qa-force-crew

Building a versatile QA Test Team

qa-force-crew

Building a versatile QA Test Team

It takes all types of QA Testers with their unique skillsets to build a successful QA Team.

So, let me start from the top and walk you through the key roles and responsibilities that each type of QA Tester brings to the team and how your team relies on a variety of skills to be successful.

The QA Manager – The Boss (A Natural born Leader)

The QA Lead that got sick of running tests but still has a keen interest in testing, your team rely on this person to guide them in any new ventures or take chances on new types of testing. They are also the guy or gal that establishes the procedures and quality standards for the team and will monitor these going forward and keep your team in check.

The QA Lead – The Enforcer (Loves a challenge, Has years of experience and enjoys the QA process)

They are the go to man/woman on the team, if someone needs something done they avoid the QA Manager go straight to this person. They have experience, they are capable of making important decisions and ultimately do the QA Manager job in every way possible – just without the title or pay! Im joking but this is the person that you take your day-to-day questions or queries too, the one that is there to support you through each Project and gives you advise on best practices and approaches.

Agile QA Tester – The Hipster (Drinks Blonde Ales and occasionally rocks a Moustache)

You will mostly see him hanging around the developer’s table. He doesn’t own a pen and pad and everything is done through Kanban boards, Their role in the team is more for Quality Assistance rather than Quality Assurance. The type of testing that they would carry out would be more on the side of the exploratory mind-set over a scripted testing mind-set as they are not just looking to find defects but to prevent defects.

The Manual QA Tester – The Skilled Labourer (Loves a document and detailed scripts are a must)

Opposed to automation and enjoys the physical process of the Testing lifecycle, pulling requirement, creating test runs from the detailed manual test scripts that they created. These ensure that all requirements are met from a specified document, whether a design or a User story document.  They are the tester that plays the role of an end user whereby they use most of the application’s features to ensure correct behaviour.

The Graduate – The Grad – (Fresh from school or college)

Has the keen learning mind-set, which is a breath of fresh air. Spends a lot of time scripting to begin with mostly utilising the CMD C & V option but this is all part of the learning for them. All testers would start by learning how to create test scripts, this would include setting up the Test tool structure, identify requirements from documents and learning the full QA lifecycle from beginning to end.

The Automation Expert – The Automator – (On top of the latest tech, 4 screens is a must!)

He is needed by the IT Director to automate everything, no matter the ROI, no matter if the manual test script is 70 steps long and rubbish. The IT Director needs him on board to meet the Company yearly objectives of reducing Regression effort by 60% (a promise the IT Director should not have made to the Board!). They also have the ability to frighten the living daylights out of the Manual Tester who instantly feels aggressive towards the ‘Automator’. They believe that it can’t be reasoned with, it can’t be bargained with…it doesn’t feel pity, remorse or fear…and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until it has automated you right out of a job! – Obviously this is far from the truth. The role of the test automation tester is to design, build, test and deploy test automation solutions. The objective is to automate as much of the testing effort as possible with a minimum set of code/scripts. The focus should be on the test effort not testing coverage.

Obviously there are lots of other characters that you encounter during you working life and everyone plays a part – Mr Spreadsheet is a particular favourite of mine! Or the green, lean exploratory testing machine himself – Hulk, who would smash his way through the exploratory testing without a care (or a purpose sometimes) in the world.