QAR : A Simple Yet Effective Tool

Today, I am going to write about a great tool.

It is called QAR.

Will give some background.

I was working in a service based company.

Testing service was outsourced to our company.

There was very little knowledge transfer to our testing team. And minimum documentation. When we started writing test cases and eventually executing them, we faced lot of issues.

We had more doubts.

Our QA manager was located in USA.

Therefore, there was time difference. We were working in IST. So, by the time our manager logged in, we would have left office and reached home.

We had once in a week meeting.

I remember it was on Tuesdays, from 8:30 PM.

So, we stayed back in the office only on Tuesdays for this meeting.

Well, what about doubts ?

Since we had weekly meeting only, we could not cover/discuss all doubts in that meeting. And if we start chatting with manager, it would be too late in the night for us.

So, this was a challenge.

The solution to this challenge was ‘QAR’.

The expansion of it is ‘Question , Answer Repository’.

Lets get in to details of this QAR.

Also read: 7 Things I Hate As A Tester

What is QAR ?

As mentioned earlier, QAR is Question Answer Repository.

It is the place where we asked questions and our manager answered to those questions. As the name suggests, it is repository for questions and answers.

It was nothing more than an excel file.

What? an excel file?

Yes.

We had different columns in the sheet. Where we had asked questions and manager answered to each of them.

If had any follow-up questions, we used to put them again in the same row.

Also Read : Bugs Due To Requirements

What it contains ?

Questions and answers..on a high level.

Well, here are the details.

1. Questions. The questions asked by us.
2. The date when question is asked.
3. Answer by manager.
4. Date when answered.
5. Any follow-up questions and date.
6. Answers to follow-up answers and date.
7. Remarks or any other comments.
8. Status of question-It can be New/Open/Closed

New = When question is newly asked

Open = When manager looked it and working on it

Closed = When question is completely answered

1. More importantly, the name of the person who asked question.
2. Reference to requirement/feature of product/ test case, if any.
3. Closed date. The date on which manager answers completely.

This QAR excel file is saved in the shared location. So that anyone required can access it.

Note: Book a call to discuss more

QAR template

Here is the screenshot of the template.

QAR-Template

Benefits of QAR

QAR has many advantages.

The important of those is, you get the answers for your questions.

Other benefits are:

1. It saves everybody’s time in to and from communication
2. All questions and answers will be in once place
3. You can refer back to them, when required
4. You can track time, when asked and when answered
5. You can add the follow-up questions
6. Can refer to the feature/story/test case mentioned in the QAR
7. You can keep those feature/story/test cases up to date

I have mentioned that questions were asked by testing team.

And manager answered them.

It need not be restricted to team-manager.

You can use it to get clarification from any stake holder — Product manager, Developer etc.

I hope it is useful.

If you have any doubts, please ask me.

That’s all for now !

Note: Book a call to discuss more

P.S : Repost and help your friends !

P.S.S : If you need a QAR template file, message me. I will send to you!