Roles & Responsibilities of a Test Manager
The main role of a test manager is to make the testing efforts successful in an organization and for achieving the same, he/she carries multiple responsibilities. In this article, I have tried to list major activities a test manager is responsible for. The responsibilities and activities depends on the organization goals ultimately. The test managers are dependent on his team to carry out these activities and hence composing and building team is one of the success factor for their success.
Effective test manager not only understands the discipline of testing but have capability of managing and implementing a testing process in the organization. They have skills in leading team, communicating and advocating quality and can show ROI of testing team in the organization.
A test manager is majorly responsible for -
» Implementing Testing Discipline
» Planning & Management
» Team Building
» Measuring, Monitoring & Improvement
» Positive Communication / Diplomacy
» Planning & Management
» Team Building
» Measuring, Monitoring & Improvement
» Positive Communication / Diplomacy
Implementing Testing Discipline
Responsibilities | Notes |
---|---|
Implementing testing process in the organization | The testing process includes - » Planning, monitoring & controlling of testing activities » Analysis of "what" test conditions (features, functionalities etc.) to be tested » Design "how" to test the identified test conditions » Implementation of test schedule » Test prioritization and its execution » Documentation and reporting of test progress » Evaluation of exit criteria » Implementation of test closure activities (test completion check, test artifacts handover, lessons learned, archiving of results, logs, reports and other documents) |
Selecting, customizing & implementing appropriate templates & standards for the work products for project(s) or organization | Templates for test plan, test case, test report, test strategy, test scenario, traceability matrix, checklists etc. |
Defining, implementing and evolving appropriate metrics and measurements framework | Metrics to track Project Cost, Product quality, Process efficiency and People productivity |
Making a (test) plan, tracking progress and reporting to stakeholders | Plan for scope, strategy, environment, schedule, deliverables, entry / suspension / resumption criteria, exit criteria, roles & responsibilities and risks mitigation |
Creating estimates for all test process activities, using all applicable estimation techniques | Some of the estimation techniques are Intuition, guesses & past experiences, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Team estimation session, Company standards and norms, percentage of overall project estimation, organizational history and metrics, Industry averages etc. |
Developing a test execution schedule, which is complete and consistent with respect to the test objectives, test strategy and test plan | Use risks, prioritization, test environment, data dependencies and constraints to come up with schedule |
Establishing test object delivery processes and to ensure version control during test execution | Define and implement Configuration management, Release management and Change management |
Incorporating test design techniques into the project and test processes | Test case design techniques like Combinatorial Test (e.g. Pairwise testing), Boundary Value analysis, Equivalence Partitioning, Decision Table, Cause Effect Graphing, State transition, Classification Tree, etc. |
Implementing retrospective notes, post project closure | To evaluate processes and discover areas of improvement |
Implementing a defect management process for an organization and explaining it to all stakeholders | Include defects report workflow, states and transitions. It also includes level of details necessary to capture |
Planning & Management
Responsibilities | Notes |
---|---|
Determining the usefulness of different standards for the specific context in which testing is occurring or will occur. It should be as per the organization’s policy | Standards can provide a reference to proven best practices and provides a basis for organizing the test process. Some of the industry standards are ISO 25000, IEEE 829 & IEEE 1028, BS 7925-2, PMI, PRINCE2, ITIL etc. |
Analyzing the project risks and coming up with different risk management options | Risk management options like mitigation, contingency, transfer or acceptance |
Identification of the activities and resources required to implement objectives identified in the test strategy | Activities like test case designs, environment setup, automation, test execution, reporting etc. and resources like people, software, hardware, infrastructure etc. |
Identification of methods for gathering and tracking the metrics | Data should be gathered and tracked across software development life cycle phases |
Identification of test tools | Test tools for - Test Management, defects management, test automation, test execution, test result tracking, reporting etc. |
Identification of correct strategies for the testing project / releases / organization | Test strategies like Risk based , Reactive, Requirement based, Model-based strategies, Methodical strategies (predetermined set of test conditions from various quality standards), Process / standard compliance strategies, Consultative strategies, Regression averse testing strategies, Checklist based |
Doing a cost-benefit analysis before acquiring or building a tool and present the return of investment (ROI) details to the management for approval of the budget | Should consider both recurring and nonrecurring costs for tool evaluation, selection and owning the license |
Understanding and analyzing the licensing scheme of the selected tool | General Public License (GNU), Licensed per named user, Licensed per installation, Licensed per client, Floating license, etc. |
Checking and analyzing the legal ramifications of redistributing the software in the organization | Most of the time, when open source tool is used, the resultant software is binded by same license as received it under |
Considering all the negative & positive issues while developing custom tools for the project or organization | Need custom tools when no vendor specific or open source tools exist due to proprietary system |
Analyzing the stakeholders, circumstances and needs of a software program / test needs and identify the optimal testing activities | |
Analyzing and calculating ROI of testing and provides business value to the organization | |
Identification of non-functional tests to perform based on risk and constraints | Non-functional tests like performance, security, compliance, usability, compatibility, accessibility etc. |
Requirements engineering and management | Needs to consider requirements during the scoping and estimation of test effort |
Managing and growing the testing assets | Like team members, test tools, test frameworks and test process |
Team Building
Responsibilities | Notes |
---|---|
Setting up the skill gap framework | To analyze the strength and weakness of team members related to system under test, domain, automation, business knowledge, software testing, communication etc. |
Analysis of skills assessment spreadsheet and set up trainings and skill development programs | Trainings options like in-house, cross training, self training, external training, custom training, mentoring |
Setting of performance goals for individuals for improving their skills set | |
Hiring the right resources for the company and not only for the project | |
Scheduling & arranging relevant trainings to team members | Trainings for - Process improvement, skills development (automation, domain etc.), test tools |
Understanding the factors required for successful use of staffing strategies | Test team staffing strategies can be distributed, outsourced or insourced |
Retaining skilled test professionals |
Measuring, Monitoring & Improvement
Responsibilities | Notes |
---|---|
Assessing existing process capability & maturity and brings improvement(s) | Improve test process using industry accepted techniques / models like TMMi, STEP, CTP, TPI Next, etc. |
Reviewing testing work products using the appropriate techniques and by the appropriate participants and stakeholders | Reviews techniques can be informal, technical, through inspection or walkthroughs |
Ensuring smooth functioning of tools throughout it’s life cycle | At the same time, assessing ROI of these tools |
Collection of accurate and timely information during the test process | To support accurate reporting and evaluation against existing criteria |
Using requirement traceability matrix to check completeness and consistency of designed test cases with respect to the defined test conditions |
Communication / Diplomacy
Responsibilities | Notes |
---|---|
Putting the test team in the respectable position in the organization | |
Motivating an individual in a testing position | |
Communication with multiple audiences, including users, project team members, management, external testing groups and customers | |
Defining the process of data collection and classification throughout the defects management process | |
Explaining the defects statistics report to management | And evaluate the current capability of existing testing process and software development process |
Advocating the proper use of process and selection of defect management tool | |
Facilitating the successful management reviews and audits | To focus on the existing software process capabilities and improvement areas, particularly with respect to testware products |
Implementing the efficient (technical) reviews like requirement review, design review, code review etc. in the projects and demonstrate the benefits of review exercise | |
Explaining different test strategies and its effects on testing activities | |
Working with Development Managers to coordinate the delivery of test objects, including content and dates of each test release, as well as participating in defect management | |
Working with the development manager to ensure that testers are integrated into and aligned with activities in agile development | |
Analyzing the reported test results and provide insights and recommendations to enable project stakeholders to make decisions | |
Working with the Technical Support Manager to analyze production failures, in order to implement process improvements | |
Working with the Technical Support Manager to ensure proper delivery of test results during test closure | So that those involved in supporting the product after release are aware of known failures and workarounds |
Understand the precise nature of the stakeholder relationship with testing and how the test team serves the needs of the stakeholders | Without this, the testing process might not achieve optimal effectiveness and efficiency |
Creating well defined and convincing business case for testing in the organization or optimize testing to deliver good business value | Cost can be evaluated using categories like cost of prevention, cost of detection, cost of internal failure, cost of external failure |
Defining and implementing the roles, testing plays within the organization |
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