Saturday, April 14, 2012

Top 10 Tips for Test Managers from STP Online Summit

I had the pleasure of hosting the another Online Summit, delivered by Software Test Professionals: Test Management: Bridging the Gap Between Tests and Stakeholders.  The online summit format consists of 3 sessions each for 3 consecutive days.  The sessions for this summit were:
One of my duties as host was to try to summarize the most valuable nuggets of information from across all of the presentations into a "top tips" list.  This is what I came up with:


Scott's Top 10 Tips for Test Managers from:



Notes:
  • Not every tip is specific to test management
  • Several tips are points made by more than one presenter
  • Like every good “Top 10 List”, tips are presented in reverse order (according to me)
  • I’ve paraphrased many of the tips to make them “quippy” :)
Tip #10: Learn the language of Business
  • Opportunity
  • Risk, Risk Mitigation, Risk Control
  • Probability & (financial) Impact
  • Scope, Time, Cost
  • Profit, P&L, Profit, G&A, Profit
Tip #9: Educate executives using business language (and road trips)
  • Otherwise, use analogy
  • “Start driving, adapt as needed”
Tip #8: Coach your team on their impact to the business
  • Scope, Time, Cost
  • Risk
  • Opportunity
Tip #7: Management is about balancing triangles
    Tip #6: Test Management: Management is Management Test is Context
    • 'nuff said
    Tip #5: Empower, Motivate, Delegate, Bubble, and Trust
    • Empower the team to succeed
    • Keep them motivated
    • Delegate important tasks, not just boring ones
    • Be the "bubble" that shields them from "danger" and unnecessary distraction
    • Trust them to do their jobs
    Tip #4: Be Strategic *their* way; Be Tactical *your* way.
    • As a Manager, its your job to ensure *your* strategy seamlessly integrates with executive & business vision
    • Once you demonstrate that your strategy meets the needs of the executives & the business, you'll be free from micro-management and thus enabled to be tactical *your* way.
    Tip #3: Filter Info up & down…

    Tip #2: … in the audience’s language

    Tip #1: Manage Things, Lead People



    --
    Scott Barber
    Chief Technologist, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
    Director, Computer Measurement Group
    About.me

    Co-Author, Performance Testing Guidance for Web Applications
    Author, Web Load Testing for Dummies
    Contributing Author, Beautiful Testing, and How To Reduce the Cost of Testing

    "If you can see it in your mind...
         you will find it in your life."

    1 comment:

    Anonymous said...

    Hi Scott, Seems like an interesting concept. Love to participate next time you organize it. Nice you consolidated the event in practical outcome. Nice tips.

    derkjandegrood