Generally how does your team go about doing testing or automation?

Most people (in my experience) jump right into writing test cases or automate written tests… anything wrong there?

The source of tests is usually a bunch of written statements without any context from which testers start create test scenarios

Occasionally might have a chat with the BA or product owner if they find the time.

What’s missing here is the context, the understanding of what problem we are trying to solve

Now just if you wrote a ‘story’ doesn’t mean you got all the context.

It is imperative to talk to marketing, product and support to understand why we are building this product, how is our solution different from others in the market.

Understanding the competitive advantage and pain points of the consumers gives the testers context and a yard stick to gauge what’s important.

Shadowing how the customers use the product in the field is another good way of gaining context into the solution.

Any other techniques you’ve used to understand the context better?