Performance Appraisal of Software Testers

Context: To determine the effectiveness of software testers a suitable performance appraisal approach is necessary, both for research and practice purposes. However, review of relevant literature reveals little information of how software testers are appraised in practice. Objective: (i) To enhance our knowledge of industry practice of perfor-mance appraisal of software testers; and (ii)to collect feedback from project managers on a proposed performance appraisal form for software testers. Method: A web-based survey with questionnaire was used to collect responses. Participants were recruited using cluster and snowball sampling. 18 software development project managers participated. Results: We found two broad trends in performance appraisal of software testers- same employee appraisal process for all employees and a specialized performance appraisal method for software testers. Detailed opinions were collected and analysed on how performance of software testers should be appraised. Our proposed appraisal approach was generally well-received. Conclusion: Factors such as number of bugs found after delivery and efficiency of executing test cases were considered important in appraising software testers ’ performance. Our proposed approach was refined based on the feedback received