A tester requires a broad range of knowledge, skills and abilities to fulfil their role and responsibilities as testers. One or more may be required and demonstrated to reach higher levels of responsibility and job titles.
Mindset
Critical Thinking: Ability to think sceptically towards how something may not work or deliver value or deliver harm
Lateral Thinking: Ability to think creatively towards all the ways something may not work or deliver value or deliver harm
Systems Thinking: Ability to think in terms of systems as not only a set of individual components but holistically as a series of interacting components as a whole
Method Thinking: Ability to approach work in a systematic and methodical way
Knowledge & Ability
Hands-On Testing: Ability to learn, understand, model, experience and evaluate software quality in a systematic, methodical way guided by designs and plans and exploration to discover problems
Analysis & Design: Ability to review claims and artefacts, break-down the risk space into coverage models and design efficient and effective tests
Communication & Reporting: Ability to communicate timely and effectively on the software, testing and project status through verbal and written forms
Heuristics: To demonstrate knowledge and ability in a wide range of test design techniques, approaches, quality criteria, reference oracles and micro-heuristics
Tooling: Ability to identify and use tools to support testing at every layer of the software application stack
Project Delivery
Quality Management: Ability to demonstrate a quality-first mindset to testing to ensure thorough and responsible testing takes place in projects
Advocate: Ability to talk about and sell the need for testing in software projects to senior management, clients, team members or other stakeholders
Process Management: Ability to follow, improve or identify new processes in testing to support agile, expand left/right and quality management principles
Test Planning: Ability to estimate and prioritise testing based on the quality needs and timescales of the project to complete testing on-time and to quality
Agile Team: Ability to work well as an individual but also as part of a wider agile team to work together to solve problems
Coaching & Mentoring
Mentoring: Ability to mentor less experienced testers or other project team members by guiding, demonstration, leading shadowing, instructing and training
Coaching: Ability to coach less experienced testers or other project team members using the coaching method
People Management
(Administrative Officers only)
Recruitment: Ability to find, identify, interview and recruit testers that are of the highest quality and demonstrate many of the skills listed here
Onboarding: Ability to bring new people into the company and team ensuring they have a smooth introduction and transition
Develop: Ability to help grow testers as individuals by leaning new knowledge, skills and abilities as help to manage their careers
Review: Ability to do performance reviews or appraisals offering relevant and timely feedback, and promote or improve as required
Exit: Ability to offboard people from the company as they move on
Development & Automation
(Developers-in-Test only)
Programming: Ability to develop software programs in one or more programming languages demonstrating object-oriented approaches
Automation: Ability to create effective test automation framework, libraries and tests including for unit, integration, API and E2E (UI)