Roles and responsibility of test lead
Test management is practice of :
1)
Organizing and controlling of test process.
2)
Ensuring visibility, traceability,
and control of testing process to deliver high-quality software.
3) Building up
and leading the Testing Team to the success of project
4) Defining the
scope of testing within the context of each release / delivery
5) Deploying and managing resources
for testing
6) Applying the
appropriate test measurements and metrics in the product and the Testing Team
7) Planning, deploying and managing the
testing effort for any given engagement.
There are tons of difficulties and
challenges you will face when leading a project. Here are some typical issues:
- Not enough time to test
- Not enough resources to test
- The project budget is low, and schedule is too
tight
- Testing teams are not always in one place
- The requirements are too complex to check and validate
Responsibilities of a Test
leaders tend to include involvement in the planning, monitoring,
and control of
the testing activities and tasks.
- At the outset of the project, test leaders, in
collaboration with the other stakeholders, devise the test objectives,
organizational test policies, test
strategies and test
plans.
- They estimate
the testing to be done and negotiate with management to
acquire the necessary resources.
- They recognize when test automation is
appropriate and, if it is, they plan the effort, select the tools, and
ensure training of the team. They may consult with other groups –
e.g., programmers – to help them with their testing.
- They lead, guide and monitor the analysis,
design, implementation and execution of the test cases, test procedures
and test suites.
- They ensure proper configuration
management of the testware produced and traceability of
the tests to the test basis.
- As test execution comes near, they make sure
the test environment is put into place before test execution and managed
during test execution.
- They schedule the tests for execution and then
they monitor, measure, control and report on the test progress, the
product quality status and the test results, adapting the test plan and
compensating as needed to adjust to evolving conditions.
- During test execution and as the project winds
down, they write summary reports on test status.
- Sometimes test leaders wear different titles,
such as test manager or test coordinator. Alternatively, the test leader
role may wind up assigned to a project manager, a development manager or a
quality assurance manager. Whoever is playing the role, expect them to
plan, monitor and control the testing work.
The QA leader is one who is like a
co-captain of the ship who shares equal responsibility for getting software out
to the customers with high quality, on schedule, and matching the expectations.
In today’s article lets Learn the Roles And Responsibility Of QA Leader.
As a QA lead, there are multiple roles and
responsibilities which need to be taken care of. The functional role of QA
lead is to lead the quality assurance department of any industry. In
today’s world quality is the backbone of any commercial successful product
which directly implies that the quality assurance team in any industry play a
very significant role.
A QA leader has to have several feathers in his
cap and play different roles in today’s challenging times.
He has to ensure that his team of QA engineers
are on the right track all the way in the project, resolving conflicts across
the team, review the schedules and plans, mitigation of the risks, checking
quality in phases, update management, build a challenging and motivating
environment.
Roles And Responsibility Of QA
Leader:
Defining Quality Metrics
- Defining
quality standards and metrics for the current project/product.
- Working
with all stakeholders to ensure that the quality metrics are reviewed,
closed, and agreed upon.
- Make
the QA team aware of the Quality matrix and resolve all the queries.
- Create
a list of milestones and checkpoints and set measureable criteria’s to
check the quality on timely basis.
Defining Testing Strategies
- Defining
processes for test plan and several phases of testing cycle.
- Planning
and scheduling several milestones and tasks like alpha and beta testing.
- Ensuring
all development tasks meet quality criteria through test planning, test
execution, quality assurance and issue tracking.
- Work
closely on the deadlines of the project
- Ensure
the team is focusing on automation along with manual testing.
- Keep
raising the bar and standards of all the quality processes with every
project.
- Set
processes for test plan reviews and ensure that that test plans get
reviewed by all stakeholders.
- Push
team continuously to innovate.
- Review
test strategies and see that all the various kinds of testing like unit,
functional, performance, stress, acceptance etc. are getting covered.
Leadership
- Set
Quality standards for the teams in various new testing technologies in the
industry. This may include finding new strategies for automation testing
and day to day work processes like agile and scrum.
- Building
up a team and choosing right number and skill set of resources.
- Assign
various tasks to the engineers as per strength of individual.
- Setting
up goals and objectives for QA managers
- Motivating
team and taking informative quick decisions.
- Finding
and arranging behavioral , functional, non-functional training needs
for the team
- Coordinate
activities which enforce quality improvements
- Resolving
conflicts among team members.
- Maintaining
cordial relationships between cross functional teams like development,
configuration management, program management, product managers etc.
- Negotiating
with upper management with influential skills to buy in the ideas.
- Ensure
that the highly motivated environment is creating in the team.
- Ensure
that Rewards are given for each achievement in the team.
Reporting
- Reviewing
status reports from team managers and taking appropriate actions
accordingly.
- Should
be focal point of contact for the QA team for all the escalations related
to testing and Quality assurance.
- Sending
crisp and clear status to the higher management.
- Creating
and defining risks contingencies and plans.
- Seeking
feedback from management when and wherever necessary.
Managing Risks
- Understanding
and defining areas to calculate the overall risk to the project.
- Creating
strategies to mitigate those risks and take necessary measures to control
the risks.
- Awareness
to all the stake holders for the various risks
- Create
backup plans for all the testing strategies.
- Have
team meetings at appropriate time to understand & review the current
risks and motivate team to resolve the same.
Process improvements
- Ensure
that the several testing and validation processes are improved
continuously.
- Motivate
team to improve the efficiency so that the time saved can be used in
different work areas.
- Challenge
the team continuously to move towards automation for all daily works
- Publish
the improvements to all the stakeholders and depict the improvements using
data points.
- Create
quarterly milestones for yearly improvement projects and set deadlines for
the team to complete them.
- Work
with the development team to ensure that the quality engineers get apt
support like automation hooks or debug builds where ever and whenever
possible.
- Ensure
several quality improvement tools like code coverage, memory leaks are
part of the development cycle, in case of conflicts resolve via upper
management.
Conclusion:
A Quality Head has numerous
responsibilities as he has to make sure that there is no gap between quality
release and quality perceived by the end-user. Since in today’s world quality
is a sole factor that distinguishes competitive products, the test lead has a
key role to play.
He has to continuously improve himself/herself
and his/her team to match the new technology, testing techniques, and
methodologies of the market.
A good Quality team can only ensure that once a
product is released it meets and matches all the quality criteria’s and to
build and motivate this kind of team is the core subject of the QA leader.
Each leader has its own unique qualities.
Please share the qualities you think that should have in the QA leader in
the comments below. It would be great if you share this article with who really
wants to know about all Roles And Responsibility Of QA Leader.
|
STLC activity |
QA Team lead Tasks |
Team member tasks |
|
Project Kickoff- Start |
Create and present the project highlights to the QA team and other
stakeholders |
To assist and let the team lead know of any improvements or
inconsistencies |
|
Test Planning |
Create, Maintain, manage and enforce Test plan |
To provide inputs on areas of the test plan document, such as: input on. |
|
Requirement gathering |
Divide work based on modules of the application and choose team
members as point of contacts for each module |
Be in charge for your individual module within the time allocated for this activity unachievable time lines |
|
Test scenario creation |
Work allocation |
Create Test scenarios for the module allocated to you, with in the set timeline and in the Format already agreed upon. from the respective technical |
|
Test case documentation |
Work allocation |
Create test cases and data, when applicable |
|
Traceability Matrix creation |
Create template and share the guidelines on how to create a TM |
Contribute to the creation of the TM for the modules that you are individually responsible for |
|
Test documentation review- internal |
Set rules on what basis the review is to happen |
Perform review based on the rules set and provide non-personal comments on your peer's work |
|
Test documentation review- external |
Notify the BA and/or dev team that the test documentation(test cases)
is ready for review and send the work product |
On Standby to incorporate any changes suggested during the review process |
|
Test readiness review |
Create the review checklist |
Wait for instructions on readiness |
|
Test execution |
Set test execution guidelines after seeking the team’s inputs |
Execute test cases, set appropriate test case statuses and report progress impacting testing timelines |
|
Reporting |
Send daily status reports to all stake holders |
Assist the team lead in all the tasks being performed |
|
Test closure |
Evaluate the exit criteria for when to stop testing |
Assist the team lead in the test closure tasks |
|
UAT |
Gather the acceptance criteria from the UAT users to
understand the parameters for their evaluation |
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