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Vernon Richards | Quality Coach

Vernon Richards | Quality Coach

October 24, 2022

5 Reasons Why Testers Should Make Their Work Visible

I believe that making testing visible makes everyone's life better.

Here are 5 ways I've found it useful:

  • Reason #1: Asking folks to go to a testing-specific tool to see your work adds friction. Adding friction to work makes doing that work more difficult. Making it difficult to engage with your work makes it less likely to happen.

  • Reason #2: Your teammates will be able to understand what you're thinking. Once your perception of the risks is visible, your teammates can do something about them.

  • Reason #3: Testing is notoriously easy to repair. i.e. I can say to a group of teammates that I "fully tested the product", but each person would interpret the sentence differently (sometimes in significant ways!). When your work is visible, folks can easily understand what you have and have not done.

  • Reason #4: Future you doesn't have as good a memory as the present you thinks! Do them a favour and make your work easy to find!

  • Reason #5: If you're unavailable, testing is less likely to become a bottleneck if the team has collaborated on the testing side of the delivery during refinement and captured that in the story. Now you can holiday in peace!

Let me know about the benefits you've noticed making your work visible too!