs danced right in front of you.

End of Day 01: Total bugs logged: ~200

Day 02: ~350

Day 03: ~400

Once the competition ended, a thought stuck me:

What made the testers log so many bugs even though the contest was a tough one in terms of easy bugs?

Is it the mindset of *find bugs at any cost* or *the five prizes* or *the competition mode* that brought out so many bugs out in the open?

In the daily projects, most of the times - there is a bug pattern: xx number of bugs. I have rarely seen so many bugs logged in such a less time. I do agree that the number of testers is different and might be the biggest factor in the number of bugs logged. There is obvious difference in having forty testers testing an application and say five testers testing an application.

It might not be feasible to add so many testers to every project. So, my question is: 

Should the testers test with a competition mindset once a while? 

It might be a good idea to engage a group of testers to test as if there were in a competition and there were prizes for the top testers. Maybe spend ten hours/week and see how it works...

I am going to try it out with my team in few days time :) Idea worth trying?

Image Credits: http://mindspower.com/mindspower-strategies-ii/out-%E2%80%93-innovating-the-competition/

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Are you a 99tests tester?

After a routine day at office, I am in my cab to home. Relaxing at the last seat, chewing Center Fresh and listening to songs, I am lost in my thoughts... What makes me confident to take up any testing tasks without any fear? I am about to complete five official years of software testing and looking back, I need to credit my success to many people and many tasks I did again and again.

The long post is reserved for the fifth anniversary. Today I want to highlight how a single community has helped me grow and is helping many testers to grow. Few months ago, when I googled for 'Beta Testers', I hit the site www.99tests.com I registered as a tester and as the site was in Beta stage, there was nothing in store for a 'hungry-to-test' tester like me...

Few months passed, I had even forgot that I had registered for the site when I received the email about a new testing competition. Immediately I joined and found many colleagues from the testing community already in the hunt for the top tester for the competition. Healthy competition and true test of testing skills were on display. The best part about these competitions is the short duration. They are spread over few days (3-5 days) and lots of value to be gained compared to the few hours spent. One gets to know the thought process of many testers, learn different test ideas and earn some money too. I regularly participated in most of the 99tests competitions and had healthy contests with my co-testers.

What have I gained from 99tests?


Time management: Few contests taught me how to prioritize my testing tasks. Though the deadline was two days away, due to the high number of bugs, the competition would end 24 hrs in advance. Such experiences helped me learn the importance of time management and prioritizing the testing tasks.

Test Ideas: There were few competitions where I learnt a totally new test idea which I was unaware of before the competition. The new test idea got added to my list of test ideas.

Customer's Expectations: Though few bugs seemed very obvious, the customer would mark them as invalid. This happened to most of the testers in the competition. I learnt about what bugs actually mattered from the customer's point of view.

Healthy competition: Few competitions were so close that I felt I was playing international cricket. There was a healthy competition to be one among the top three testers.

Test of testing skills: After participating in 5-6 competitions, I tried testing my skills. I joined the competition late on purpose and tried if I could still win it. Sometimes I could and sometimes, the lead was too big to make a entry to the top three.

Variety of products: I must have participated in 7-10 competitions and that means 7 varied products. It is an amazing experience to learn the product, log bugs as per the customer's expectations and win the competition. You need to experience it to understand the feeling.

And I gained some money too...

I am proud to admit that 99tests has played a big role in my learning curve and continues to do so.

I am a 99tests tester. Are you one? 

Better late than never: join www.99tests.com and enjoy testing :)

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