By: Nancy Marever Obregón León
One of the most important soft skills of a tester is communication. Why? By having correct and continuous communication with the team and client, we can easily get quick answers to solve any problems we encounter, making our projects more efficient and successful.
It is vital to identify the correct meaning of communication. Communication is the act of conveying a message to another person through a mutually understandable medium language. In other words, it is a process of sharing information, ideas, and feelings and achieving a common understanding between people.
Below are listed best practices for communicating as a QA Engineer.
Communicating Bugs
Show the alarm for a showstopper: When creating a reporting bug, it’s important to follow it to communicate well with developers and people involved. Put a showstopper and inform your team when the bug has been fixed and closed. File a ticket for the bug and communicate about the issue in meetings.
Email Etiquette
Perform QA Testing on your emails. Review every aspect of the email, including typos and spelling errors, grammar, names, facts, content, paragraphs, links, and attachments, and make sure subject lines match your tone. This is important because we are not talking face to face; we are sending something written where many things can be misconstrued. There are three ways to write emails: Emojis and exclamation marks, casual, and formal, depending on how you communicate with the people you are writing for.
Slack Etiquette
Slack communication is very common nowadays. Here are some tips for proper etiquette:
- Be straightforward about what you need. You don’t know if the person is at their desk, so you must be clear about what you need in your message. Plus, always be sure to use a friendly tone.
- Follow best practices for tagging people. Do not say anything inappropriate, and make sure you stay on topic.
QA Communication and Timing
Time is another factor we need to take into consideration. It’s important to factor timing into any form of communication, including:
- Time of day. Be sure to message only during office hours.
- Meeting schedules
- Meeting length
- Email and Slack responsiveness
- Reporting problems. If you see something wrong, you should report it immediately to your QA Manager.
Respect
It is crucial to take the time and be careful here. For example:
- Avoid bigotry, even in the form of jokes. Maybe you think it is only a joke, but you need to consider aspects like gender identity, race, etc.
- Ask rather than demand, which means having a friendly conversation with your teammates is better than demanding everything you need.
- Seek information before placing blame. Maybe you saw a mistake in the code or a ticket. You should first investigate the issue before making an accusation. It’s critical to provide your manager with all of the facts.
Following these quick tips can help you communicate with your teammates more efficiently. Always try to do your BEST!
Reference: https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/effective-communication-skills-for-testers/