QA Manager Task List
Things a QA Manager should do
Things that QA Managers should be doing on a constant basis:
- Planning, prioritization of all the test-related tasks (use proven project management tools such as the Waterfall or Scrum methodology)
- Writing the world's best test strategies
- Reviewing the test plans with Product and lead engineers
- Taking the responsibility of certain designs if people have not the required competencies
- Automation Code reviewing
- Spreading expertise and good usage of tools such as bug-tracking database or data capture for automation
- Delegating...
- Having people judgment skills to hire the right people
- Writing performance review
- Evaluating the previous release - what went well, and ways that QA could have done things better.
What makes a good QA Manager
- Being a good QA engineer - Be an excellent tester and delegate testing.
- Effective communication - Let the team know what going on and make sure there are no bad surprises as code freeze approaches.
- Having and spreading the "customer-focus" vision - Always make sure that that the customer is happy.
- Developing people - Encouraging people to learn more about the software and industry
- Bringing out the creativity in others - Asking open-ended questions in meetings to generate a good team discussion.
- Motivating people - Everyplace: Meetings, Hallways and Slack channels.
- Team Building - Make sure that everyone on the team works together. Always look for ways to involve several team members in testing functionality.
- Enabling Changes - Constantly looking to improve the testing strategy and techniques. If you're using the same test case repository for the past five years - you're not enabling change.
- Decision Making - Make key decisions about if a feature is ready for release. Sometimes the decision is easy, many times it may get some push back from Engineering, Product or Marketing.