A Test Manager is a person who monitors deliverables, who bridges the gap of client and test engineers, who works as a motivator and mentor and one who decides your ratings at the end of year.
This is a very generic definition I could think of which may be incomplete and readers may have different versions. In last 5 years, my friends and I worked with many people at different levels and here for simplicity, I would (on behalf of my friends as well) call, all of them “Managers” who have more experience than us. Here, experience means, they started their software testing career before we started. We find this definition of work experience incomplete (or wrong) though it is widely accepted across the industry.
They all were different in their approaches, few were so much involved so that we felt like a bird caged in a small compartment, and they were all followers of micro-level management style while few others were completely aloof. Then there were some, who allowed their test engineers a complete freedom with periodic review of deliverables, say once in a week / fortnight as the case may be. I really liked to work with the managers of this last category.
Why I liked third type of Managers?
These managers were the ones who discussed the problems without imposing so many solutions on their resources. They allowed their resources to explore different approaches, allowed them to disagree with anything and listen to their inputs whenever they had one. These Managers were not so obsessed with test case preparation because they understood one fact very clearly that “Its not the test cases that will unearth a number of issues, it’s the tester who will do the job.” They were not too much worried about metrics in the beginning for a new AUT but they recognized importance of data that will be available after one round of testing. These were the managers who allowed their resources to learn new technologies and also emphasized on implementing these learning in day to day work wherever applicable. These managers were open enough to share the client expectations clearly and communicate them freely without wasting any time.
It’s not just positives with third type of managers, its negative as well. I personally experienced that when one is really good with his/her work, they tend to become perfectionist and that leads to aggression. Few of them were bit aggressive at times but that was ok because their aggression was just about deliverables.
What was the problem with other type of Managers in our perception?
The Aloof ones were not involved with anything throughout the years but when it came to appraisals, they had all the time in this world to point 1000 things in their subordinate’s work. Fortunately, I never had to work with such managers but my friends were not so lucky.
The micro-managers were always too much involved. So involved that they never realized the problems their resources may have. This may sound a bit exaggeration but read on the following thing they never understood.
1) Test case preparation is not as important as testing, during execution. We are not against documentation but stake holders should realize that not everything can be documented.
2) Test engineers are the ones working on projects, trust their abilities to perform well, monitoring should be there but it should not turn into smothering at any point of time.
3) Automation is good to have, but it does not make sense to completely rely on it.
4) There are no Best Practices; one should understand a context rather than blindly following something for marketing at higher level.
