Effective Software Testing by Business Management Approach
It is of great importance for a testing manager that he understands the importance of his being both an affective manager as well as a good leader.
In order for a testing manager to be effective towards his team, he must understand the components 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 to differentiate between the two terms i.e. 1) Manager & 2) Leader. A manager carries authority through which he gets the various jobs done 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 into good leaders.
Good Leadership has following attributes:
- A good testing manager cum leader uses his authority just as his right to guide & instruct his testing team to perform the desired tasks.
- A good testing manager cum leader uses his power as his diplomatic ability to influence the actions of his testing team without the use of his authority.
- A good testing manager cum leader uses his Influence in the form of his ability to move his testing team to make personal sacrifices.
- A good testing manager cum leader delegates in the form of transfer of some of his authority to another member of his testing team.
- In spite of all the above, the overall responsibility lies with the testing manager for all the testing related tasks allocated to him or his team.
2) Motivation:
A testing manager is effective only, when he understands the motives behind each & every behavior of his testing team working under lot of pressure in today’s output-driven environment.
An effective testing manager constantly motivates his team to deliver the quality output, in spite of all odds & challenges. Motivation is aimed at providing sue satisfaction to many needs of the team members like their physiological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-realization needs.
3) Understanding of Group Behavior:
An effective testing manager understands the importance of the formation of many formal and informal groups within his test teams, and he provided adequate motivation to these teams to produce an optimum performance. A good manager creates many groups among his team having members with certain set of common characteristics. Then uses his motivational skills on such groups to increase the motivation and productivity among his team members. Basic group characteristics are 1) A leader himself 2) His Followers or members 3) Norms and 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 the test manager and his team. Good communication among various members of teams in a testing organization leads to
a) Establishment of good relations between testing management and their employees and teams.
b) Establishment of good environment in the testing organization.
Thus for a person to be a good manager & a leader, it is of great importance that he is able to communicate intelligently with his team members & at the same time he is able to encourage his team members to have an effective communication among testing team colleagues.
Many More Articles in Startup Kit for Software Testing
An expert on R&D, Online Training and Publishing. He is M.Tech. (Honours) and is a part of the STG team since inception.