Which step am I in the testing ladder ?

Hi All , This blog post will speak of various testing activities I was part of which had been of great impact to my career.

I can divide my testing career as before Bug deBug and after Bug deBug.

During my job hunting days, I would read all the testing interview questions from the net for the interview. In one such interview, I came to know about a testing conference which was going to happen in Chennai. Out of interest and curiosity, I attended my first testing conference, Bug deBug.

Before attending this conference, I was thinking that testers job is only executing the test cases, just meet the organizational expectations and discuss with the testers who are in my team and continue the work.

After I attended the conference, I realized that the importance of practicing testing and then on my opinion and view towards testing changed.

So, I decided to start learning and practicing by the following ways,

1. Joined Chennai Testing Group
2. Registered with 99tests.com
3. Participated in weekendtesting.com
4. Reading Testing Blogs,Magazines and Books
5. Giving presentation within my team.
6. Completed my Testing Certification
7. Writing my own testing blog

ChennaiTesting Group

Being a member in ChennaiTesting Group, I have got a chance to network with testers across various companies. There is lots of learning and sharing which takes place in this group.

The best part of Chennai Testing Group is it conducts monthly tester's meet in various corporate organizations,which is a successful and energetic event. In Every meet there is something to learn and lots of healthy discussions.

This monthly meet has enabled testers in chennai to bond in a much better way and help each other professionally.

This group has entered into its 4^th year and has been very effective and useful for testers. I would strongly recommend testers and people who are interested in testing to join this chennai testing group.

99Tests.com

Its been exactly one year I was with 99tests.com.

My Experiences and Learnings in 99tests.com are as follows:-

1.My Vision towards testing an application and thought process has been improved.

99tests.com has provision of accessing other tester's bug from there we can observe how other tester's are exploring the applications and their reporting skills.

I was amazed to see the amount of effort tester's are putting for the competitions. Ajay was one such person and his learning can be read in his blog. Now, Sudhamshu has also started to focus on security related issues

This will surely Motivate other testers and make them learn more.

2.Experience with different kind of app. (No Domain Constraint)

99tests.com announces competition covering a range of applications such as Shopping Portal, App for conference,Mobile Application and many more. Hereafter I will not say I have experience only on specific domain :)

3.Managing Time and Prioritize the tasks

As 99tests.com brings a purely competitive mode, as a tester I can manage my time in terms of identifying and reporting Bugs.

While going through some testing blogs I came across this phrase : “Testing is an idea generation activity, rather than a plan implementation activity.”

Yes, 99tests.com provides platform for the testers to think,explore, observe and report.


And i m happy to inform you all that i bagged the first place in one of the recent contest in 99tests.com :)

and above all we can earn some extra money by doing something we like. :)

Weekendtesting.com

I wish to participate for every week. Laziness and lack of prioritizing the weekend activities I could not able to attend this on regular basis.

In a year only once I was a part of weekendtesting.com and I am damn sure that it will really help testers to think more on the given application.

Hope in this Year, I will take part in this regularly.

Testing Blogs,Magazines and Books

After coming from the Bug De Bug, I had a list of good software testing books for reference. As a first step towards my learning process I ordered the “lessons learned from Software Testing”.

TestingCircus is the first magazine which I started to read, later I found there are other magazines too which speaks testing such as Testingplanet, Professional Tester, Tea Time with Testers and TestingExperience

Had a Folder of tester's Blog in My Bookmarks bar with most of the tester's blogs in it and updating myself by reading those.

Presentation in my Team

Had a chance to present a paper on SBTM Tools. The Learning of SBTM will come as another blog entry :)

The habit of talking to various testers and reading related blogs helped me to prepare for the presentation.

This helped me to overcome stage fear and improve my presentation skills.


Completed my ISTQB Certification

I have completed my ISTQB Foundation Level Certification with 80% for which I was able to easily prepare with my experience and learnings.

This blog is outcome of the various activities which I have mentioned above.

As learning is a never ended process, I request my fellow testers to practice testing, attend testing conferences and workshops.

I would not have come this far if I had missed the Bug deBug conference. Thanks to bharath for letting me know.

Waiting for the next Bug deBug announcement.

Happy Testing!..