QA Library

It is of great importance for a software testing manager that he understands the importance of his being both an affective manager as well as a good leader.

A QA testing manager can be effective towards his team, if he is able to understand the elements of his leadership role clearly. These components of his leadership role are:

1) Leadership
2) Motivation
3) Understanding of group behavior
4) Effective Communication

1) Leadership: If someone wants to understand the term leadership in true sense, he should be able draw a clear difference between the two key terms i.e. 1) Manager & 2) Leader. The first one i.e. the manager carries authority through which he gets the various activities accomplished by passing necessary orders & instructions for performing various tasks by his subordinates. On the contrary, Leader although have the adequate authority, but prefer to get their jobs done without the use of any brute force.

Software testing organizations are by & large goal-driven & mainly focus on transforming their good managers gradually to good leaders.

Good Leadership has following attributes:

a) A good software quality assurance testing manager cum leader uses his authority just as his right to guide & instruct his team members to perform the desired tasks.

b) A good software quality assurance testing manager cum leader uses his power as his diplomatic ability to leave a positive influence on his team members without the use of his authority.

c) A good software QA testing manager cum leader uses his Influence in the form of his ability to move his team members to sacrifice their own personal comforts on occasions for the sake of the project.

d) A good QA testing manager cum leader delegates in the form of transfer of some of his authority to another member of his testing team.

e) In spite of all the above, the software QA testing manager is fully responsible & accountable for all the testing related functions expected from him or his team.

2) Motivation: In today’s dynamic environment which is totally output-driven, a testing manager can be effective only, when he is able to understand the reason for each & every behavior of his testing team working under lot of pressure

An effective testing manager constantly motivates his team members to do their best to deliver the quality output, in spite of all odds & challenges. Motivation is aimed at providing due satisfaction to many needs of the team members like their social, physiological, security and self esteem needs.

3) Understanding of Group Behavior: An effective testing manager understands the importance of the formation of many formal as well as informal groups within his teams engaged in testing and he provides adequate motivation to the team members to produce an optimum performance. A good manager creates many groups among his team having members with certain set of common characteristics. He uses his motivational skills on such groups to increase the motivation level of the team members, which in turn increases their productivity. Basic characteristics of any group can be classified as 1) A leader himself 2) His team members 3) Standards of operation 4) Group Interdependence.

4) Effective Communication: All above components of leadership roles are meaningless unless an effective & constant communication link exist between a manager and his testing team members. Proper & effective communication among various members of teams in a testing organization leads to

a) Establishment of healthy relations among the management and various teams.

b) Establishment of good environment in the testing organization.

Thus for a person to be a good manager & a leader, the most important thing is that he should be able to have an effective & intelligent communication with his team members. At the same time he should be able to encourage his team members to have an similar effective communication among testing team colleagues.

Remember that once you are able to understand & demonstrate your ability to effectively manage the software testing processes, world gets open to you with ample opportunities of great Software testing jobs as well.

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