DEV Community: Toyer Mamoojee

QA Management – Tips for leading Global teams

Toyer Mamoojee — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 13:02:25 +0000

The events over the past few years have allowed the world to break the barriers of traditional ways of working. This has led to the emergence of a huge adoption of remote working and companies diversifying their workforce to a global reach. Even prior to this many organizations had already had operations and teams geographically dispersed.

Leading teams in an ‘in-person’ setting can have its challenges but these challenges and complexities can be multiplied once you work with, lead and manage global or remote teams.

From a personal perspective, co-incidentally over the past few years, I have been fortunate enough to have been given opportunities to grow, lead and manage QA teams across continents, countries, and cities at different size companies operating in multiple industries. Naturally, through these experiences, I have picked up key aspects and tips around what to focus on or consider when faced with a chance to lead and manage global teams.

When people think about moving into management, the first thing that comes to mind is the extrinsic view or focus only on the outward parts of managing. However, it’s always important to start with yourself. It’s vitally important for one to firstly focus on the intrinsic **view as one’s self, key aspects like self-awareness, your individual skill set and knowledge, leadership traits, and so on come to mind. Then as we move to the external or extrinsic view there are the **discipline-related focus (like the QA or Dev-related disciplines) and also the context-driven focus (like the company-related setup, tech, and process where one works within). There are many of these internal and external focus points and would be way too many to go into detail about all of them, but I will summarize a few below by grouping them into statements and then expanding on each:

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It starts with YOU! Be a role model

A leader and manager with experience and knowledge in any given area that they are leading in is way more trusted and respected by the individuals and teams they lead. Within the QA space, having diverse knowledge both technically and analytically is one such example that comes to mind. For example being able to practically engage with your team members on the detail of test scenarios or test cases, practical context-driven testing (and agile) process interactions, and also mixing that up with the technical aspects of test automation, performance testing, system architecture, and more. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to be the expert in all of the above-mentioned (or other QA/Test related concepts) but rather be able to know about it, where it fits in and what’s needed to get there.
Within the internal focus, there are also important bits like:
-Traits:

Resilience-Things are bound to get tough, how do you lead through a storm and be prepared to do it all over again if needed.
Courage-Speaking up and representing your team in situations where it’s needed. Even though it’s uncomfortable or an uneasy situation have the courage to for example highlight the need to pause or delay a release because your team is not comfortable or confident with something leading up to the release.
Good listener and be present-you have to be there to hear your team’s concerns, be present, listen and then respond/act if needed. The members of your team are exposed to situations and information which you cannot always be part of, letting them be your ‘eyes and ears’ sometimes is what you need to lead and manage effectively. For example, setting up regular 1:1s or catch-ups with members of your team could help uncover trends or problems that need attention. Practically something like team members highlighting that there is very little time to focus on test automation with the current delivery pressures could assist you as a leader/manager to plan on how to strike the perfect balance by either moving personnel around, cross-skilling others, setting up a cadence for when to automate or even focus on in-sprint test automation.

People dynamics

When managing teams across different geographical locations there is an added dimension that is thrown in compared to a single location management style. A few key factors are important in making sure effective outcomes are gained.

-Building and maintaining the right team structure
When working in remote and global teams the element of team dynamics and balance is an added angle to cover (I might add it’s still key in any context too).
Making sure that as a manager you have the right skill set in the right region can be a challenge. So understanding the market and region that you hire and retain team members would go a long way in building an even more effective team. It could be that within a specific geographical region the supply of strong QA engineers with great experience in Performance testing is thriving, you might want to make sure your hiring efforts target that region (if it’s within the company’s plans of course)

-Growing trust from afar
Employees usually give their best when working for a manager that they can trust. As a manager leading from a distance, you need to find creative ways of building trust between you and your team, and also create a platform to build that trust and support between team members. Ultimately this also builds a degree of comfort and a safe space where the results are bound to yield compared to a ‘low trust’ surrounding.

-Everything else that comes with management/leadership
As a manager you need to be prepared for some extra admin work. Aspects like dealing with performance reviews, leave applications, some uncomfortable discussions and so on are some of the normal responsibilities within a manager’s focus. Once again, these tasks become slightly trickier when your team is across locations and most importantly when you are not physically present. Building your organization skill set and time management would add some more to your armory to be even more effective.

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Company context and delivery focus

In addition to all that was mentioned above, which in a way can be directly transferred as you move across different companies, however, the added bit of effectiveness as a manager/leader is most relevant to the current company/organization context that you are currently in and serving.

-Gain industry, system and process knowledge of the company,
To be able to walk the talk, as a manager you need to instill the confidence that firstly you operate effectively with the system that the organization operates in. As a QA manager, you often have to get down to the nitty-gritty when supporting and leading your team. Then showing this upwards to senior management including C-level is where the perfect balance needs to be struck. So in a way, having a 360 view of everything and not being afraid to get stuck is important. A few examples come to mind in this section:

As a manager, do I know how data travels through the systems so that when test planning comes around, the correct QA can be allocated or involved regarding making sure that all areas are covered. Or even that you can review some high-level test scenarios to make sure that coverage is gained effectively in this area.
From a process perspective, how can the QA discipline be used effectively to drive QA metrics that would ultimately lead to a refined team and better day-to-day processes?

-Involvement in delivery and release deliverables
Being a driver from a QA point of view either directly or indirectly (via team members) related to delivery and releases. Pushing in features and functionality that ultimately lead to a competitive edge, financial gain, and growth for an organization is mostly what Information tech/Information systems/Engineering departments are there for. As QA transformation is key within this dynamic it’s a massive differentiator for a QA manager to set his/her goals on being a key player in this space.

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To sum up

A modern QA manager needs to be an all-rounder, especially given the challenging and dynamically evolving landscape that surrounds us. Striking balances around people skills, technical knowledge, process know-how and so much more is where massive gains can be made especially when managing and leading global teams. My experiences have allowed me to learn (and continue learning) to make an agile, change and adapt mindset approach when tackling the many complexities within the QA space.

Evolve, adapt and act!

Blueprint for Test Strategy Creation

Toyer Mamoojee — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 14:09:05 +0000

The context

Having a strategy or plan can be the key to unlocking many successes, this is true to most contexts in life whether that be sport, business, education, and much more. The same is true for any company or organisation that delivers software/application solutions to their end users/customers. If you narrow that down even further from Engineering to Agile and then even to Testing or Quality Engineering, then strategy and planning is key at every level.

Let’s zoom into the software testing or quality engineering context. It can be extremely daunting when one is tasked to create a test strategy whether this is at a product, domain, project or company-wide level as there are many aspects and factors to consider plus cover which could be enough to strike fear at the heart of those who need to carry out the task. In this post, I will hopefully make this task much easier and set out a potential blueprint or areas to consider when drawing up a test strategy

The plan

Keeping in mind that there are many different contexts, settings, technologies, and structures that different people operate in, coming up with a generic test strategy might seem impossible. However, if one zoom’s out and tries extracting key factors to consider then some paths to a tailored test strategy can be clearly visible. Over the years my experience across many different industries, company sizes, methodologies, and technologies has allowed me to extract these factors to trace in order to gain maximum coverage on a test strategy.

As Quality engineers and testers, the expectation is to try and gain as much test coverage across every area to ultimately ensure maximum quality related to solutions delivered, so where do we begin?

When tackling Test strategy creation I usually try to visualize what I am trying to cover by using tools to brainstorm ideas. I try to start my visualization on a blank canvas and then expand to cover the following key areas:

People
Process
Technology

Once I have these, I expand this further by incorporating the 5W1H concept to each area above. So typically I ask the question of What, Why, Who, When, Where, and How? related to each area above but this is totally optional. This helps me validate and support my approach. I do this to ensure that every possible gap is covered when addressing an ideal test strategy.

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The strategy evolving

People: I usually like to start off my strategy around people as they are key to any successful strategy. So typically here by incorporating the 5W1H technique to support my thinking it could start to shape up like this:

What are the expectations from our QA Engineers? What will they be covering? What are the different roles we would have in our QA team/chapter?- This helps you to make sure that you know what you need to cover
Why do we need them to cover these roles and tasks?- Here you would make sure that you validate why you are doing certain things
Who will carry out the work? This helps you address any shortages or how you can strategically structure the team to be effective
When are the QA engineers supposed to carry out their tasks? This part puts a focus on at which stages more QA involvement is required as an example
Where are our QA engineers based? Where should they be physically located? Where will we source our QA engineers from, if we need to hire them? Ideally, this would allow you to cover many areas ranging from the physical location of our QA team/chapter to enable us to work effectively to where we would actually hire them from.
How is the QA chapter structured? And how will they move across projects?

2- Process -in this section, the focus is related to practical aspects or regular day to day activities. When it comes to Process and Technology/Tools, I can further split this up into another 2 sections related to ‘Delivery’ and ‘Craft’. This allows one to ensure more coverage from a practical nature. You could once again also add the 5W1H technique when going through each area here, but I will not go into too much of that detail in the next 2 sections as I covered the concept above.

1- Delivery: Within this section, I focus on the actual implementation aspects. So whatever process/framework is used I try to cover practical aspects of QA and Testing related to that. For example, if Scrum is used, then I would cover the following related to QA and Test process:

Sprint Level:

Pre-Sprint:
What are the Entry criteria required for testing
in-Sprint:
QA Scenario identification and documentation
, traceability back to stories
in-Sprint Test automation
Defect logging cycle and process, Defect dashboards
Exit Criteria
Post-sprint:
Post sprint QA activities, Risks

We can further expand to other aspects related to delivery such as releases and/or other enablers related to delivery test environments, test data etc

Releases Level:
What is QA’s sign-off criteria related to releases
Pre-release QA and testing activities
Post-release QA and testing activities
Release QA checklist
Release/Launch risks/mitigation suggestions
Test environments (this could either be part of the delivery or the technology sections):
Define the test environments where specific types of testing will occur
availability of the test environments and pre-requisites required for sign-off
Test Data (this could either be part of the delivery or the technology sections):
aspects covering test data
test data availability, masking, and anonymization.
Documentation and results:
how are we planning to keep results, in what format, and for how long?
is there a legal requirement to keep this?

2- Craft: To compliment the thinking above, the next step to ensure that full coverage is gained is to define aspects related to QA/Testing as a craft. What this does is incorporate best practices as a QA/Testing discipline into the custom delivery aspects (which would vary from company to company). Once again you can supplement the thought process by incorporating the 5W1H technique here too. Some of the key aspects to cover or keep in mind here are :

Test Levels: Are we looking to cover Unit tests, component tests, Integration tests and UI tests? If so, then who would be responsible for doing it?, how will it be done? at which stage of the process would this type of test happen (when)? Where will this type of testing happen? What will be covered by each type?
Types of testing: I split this into functional and Non-functional testing and try to cover aspects related to test documentation (if any), exploratory testing on the functional side and Load/Performance/Security/Accessibility etc on the non-functional side. I would later overlay and compliment this part with the actual tools/tech used for each test type.

3- Technology and Tools: Finally the last focus area that I consider as part of my planning is to draw up a comprehensive test strategy related to Technology and Tools focus from a QA/Testing point of view. Once again to ensure no stone is left unturned, I also incorporate the 2 sections mentioned above ie. ‘Delivery’ and ‘Craft’ and also validate my thinking once again with 5W1H thinking technique.

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1- Delivery- as mentioned above, this section I focus on practical aspects as few points related to delivery from a tech and tool perspective include:

What tool/s am I using to capture my test scenarios/cases (example TestRail, XRay)
What tools/software will I use to send my API requests?
What other tools would be needed to support my Test delivery tasks and activities
Test automation tools required for each test type (based on test types mentioned)
What access is required for logs/monitoring to support testing?

2- Craft- From a tech and tool perspective, I usually focus on best practices around these areas which once again might be totally independent of the company and could be thought of as plug-and-play concepts related to tech/tool implementation. I could for example split further here related to Test automation and Technical testing. Then have further sub-categories on Test automation related to functional and non-functional tool-specific best practices. Some of the might include:

Functional test automation
UI coverage: Selenium webdriver following BDD style (then further elaborate on details)
API coverage: JS Jest with SuperTest -then go into further detail
Mobile test automation: Appium etc
Non-functional test automation
Load/Performance tests: JMeter — naming best practices around this area
Security testing: OWASP- plus expanding on best practices here.
Test automation execution
Cloud execution: LambdaTest — providing further details here
Technical Testing aspects:
related to Swagger, Postman API best practice in testing, etc
testing RabbitMQ, Kafka etc

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Conclusion

A test strategy can be like a massive spiralled portal that can take you down the path through many different dimensions, however if some of the aspects mentioned above are followed then the focus around making solid progress related to Test strategy coverage is much closer. The above approach can mostly be used to kick-off and create your content that will go into your final test strategy (in your chosen format), however you can be confident that by touching on each of the sections mentioned above plus validating each section with the 5W1H technique that you should be well on your way to create a solid test strategy.