Testers, regularly face questions like – “Our incidents are rejected?”, “Our expertise is questioned?”, “ We are blamed for faults appearing in production?”. The immediate reply that comes up in our minds is “We are doing our best”.
These questions hit the amygdala triggering a cascade of emotions. When a tester is informed that the testing time deadline has been halved it triggers the amygdala hijack. STRESS cannot be avoided while working as a tester in the industry.
Emotional Intelligence is of vital importance for testers. The four key skills of Emotional Intelligence revolve around – self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness and, relationship management.
Self-awareness and self-management in stressful situations can be achieved by focusing on habits, maintaining a routine, being disciplined and working on our strengths and weaknesses.
Social awareness implies staying informed about our colleagues, employer and industry which we can develop by diving deep, listening actively and understanding each other.
Relationship management concerns a give-and-take policy. It is a two-way process that requires the efforts of one to many.
Software testing is the process of evaluating and verifying that a software product or application does what it is supposed to do. Testers work in teams and are often criticized bluntly.
Herein, the Kiss-Kick-Kiss formula can be adopted– start by praising what you do like of them followed by the criticism (and how they could change for the better) and end with praise again.
– To learn more about “Emotional Intelligence for Testers” by Astrid Winkler, Project Manager, Face AG, Switzerland – register to attend UNICOM’s flagship conference TestExpo and Agile & DevOps Expo, 2021 on 20-21 October, 2021.
Be among the 5 lucky persons to get a free pass for the event. Register now!
Author: Tina Ray
