I’m a manager who is still testing. I can afford to do what like to. This makes me very productive at what I do. When setting objectives for a testing task I take into account following:
What must be done (the value of the task)
What I think I can do well
What else could I learn to do (better)
And I try to hire testers who are like me. And I try to treat them as myself – I take the same 3 things into account when set objectives for them. Well, I try to.
My test management style has changed
I’ve been managing tests for quite a while. I’ve changed my style several times. The summary of how I approach any test task:
Level 1: task-oriented, autocratic: I decide what is the best way to do it (by myself). Then based on that decision I find (perhaps train) a person to do it.
Level 2: people-skill-oriented, democratic. I find the most suitable or less busy tester and let her decide how She could do it, taking into account her individual skills.
Level 2a: Situational . Depending on tester I may choose between 1 and 2 approaches. Some novice testers like to be controlled.
Level 3: Let me call it people-motivation oriented. Levels 1 and 2 are still task-driven. Only the decisions for how to best complete the task are taken in a different ways. On level 3 I’ve realized that in testing even the decision of task necessity depends on people: their skills and desire to perform task the best they can.
Details 1: A nice idea but not for me
I’ve red 5 bugs in 5 minutes by Mike Kelly in
AST newsletter. I liked the idea very much so I shared the idea with other testers here in my company. I was really surprised to hear no “Great! I’ll do that!”. Instead “A nice idea, but not me…”. I just realized this is my most common impression at conferences. Well, sometimes “this sounds quite similar to what I do”. But never ever “I have to do exactly the same”. Am I anti-best-practices person or what?
Details 2: Yes, I want to reinvent a wheel!
Even worse – I just tried to overtake (for a few days of vacation) testing job from another tester and found out that the best I could do is to do Ad Hoc testing. That’s not that I’m unfamiliar with his test documentation or I don’t like it. I reviewed the test documentation and found it a good one. But not mine. I can’t follow it because I never wrote it myself. I believe I did a good Exploratory Testing and found quite a few bugs. I could have used the test documentation, but I felt like Ad Hoc testing would be much more effective and efficient. Reinventing a wheel may be faster way to construct it that to analyze foreign chariots…
Maybe it’s a coincident, but the best developers I’ve worked with when got a code written by other developer(s) wanted to rewrite it from scratch. We love to invent so much that we better reinvent that reuse.
Details 3: Testing depends on who does it
context-driven school . says that “People, working together, are the most important part of any project's context.” Indeed, the first thing I learn when approaching a new project what the testers I’ve got to work with. What are their skills? How could I use those skills and what are the skills missing? If those people are used to scripted testing and schedule is short I don’t think it is the right time to start talking about Exploratory Testing. If there is no automation specialist I consider smart regression test strategy, but if there are plenty of them – I may as well just automate everything.
Summing up: It is more than people-oriented management, isn’t it?
Some time ago I
changed from process-oriented to people oriented test manager. Yes I was a process-person and believed every tester could be replaced - it is only question of how much training costs in time and money. Well maybe also the performance coefficient, i.e. tester A may do the same task 20% faster than tester B.
I knew there are people-oriented managers, but I knew that’s not my style. Not until I started to analyze how I do things myself. And I discovered that I wouldn’t be really happy to have a boss who is like me.
I know that if I’ve got to replace another tester I will do testing at least a bit different that she does. Or perhaps a lot different. So what’s wrong with that? I’m not afraid of tester individuality. Not anymore. I cultivate it. Maybe too much. Perhaps I will learn a new lesson soon… who knows.
