!!!! WIP !!!! The last editing was from Moniq on 25.12.2020.
A team coordinator is a person, who is willing to coordinate the work of others and manage all the boring bureaucracy of the Test team. It requires a lot of additional time, patience and responsibility. Testers will be lazy, developers will lie, marketing will make promises and other teams will have no time for your problems. However, the work must be done somehow. If you think you can help the team in this way, this article will give you some closer looks on principles how your work should look.
It is expected that you understand the process how tasks are being managed on [Team] Test board and you understand why. Your membership in other Ryzom teams and projects can be very helpful, especially membership in the Bugs project that allows you to also manage related issues on Bugs board. You should also be familiar with ways how to make an evidence for testing purposes.
Contents
Theory
In case of the Test team, all the team the work is closely related to team board tasks. The team is requested to perform a testing on a target server, does the job and cares about all discovered issues. There are three main jobs that belong to a coordination and connect all the testing process together, however it is not possible to give you exact points to do. Every task is different so you should be creative within process principles.
New task creation
This is the being of all tasks. One of team coordinators must create a new task and prepare some initial documentation for a testing. It means that you create new task in Waiting column of the target server, describe all request details like what to test, under which circumstances, background lore information and similar. All the information that is necessary for the future test leader to fully understand the matter of the change. This job is very often done by developers to request a testing and you can read How to request new testing article that describes this process from opposite side.
You should make sure that all aspects of the change (testing) are clarified and that there are no doubts about any of general questions, for example how high an event reward should be or how long a mission cool-down should take. Remember that the future test leader needs to know as much as possible to prepare valid testing for testers.
Testing leadership
To lead a testing of a task is the most common job that a coordinator can do. You choose from new (yellow) tasks waiting on the board to find one you want to care about. Review the task changes on the target server to make sure it is running, create a testing PAD with all necessary instructions and do at least quick test yourself. Make sure you provide all necessary instructions for testers, remember that testers might be just volunteers who want to help but have no previous experience. Once the test is completed or when it is not possible to continue in testing, it is your work to evaluate the testing, track all known issues and notify other teams about results. You decide if a task can progress or if it will return.
Requesting other teams
It is almost rare that a testing will end with no issues and even when it happens, you still need guide the task to finish.
Task with issues
In case there are any issues, there are three options how to resolve them:
- Issue is confirmed but not actually an issue - clarify all details with related teams and developers and close it if works as intended
- Issue is confirmed and can be fixed along the testing - pass the issue to the appropriate team to solve
- Issue is confirmed and can't be fixed along the testing - add the issue to the Bugs board at the end of the task lifetime
Tasks without issues
Those tasks that have no known issues can progress or be closed. Notify the task developer, team manager, marketing team, translators and/or encyclopatysts at right moment so they can do their work - move the change to next server, complete translation, write documentation for wiki, announce the change, write patch notes... whatever their work is.