Experience @ Testing Hackathon: ZenQuest 2021

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Participated with my friend, Apoorva Ram (Senior Software Test Engineer @ Qapitol QA).

Day # 1

10:00 AM IST: Intro Session

  • Fun Games by Azhar Shams.
  • Brief by ZenQ Team (It’s a nice company with a strong position in testing).
  • Product Demo by 3 Product Teams:
    • FireCamp
    • MoneyHop
    • Unifarm
  • Introduction about The Test Tribe from Ashutosh Garg (Growth @ TTT).
  • Documentation, Quality Criteria, and Bug Filing Process were shared for all three applications.
  • There were separate Discord groups created for each of the Applications.
Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com

As we both had relatively lower experience in API Testing (Required for Firecamp) as well Mobile App Testing (Moneyhop), We thought to start with Unifarm as it was a web application, though we knew nothing about Blockchain. As testers, we were somehow confident that we could ramp up on this new domain too.

12:30 PM IST: ZenQuest Starts

  • Started with reading documentation
  • Learning about the product
  • Doing necessary setups, logins, and configurations on the app.
  • BLOCKED! App had a show stopper problem.
  • Waited for 2 hours for things to get stable.
  • Nervousness built up continuously as Time was getting lost.

If you are not prepared with test environment, be prepared to loose valuable testing information and testers.

Rahul Parwal
  • Decided to start with another app, and we chose Firecamp.
  • Why we didn’t choose Money Hop?
    • We felt that it was an additional mental complexity due to NDA Forms and transactions via real money.
    • We didn’t have mobile test device setups ready.
    • The judging criteria had ++ for security testing which wasn’t our stronghold.

15:00 PM IST: Started Testing on Firecamp.

  • We made a plan of evaluating the application on the following Testing Types:
    • Functional
    • UI Testing
    • UX Testing
    • Usability Testing
    • Installation Testing
    • Accessibility Testing
    • Performance Testing
    • Security Testing
    • Upgrade Testing
    • Compatibility Testing
    • Claims Testing
    • Compare against Standard Benchmarking
    • Profiling
  • We used AutoHotKey to set up some quick text-expanding shortcuts. That saved us an enormous amount of time in this event.
  • Testers can certainly learn new concepts very quickly, this hackathon validated that for me.
  • We Tested till 04:00 AM on Day 2 before going to bed. It was one of the longest duration which I had stretched for a Testing Hackathon. Even the food and coffee also happened on my workstation only.
Photo by Gerd Altmann on Pexels.com
  • Over the two days, When I reflect back, I feel that there were some things that contributed a lot to our win. I am writing them down for my self-reflection later:
    • Many hours of Testing Practices – The TTL Graduate Exercises, Previous Hackathons, etc.
    • Focus on the Present – No matter how much you have won or lost before, the present will decide the future, NOT the past.
    • Learn from past mistakes – Don’t repeat them.
    • Never Give Up – Desert Storm.
    • Not afraid to face the best of the best – Many big names of our industry too participated in this event.
    • If you are not learning, you are not testing – Start testing from the first minute.
    • Trust in Partners – Trust them to do their job, else don’t give them the job.
    • Team Work – In the end, it was a team event, No amount of individual work can help us win this 🙂
    • Think out of the box – Do what no one might be doing 🙂
    • Advocacy over Reporting – Make each bug count. mention impact, notes, suggestions, etc.
    • Be ready with your Toolkit – We were ready with our personalized testing toolkit. You can find most of those tools here.
    • Be ready with Test Ideas – Have an idea catalog or look for existing ones.
    • Reuse Good Ideas – Not every wheel needs to be reinvented every time.
Photo by Kathy Jones on Pexels.com
  • Important questions to ask yourself:
    • Are you writing things, that you could have done but didn’t? Can you share such test ideas with the Product Owner after the event?
    • Do you have a feedback/experience report?
    • Did you ask the right questions to the stakeholders?
    • Do you know what are the right questions?
    • Have you validated all their claims?
    • Do you know what they care about most?
    • Is your reporting template ready?
    • Are the screenshot/recording tools ready?
    • Are you uploading your Test Environment with Bugs?
    • Do you know how to give complete details of Test Configuration?
      • Win + R – dxdiag
      • supportdetails.com
    • Are you mentioning the impact of your bugs?
    • Do you help them with useful suggestions for bugs?
    • Do you share the tools, test data, etc. for reproducing bugs?
    • Do you share possible retesting ideas?
    • What do you think about Customer Success or Customer Satisfaction?
    • Have you done competitor analysis?
      • Do you know how to do it?
      • Do you know where to find them?
    • Do you showcase what others don’t observe? Help them overcome blind spots?

Overall it was an amazing event, We implemented most of what we had planned for. Does this pose another interesting question: Do you plan for things?

Remember, “Plan is nothing, Planning is everything!“.

We also submitted an experience report after the hackathon to the stakeholders. More on that some other day.

Thank You!

Here is the chat with ZenQuest Winners:

https://youtu.be/aVvoXMOPp98

Appendix:

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