What are Soft Skills and why are they so important?

The importance of the Soft skills

Testing like any other field of activity requires an QA engineer to possess certain skills. Professional, practical, experience skills are usually called «hard skills». Social skills, behavioral,  emotional skills are called «soft skills». These skills cannot be called purely professional, they are more personal and they do not depend on the specifics of the work. These skills include the ability to communicate, self-discipline, responsibility, ability to solve problems and time management.

Let's find out why these skills, seemingly not related to the direct responsibilities of a tester, are so important.

First, let's look at one of the core skills - the ability to communicate. This skill is very important in modern business conditions for any profession. The IT industry is no exception. Most of the projects in the tech world are organized by teams. Coordinated interaction between team members is very important for successful teamwork. Look at the list of skills that are very important for QA-engineer in a team:

1. Ability to ask the correct questions.

• You should always clarify incomprehensible requirements, unclear logic of the functionality, unfamiliar or imprecise terms at the very beginning of the work;
• In the course of work, you need to find out some controversial points, do not be afraid to ask if the minor defect you discovered is a bug or feature;
• It is always necessary to clarify whether the found defect has already been reported, as well as whether the defect/feature is marked in the documentation as the correct behavior of the system;
• Asking who is responsible for solving the problem or who can clarify what the behavior should actually be, is also a must in the communication process.

2. Being able to win team members’ attention, communicate politely and informatively.

• You can come across the information that QA-engineers and developers often have feud with each other. It is usually caused by the fact that the information about bugs in the product can be delivered in a  rude way , as well as perceived unconstructively. In team work, a finished high-quality product is important, therefore, all questions and comments should be delivered in a polite manner, without complaints and reproaches;
• It is important to ask questions politely, in such a way that the person asked will have a desire to answer you, as well as to answer questions or listen carefully to comments and always take them into account in further work. You should never take criticism as a claim to yourself personally. Not a single brilliant specialist has come to his own success without making mistakes. But only the most persistent and successful did not give up in the process of correcting mistakes;
• Also, one of the important communication skills is the ability to teach others. No frustration, humiliation, and ridicule of the newbies. Do not be engaged in self-admiration and exaltation of your ego.

Another important skill is responsibility. For QA-engineer this points includes such skills as:

1. Effective description of the defect up to time

•  It is important to understand and to be able to highlight the severity and priority of the defect depending on the project. If the tester marks high priority to all bug reports in a row or assigns blocking severity to medium bugs, this can significantly reduce the effectiveness of the entire team on the project;
• It is also very important not to postpone reporting bug. It is better to report bugs directly to the bug tracker or if it is not possible, create drafts in the text files, describe the steps in order to accurately reproduce the defect. Even if a bug is easily reproduced and remembered, in the process of work, you can forget about it and the bug will not be fixed in the final product.

2. Discipline.

• This skill is always necessary for the work on any product. This is especially important while working on projects with agile methodologies, where the development stages are divided into sprints with clear deadlines.

Another useful skill of a QA engineer is the ability to articulate thoughts simply and clearly. This skill needs to be developed constantly, as it is necessary for a tester every working day.

1. Ability  to clearly and understandably describe defects.

• The simplest form of this skill begins with reporting the defect according to the «What? Where? When?» principle. This principle allows you to clearly formulate what bug is observed, where in the system and when. This skill also includes understanding what additional information is appropriate in the description of the defect (for example, clarifying the scale and resolution of the screen in the layout bugs or attaching logs where they are useful and needed).

2. Writing simple and ordered test cases.

• Test cases are an indispensable tool for a QA-engineer, which is especially important for the long-term large projects. It is very important that the test case is written so clearly that new people at the project can easily pass it.

Finally, the last but not least important skill for a tester is curiosity.

1. Passion and interest in work.

• If a tester does not ask himself the question «What will happen if...?», If he is indifferent to the product, then his work will never be at its best. Only gambling and curious people can find hidden bugs, and surface bugs can be found by anyone. 

2. Striving for knowledge.

• This point includes the constant desire to learn something new, to study new technologies and tools, ways of interacting with the software. The IT world is very dynamic, a specialist cannot work effectively if he does not follow the updates in the field.

No matter how high-quality professional knowledge is, it is difficult to become an excellent specialist without the «soft skills». Personal skills help you easily solve the work problems and move forward. We have tried to list the most necessary «soft skills» for a tester, of course, the list is not exhaustive, but quite sufficient for the successful work as a QA engineer.