The better a developer or tester feels that his abilities are recognized, understood and appreciated, the more readily he puts extra effort into the project. At the end of the day, everyone has their pride in the final product; no one wants to produce junk. It is therefore important that the business understands what is being performed and what is within everyone’s capabilities.

However, sometimes things go wrong in communication or the level of understanding. Everyone has the same eight hours in their day, and in the end, the one who knows best what can be accomplished in those hours is the person himself. Logically, planning is factored in accordingly. When this is not the case, you get discrepancies in what is expected and what is delivered in terms of quantity, as well as quality.

Reality: a developer does not spend eight hours just working on his code. He gets different questions: from those annoying testers who find bugs again, from another developer who is stuck somewhere, from a content manager or employee who is stuck somewhere or doesn’t understand something.

If you appoint someone to be the point of contact for employees and content managers, you should also understand and accept that a lot of time goes into this as well. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Not only do they not charge time for those questions, in between they come to hear how you are doing with your feature…..

Now, none of this is directly related to testing, but is something you notice as a tester. The same developer who used to deliver fine quality and was always approachable is suddenly irritable and more bugs are found every feature. At such times, as a tester, you can ask how this comes about and try to intervene. Who knows, maybe a business manager will listen when the tester and developer raise the alarm together. Does quality suffer from our absurd expectations after all?’

Conclusion: look at the quality already beyond the code, take care of your colleagues and keep the team strong. Understand each other and each other’s strengths as well as weaknesses. The human factor cannot be underestimated, so take care of it. By setting realistic expectations, this will have a positive impact on quality and you will be able to ensure that your employees (Testers, developers) stay motivated to go for it.