Testing Mobile Apps with Remote Teams

My former test manager, good friend and a mentor posted the following on Facebook which got me thinking about a major accomplishment this year and prompted this blog post.

For the last year I have been running crowd-sourced test cycles for my company while testing Android and iOS native apps. I learned a lot, met many good testers, and had the privilege of working with and test leading a few unbelievably passionate and talented people.  Leading testers in a remote model where you never meet your team in person is difficult, especially when you have to figure out their strengths and aspirations. Plus test management in this context is something I was never sure about because of the overall responsibility and worrying about the end result and gathered information on product quality. I keep thinking that what if the mission fails due to misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the goals and objectives? What if the team energy and dynamics will not form correctly?

Crowdsourced Testing: Lessons Learned From a Customer's Point of View.

I am frequently asked about crowdsourced software testing companies and how to best work with them. It’s a tough question as every company is different and therefore the approach and strategy has to be customized accordingly based on what they want to get out of utilizing the crowdsourced software testing model.

I have freelanced with crowdsourced testing companies for two years and have learned a lot about the processes, platform tools, freelance tester communities, product management, challenges, and shortcomings from the tester side. In the last year I have expanded my knowledge by running a high volume of testing with crowdsourced testing vendors for Android, iOS and mobile web apps at my current company as a customer. Overall it has been very successful based on the feedback and data that we received from freelance testers. But it hasn't been a bed of roses as it has taken some trial and error as a customer to obtain the right knowledge and experience that in turn helped accomplish our testing goals. I highly recommend that your in-house professional testers handle the relationship with the crowdsourcing company(ies) because they understand your testing needs and your company's business.

How I Became a Tester

Last month I was asked to conduct an online webinar on how I became a mobile tester. It didn’t work out because of my crazy work schedule and miscommunication with the event organizers.  However I had an opportunity to work on my topic with James Bach. I got some helpful guidance, questions and tips from him and then decided to turn the content into a blog post.

I want to mention that James is probably the toughest mentor that I have trained with. But he is also the most approachable, sincere, committed, consistent teacher, in addition to being extremely smart and helpful. I came to him originally without any formal testing background or training. I feel I am a better tester since I started training with him and the fact that he is just a Skype away gives me a lot of confidence when I come across difficult situations in my professional endeavors. I have met many other role models and mentors in our global testing community but imho there is no one like him and I am grateful that I found him.

How did you get into testing? Why did testing attract you?

What initially attracted me to testing was the never-ending process of puzzle solving. I enjoy the creativity involved when you have to come up with a scheme of different ideas and approaches to dig into a program and find what’s broken or what may potentially cause a problem.

MoDevUx and the Latest On My Testing Journey

I attended another amazing event last week organized by MoDevDC, my local meetup group. The event was called MoDevUx – “A user experience, design and development conference discussing all things mobile.”

MoDevUx was packed with interesting content, amazing speakers and the exuberant energy of its participants from various mobile design and development shops in the Washington, DC area, and some from other parts of the country. The speakers shared their experiences on how to understand users (what users think and want), how to handle feedback, learn from it, and improve the user experience in mobile apps. I thought that the presenters talked from their heart, they were entertaining, witty and insightful. I walked away feeling enriched and that my time was well spent.

Kindle Fire Tips on Error Logging, Debugging and Snapshots

I have been testing on the Kindle Fire since December 2011 and have picked up a few good tricks. These include collecting error logs, taking snapshots, debugging with DDMS and installing applications that are currently not available in the Amazon Appstore such as Dropbox.  I am sure there is lots of information scattered around the web and posted on various forums but I want to share my tips and the following blog links in one location for your use.  I will try to add new ones to this post as I learn them.  Feel free to leave comments with your tips.