Article by Sarah Rees
There is information aplenty on how to manage the test process itself, but the less predictable area of managing the team is often neglected.
The saying “Management is management is management” is true; good management skills go a long way, but managing and motivating a test team does present some rather particular problems. When it comes to a test team, a real understanding of the personalities of testers and the challenges of working in testing will go a lot further than relying on a standard management approach.
What’s so different about a test team?
The people
A good tester thinks about software differently to a developer. We look at software and expect to find fault. In the words of Edward Kit “We focus on failure because that improves our chance of finding it”. Having this pessimistic concept of software is essential for a tester to be effective.
Good testers like to find defects! Effective testing requires skill and creativity, and brings real intellectual satisfaction.
The environment they work in
Testing teams are highly dependent on others to achieve test goals. We need developers to deliver code and fixes, system and database administrators to implement the changes, business people to triage defects found and a host of others depending on the complexity of the project. This is a source of much frustration to the team, particularly when things are not going well or deadlines are tight.
There is some truth in the belief that the information coming out of testing is undervalued. Testing exit criteria are used as a “pass mark” for a project, instead of a means of evaluating risks; the information provided by testing can be played down, or dismissed as just negative. This can impact on the team’s perception of the value they contribute to the project and the organisation.
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