Those, working in quality assurance or testing most likely would agree, that constant knowledge improvement is a vital element in effective testing. The professional is expected to identify project planning gaps, missing features in func spec and downsizes for certain technical solution, perform adequate testing and communicate in diplomatic way. In addition to this, multiple projects are demanding your bottleneck knowledge person at the same time. Sounds like sufficient arguments for a largest training budget in a company, doesn’t it?

The true to say, the reality is different. And no funding or attention from managers are only one side of the coin. In many countries it might be very difficult to receive valuable testing training at all. So, what to do, especially if the team you have is the ambiguous one? In any case, none could afford testers without increasing their competencies constantly.

My suggestion is to start simple — do training in the team internally. Arrange, that everyone in a team has someone to teach, and could be mentored by somebody the same time. The topics might depend on test level, carrier aspiration and difficulty of the systems people are expected to test. Training sessions might cover technical details, functional knowledge or test practices. Pre-book one or two hours each week and start the learning machine.

This might not be the best world wide courses, but knowledge sharing, socializing, removing bottlenecks and growing juniors are worth a try.

I am looking forward to growing together with testing community and sharing my experience. If you liked my ideas, please consider supporting my time: paypal.me/EvelinaUrb