Roles & Responsibilities of a Test Manager
» 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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