Test Better When Working From Home
Suggestions on staying productive at home
As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, many QA Engineers are now working from home. This may cause some issues with trying to stay focus while still delivering quality testing.
Here are some ways that can help stay focus and be a successful QA Engineer.
Keep a Daily Journal
During this social distancing period, track your home progress with a daily journal. A journal is one way to measure your daily productivity. It's a good way to show that you're being a productive
Writing Prompts are a good way to get your day started in the right directions. Here are seven suggested writing prompts:
- What challenges did you face yesterday?
- What testing technique would you like to learn today?
- What areas of testing could you use work to learn more about?
- What QA blog post topic would be interesting to read?
- What's something new you can learn today that can help you test better?
- Learn some new SQL trick and share with the team.
- If you had to re-do yesterday again, what would you do better?
Set Daily Goals and Expectations
At the start of the day, write down what you plan to accomplish today. Challenge yourself to get more done than you think is possible.
Writing down your goals helps focus on what you need to accomplish for the day. Simply spend five minutes each day and write down the things that you want to accomplish for the day.
Sample Daily Goals:
- Make sure that the testing queue is clear for the latest code freeze
- Update two automation test cases for the next release
- Learn something new with text formating in Jira
- Bonus: Update the QA Wiki page with SQL tips done with date sorting.
Manage Distractions
Working from home can be challenging when the kids are also at home. It can be hard to stay focus when everyone wants your attention.
One way around this is to chunk your QA tasks so that you're in the work zone for a set amount of time.
Also it's helpful to publish your daily schedule so that everyone knows when your in meeting and more importantly when deadlines happen - such as code freeze or release day.