Removed few old articles

Hello All,

Due to some security reasons and to avoid some problems, I had removed few of my posts from blog. I knew that those all are very important but I have to remove them.

Sorry for inconvenience.

Thanks,
Priyank

Some useful information/links for QA/Testing interview questions (with few answers) - Part 1

Since I started my carrier, I had appeared quite a few interview. So from my first interview, I started to spend time to find some interview questions related to testing or general. Now I think I have some enough information/links to share with you. So find below the information and links related to questions and answers for few of them:

Links related to Testing specifically:

http://sqa.fyicenter.com/sqa/SQAInterviewQ.html
http://www.geekinterview.com/Interview-Questions/Testing/QA-Testing
http://www.devbistro.com/tech-interview-questions/Testing.jsp
http://www.careercup.com/page?pid=testing-interview-questions

http://www.stickyminds.com/sitewide.asp?Function=edetail&ObjectType=ART&ObjectId=6787

http://www.etestinghub.com/testing_faqs.php

http://www.noop.nl/2009/01/100-interview-questions-for-software-developers.html

http://www.portnov.com/qa_interview_questions.shtml

Links related to general questions which can be asked during any type of interview (please note that not all links are only for questions, some links also provides tips & suggestions to handle interview):

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/interview
http://www.acetheinterview.com/interview/
http://www.careercc.com/interv3.shtml

http://www.quintcareers.com/job_interview_preparation.html

http://www.datsi.fi.upm.es/~frosal/docs/25mdq.html
http://jobsearch.about.com/od/interviewquestionsanswers/a/interviewquest.htm
http://www.quintcareers.com/sticky_job_interview_situations.html

http://advice.cio.com/meridith_levinson/unconventional_it_job_interview_questions

I had checked mostly all links above still if any of the link is not working than let me know instantly. Also not all links may be interested to you but these questions will help you in your carrier somewhere at some point of time.

Apart from above, below are the questions list only which I have noted down after my each interview:

• Give me your introduction. Describe yourself in 5-7 lines.
• Define Strengths and Weaknesses of yours.
• What are some of the highest challenges you have faced during your professional carrier?
• How fast will you be fit into our organization structure and work culture?
• What motivates you to move forward and apply new ideas?
• Why should we offer you this job?
• Describe a time when you brought value to your team or your company. Do you feel was that important?
• How can you motivate your juniors/colleagues? How can you handle self motivation?
• What skills do you have for testing which separates you from others regular testers?
• How would you manage resources if you will given a team of say 5-10 persons?
• Can you able to work in a environment where you are the only one responsible for the entire testing activities?
• Who was the most difficult person you have ever deal with, and how did you respond?
• What your expectations from our organizations? What you want here after say 4 years?
• What attracts you to our industry/domain?
• How & what do you know about our company?
• In what ways do you think you can make a contributions to our company?
• After explaining current process, interviewer asked: Give me 3-5 ways to improve our current process from which you can benefit our organization.
• What prior work experience have you had? Describe briefly.
• Please tell me about a conflict situation and how you resolved it.
• Tell me about a time when you had to evaluate someone who wasn’t meeting the requirements of the job. How did you handle that situation?

This is the starting list. I will post more questions and links in my future posts. If you have any such list/information than you can share here as comments. I will also include your list with your name in my future post. In this way we can create one really good questionnaire list.

As usual, any comments are most welcome...

Best way to be updated in Software Testing field

Just a few days ago, I posted one question on Software Testing Club site. I got few replies. Interestingly, those replies contains some really good links to read and surf. Hence I am posting whole conversion as it is. Hope this will helpful to you (specially blog and other sites links present below):

Question:

What's the best way to keep updated on the latest & ongoing in Software Testing field?

Hi All,

One more tricky question from my side? How can we remain updated on all the latest news and knowledge in out Testing field?

Often we don't have much time so that we can surf on net and read the articles on the current happenings in Testing field. Even sometime we are too busy in our jobs and daily routine that we are even don't bother to upgrade (or enhance I can say) our knowledge. Can anyone show some best way for this? Currently I am living in India and I haven't heard any of community or gathering in India for the Testing field.

I know my question seems to be so silly for some people but it's very grateful if anyone can answer.

Thanks & Regards,

Priyank

Replies:

Reply by Shmuel Gershon for main question:

Pryiank, hanging around this club is a pretty good way to start keeping up-to-date: you have discussions, a huge blogroll, invitation to events...

To that, you can add Twitter if you like a stream of information overloading :).

India has many events, communities and gatherings. This site gathers some of them: http://www.softwaretestingclub.com/groups/group/search?q=india

India also has an active Weekend Testing community, I saw you participated a bit on their forums.

That said, any activity to improve your skills and keep up-to-date will demand time, I can't think of any solution that is effortless. :)

Reply by Priyank Shah for above answer of Shmuel:

Thanks for the link with indian testing community names Shmuel.

And I am not talking about keeping updated with effortless, I am ready to work for this from my best. I have also joined and participate on Weekendtesting site but unfortunately I am not getting anything from it till now. I have already sent message on their skype Id for help. Lets see what I can get from it.

The other reason to ask this question is that, currently I am in a position on job that there is nothing new to learn. There is just mechanical work here. I have asked to change the project but it can be possible after more 3 months as I just joined here 3 months ago. I hope you understand this.

Thanks again,

Priyank

Reply by Jeff Lucas for above both answers of me & Shmuel:

"I have asked to change the project but it can be possible after more 3 months as I just joined here 3 months ago."

Ambition, questioning the process, actively striving to improve the quality of testing ... It seems you have learned a lot more than you realise. :)

My suggestion is to take one of your best ideas for improving the testing process and implement it "offline" - before work, at lunchtime, after work, on a weekend - and find some defects that would not show up in the standard test approach currently used. If results don't convince your team lead or management, then the organisation may have issues beyond just the test process.

                                                Reply by Ajay Balamurugadas for above both answers of me & Shmuel:

I think now you are able to attend the weekendtesting sessions. Hope you are getting value for your time there.

~Ajay Balamurugadas

Reply by John Stevenson for main question:

One of the easiest ways of being updated without having to remember lots of blog links etc is to use the software testing club RSS feed
http://feeds.feedburner.com/stcfeedsbloggers
Also look at the work done by weekend testing (started in India)
http://weekendtesting.com/
I also know that a group of tester meet up in Bangalore every so often might be a good idea to get in touch with:
Santhosh Tuppad (@santhosht - http://tuppad.com/blog/)
or
Pradeep Soundararajan (@testedtested - http://testertested.blogspot.com/)
or
Ajay Balamurugadas – (@ajay184f - http://www.enjoytesting.blogspot.com/)
They will point you in the right direction and with their wide expertise in the field of software testing provide you with some great guidance.
I hope you find some of this useful.
John

                Reply by halperinko for above answer of John:

And another very good RSS feed is the Software Quality Assurance Planet:

http://www.sqaplanet.com/aggregator/rss

 The advantage of RSS feeds, is that you don't need to search in vast number of sites, you get all in your browser or MS-Outlook etc.

Still - you need to pick a good aggregator, which has useful posts with as less redundant posts.

You can also make your own aggregator on

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

Kobi

Reply by Sharath Byregowda for main question:

Priyank,

 Dont feel shy to reach out to these 2 guys(as John suggested)

Santhosh Tuppad (@santhosht - http://tuppad.com/blog/)
or
Pradeep Soundararajan (@testedtested - http://testertested.blogspot.com/).

Both are excellent testers and have contributed a lot to testing world especially the Indian testing community.

Other than Weekend Testing there are bug battles, zappers event, tester's meetup, BWST (peer conferences) that you can be part of.

Other than the above events you can always pick the blogs, tweets that you would like to follow and read thru them and share your views with the authors. Public test forums like STC,  TR(It's been a while I logged onto this), STNZ, loads of groups in Linedkin are available for sharing.

            Hope you have a handful now :)

If any links is not working properly or not opening, let me know instantly.
As usual, any comments most welcome... :)

Defining test scope

Hello All,

Yesterday I attended one session for Weekend Testing which inspire me to start blogging as I want to share the learning that I got from it.
The session was about making a plan or strategy of one application. Here is the link of application: Taskcoach. As per the developer's requirement, entire testing needs to be completed in 3 hours. If you look at the application, no tester can say the he/she can able to complete the application testing in 3 hours.

The mission of session is to prepare some sort of Test Plan or Test Strategy document that describer how to complete the testing in 3 hours. The interesting portion is each person has to pair up with other person to prepare the document.


I had pair up with one person who is currently tester at Japan ( I don't know his company or any other information). He has 7+ years of exp. in testing. Hence I thought it would be good for me as I just completed 3 years in this field. What we both thought was to made one checklist that describes the points which needs to be tested in 3 hours. We both divided the toolbars and started to gather points. The plan seems to be worked fine as at end of hour we collected almost 15-16 points to test.

After an hour, we started to discuss with all other persons (there were total 8 persons who joined the session), on how we progresses the stuff and we were asking questions to each other on doubts. In discussion, one interesting question raised that "what exactly developer wants to test in 3 hours?". Frankly speaking, even this question was not came into my mind also although during my daily job, I am regularly asking same question to developers.

So the point here is sometimes, we are just assuming that whatever application/system given to us (testers) are the final one and we just started to plan and test the application. We even don't bother to ask to manager or developer what exactly they wants us to test. And than the problems and confusions starts to occur as tester required more time to complete and manager are as usual always in hurry. In above session, actually developer only wants to test whether the application is working as per MS standards or not. And whatever list or plan docs that we all guys had prepared, no doc reflecting the main point. At one moment, I got laugh on myself too.

The thing here that I want to highlight is before doing any planing or deciding any scope, better to do a meeting with manager/developer. It will save your time and will give you better insight of what exactly needs to be tested, instead of going for entire system testing. This case is really helpful for those testers who are working for the Product based companies. As these companies always wants work on enhancements in existing product.

The other thing that I learn from session is how to work with some unknown person. In our testing life, we always be in situation where we have to dealt with very new person: If you are manager than you have to deal with new resource under you and if you are normal tester than you have to deal with new persons from senior management. From this type of exercises, you can easily starts communicates and build up relation with new person. In my example, I had to deal with a person who is far more experience than me (from 3 to 7 years).

At the end, I knew that this is my first blog and it might be chance that many of you or even none of you likes this post. But any reply if I will get than you are really welcome. As I believe that you can only learn new things by sharing your knowledge.

Any comments good or bad, most welcome. :)