Article written aozherelyeva, QA-engineer at VK.ru and organizer of the QA-school
Despite the fact that the profession of QA-engineer in the usual sense is relatively new, the demand for it is growing. Today everything around is being digitized, it is unlikely that you will surprise anyone with the presence of an online service: the price is the quality, speed and stability of its work - therefore the corresponding specialists are included in the price.
In addition, testers have not been perceived as guys who poke all buttons in a row in an attempt to break everything for a long time - the image of a quality engineer resembles, rather, a multi-armed Shiva: he works with documentation, with code, knows the system, can imitate user actions and does not give up until will find out the exact conditions for reproducing the annoying problem.
And when we needed to organize free training to get people into the profession, we realized that testing is a great option.
How the idea of the Women in Tech QA School was born
In December 2019, the Women in Tech school in Russia was officially opened in St. Petersburg. Women in Tech is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting women in STEM. The organization employs volunteers, so cooperation with both companies that share our values and with volunteers is encouraged.
In February we held the second workshop “Paths to IT”. Based on the results of the survey of the participants, it became clear that many want to find in WIT not only inspiration, but also practical help - it was then that we decided to launch a face-to-face course on introduction to testing.
We decided to make our course not only useful, but also memorable, and this is what we came to:
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Having found support in the person of the PROSTO youth organization , Test IT and the platform for online courses Stepik , we began work on a QA school.
Selection of participants and quarantine
In order to understand that the applicants are really interested in new knowledge, we compiled a special questionnaire, in which they asked to fill out a simple questionnaire and tell about themselves.
Main criteria:
- Lack of experience in IT;
- Lack of understanding where to move professionally - usually students of 1-2 courses;
- I had to refuse those who expected from the course to acquire programming skills or test automation - unfortunately, the course is introductory, and the ability to write code is not a mandatory criterion for entering the profession;
During the week we received more than 200 applications, of which 60 people were chosen. We planned to start the School at the end of March, but COVID intervened in everything. We had to adapt: online lectures instead of personal meetings and the transfer of the School to April-May. Nevertheless, it motivated me to figure out how the course will live and continue to help people after graduation: we have saved notes of all lectures, and they are still available on Stepik.
How was the training
The most difficult thing was to design the program in such a way as to give the participants the necessary information, but at the same time not overload and not discourage interest in the profession. And keep within 7-8 lectures. Here's what we got:
1. Introduction to the profession of a tester
1.1 The role of a tester in a team, his tasks and area of responsibility
At the first lesson, students got acquainted with the concept of testing and the field of responsibility of the profession of a tester. The lecture part was supplemented with a discussion, because in each team and company the tasks of a test engineer vary. We talked about the types of testing - depending on the task, the tester should be able to choose the appropriate approach. We also discussed the software life cycle and testing life cycle, and the role of the tester at each stage.
1.2 Self-education of a tester: how and why
If in the first lecture we "scared" a little by the variety of requirements for a tester and his tasks, here we reassured that all this can be learned - in courses or on your own. We gave a whole ton of self-study materials, links and books to improve our knowledge in parallel to the School.
2. Test Design Techniques
2.1 How Tests Are Created, Part 1. Test Analysis and Test Design
Without a test analysis, nowhere. With it, you get high-quality, relevant checks, and it also gives you the opportunity to test the maximum functionality in a minimum of actions - that is, to provide good coverage in a reasonable time. During the lecture, the audience got acquainted with the test analysis process, learned how to ask questions so that they would be answered, and also got acquainted with two popular test design techniques - equivalent partitioning and boundary value analysis.
2.2 How tests are created, part 2. Combinatorial testing methods
Here the lecturers expanded the topic of test analysis so that the students did not get the impression that the test design techniques are limited to only the two mentioned above :) At the lecture, they discussed combinatorial test design techniques, Pairwise, and also analyzed the state transition diagram - an approach to testing based on models.
3. Test documentation and systems for work
3.1 Test documentation: checklist, test case, bug report
Possession of information is nothing if you do not know how to share it. Therefore, here the students got acquainted with the basic formats in which the tester provides information to the team - in other words, with test documentation, or test artifacts.
3.2 Work tracking systems: bug trackers, TMS, task trackers
Then there was an acquaintance with the systems in which the whole team often works: task trackers, bug trackers and TMS. The students learned when to use each type of system, and how to work in them, and also got acquainted with the Test IT test management system.
4. Conclusion
4.1 To help the tester: programs, extensions, tools
At the final lecture, students learned about browser-based DevTools, tools for working with logs, tools for working with API - Postman, and also generally figured out which tools will help to simplify seemingly very complex tasks.
4.2 Final task
The final task is a test of strength. We set the task to make an independent analysis of the interface quality. From the sites offered to choose from, they were asked to determine a section for testing, and conduct a cycle of tests: write scripts, conduct checks, report bugs and make a final report with a harsh verdict: is it possible to release?
The students worked in real TMS to feel like combat testers. The final work can be added to the portfolio.
About lecturers
We attracted experts from leading IT companies - Yandex.Market, Wrike, Test IT, Softmachina, Noveo - QA leads, automation engineers, test analysts and mobile testers. The coolest thing is that these highly paid specialists spent their free time preparing lectures, were not too lazy to collect and arrange materials and conduct training.
We should also mention the partnership with Test IT... Colleagues took part in lectures and acted as information partners, and the company also provided a real tester tool, on which the students carry out the final project. Working with a live instrument is necessary in order to understand how processes are built in teams working with products that need stability and reliability - after all, the target audience of such instruments is prone to pedantry in looking for even small problems.
Colleagues from the youth space SIMPLY helped with the organization and information support of the School. Together with them, we issued certificates to the participants who attended all the lectures and completed the final task. Stepik
Teamalso helped to cover the course in the media; lecture notes are also available on this platform. More than 2500 people have already signed up for the online version of the course - an impressive result for the first time.
Learning Outcomes
The culmination of the sessions was the implementation of the final project. It looked like this: if you want, you can try it too!
- Choose a site that you will test - preferably a "toy" site specially created for practice, such as this one ;
- Draw up test documentation: checklist, mind map, list of test cases - as you see fit;
- Test the site (or a selected section of it);
- Find bugs, issue reports on defects;
- Write a short test report.
We recommend uploading the resulting work to Google Drive or any other file hosting service and using it as a portfolio (or as an attachment to a resume) for employment.
Of the 60 who started the course, about 30 people have completed - this is a success! The final work of the students was quite confident - it is clear that those who reached this stage, studied independently, worked through and passed through themselves the knowledge gained at the lectures. In addition, we have added a final module to the online version of the School - materials from webinar chats and student chat.
Success stories
Of course, it is important not only how the school went, but also what happened to its students after.
The School helped someone to take the first step into a new profession.
Olga:
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What's next? Next, we plan to launch the second stream of the School - however, after the pandemic, because many participants were waiting for offline communication.
In addition, we plan to launch the School in other areas - for this we need volunteers! If you want to help and organize a similar event, please contact us (for example, here).
School lecture notes: https://stepik.org/course/73926/syllabus . If you are watching lectures, please leave feedback - it will be useful for future launches.