By nature I’m very thorough, an over-thinker, and perfectionist. In other words, I can be a pain in the ass, but these qualities actually all help me quite a bit as a QA Engineer. However, at my first ever QA job trying to decide what to test when, how long to test, and to not over test was one of my biggest challenges. And, it resulted in so much stress and countless late nights testing at home, and let’s be honest, that sucked. So, how do you prioritize testing?

I try to break it down into risk and reward. So, when I am given a feature to test, I try to think of it as far as what’s the biggest impact, to the company and the customer? What absolutely has to work, and what’s the minimum that has to work? That’s where I start, and what I prioritize –  I can make sure the most vital things work.

Then, I move along to the things that we have a workaround for if they don’t work – even if it isn’t an ideal one. Granted, the goal is for everything to work, but you can’t test every single scenario and bugs will creep through from time to time. If I still have time to test after this I then start to test the nice to have items – the things that aren’t much of an impact if they don’t work, and that don’t affect if the application can be successfully used.

This way I work my way down from the most important, from what absolutely has to work to the less important. That way, if there isn’t enough time, which is often the case, I know I’ve tested the really important things thoroughly, and the company accepts that. It definitely takes getting used to, prioritizing testing, but helps you really get to know the application, the ins and outs, and the highest priorities/biggest wins.