Strategy House of QA leader
In the current era of information overload, every leader needs to have their own pillar, which is your identity, a feature you bring to your work.
Some time ago, I came across an attractive model, or rather a visual representation of a team’s strategy, “Strategy House Model” — which I saw in a speech and immediately wanted to transfer this experience to my field. This is a slightly transformed approach, but I liked it.
It seems to be a valid opinion that every QA leader should have his own strategy house. This is something we can rely on when we work.
I started drawing/building, and here is what I initially came up with:
That’s why I want to rebuild it with you.
Quality
As a quality leader, obviously, I want everything to be done with quality. Personally, it is important to me that we do everything correctly. This correctness encompasses a lot of meanings, for example:
- tests are written according to test design techniques, but first and foremost, they are business-oriented (more on that in a separate article)
- a test pyramid is used
- the automation test framework is built based on design patterns
- the test infrastructure is built according to best practices
- testers and developers on the same page and share the common process
- quality culture at a high level
- and so on
Perhaps I embed the word “standards” in quality, but I feel calmer because more people can know about it. Yes, sometimes you have to write something of your own, but this “own” should be documented and disseminated.
The priority is, of course, the product we test. Also, I would include risks here. What’s the risk of not doing quality work, or what’s the risk of investing in quality more than necessary in terms of time and maybe there is a level of “sufficient quality” here?
This also involves how to communicate quality properly. With different project representatives, we will speak different languages.
A bit about risks…
Experience, I’ve come to realize, is a crucial factor in risk assessment. Without the right exposure and experience, there is a likelihood of missing significant elements. By “the right experience,” I refer to a holistic approach to work — viewing every task from multiple angles. Let’s take, for instance, the introduction of a new CI approach. In the past, I might have been impulsive, hastily proposing a new method or immediately taking on the task myself. However, the last few year’s experiences have provided me with an outsider’s perspective of such a hurried approach. Nowadays, I endeavour to incorporate diverse viewpoints into my process, thinking from the perspective of various stakeholders such as developers (from juniors to seniors), the QA team, product managers, scrum masters, and DevOps.
And over time, when you start analyzing risks this way, you see a completely different picture.
Management
Whether you’re an Individual Contributor or managing a large team, management skills and knowledge are essential at any level. Organizing your work and setting correct, timely goals can be quite challenging.
I’ve observed several complexities with this.
How to choose what is necessary right now? Regardless of the project type, whether the beginning or middle, it’s necessary to understand what is important to do at a specific moment in time. Whether it’s integration between TMS and automation or improving CI GitHub Actions for the automation team, my task is to accurately assess the current project situation, identify bottlenecks, and fix them. I love the Theory of Constraints (which I will write about separately), so I often use it in my work.
Some set goals are hit right off the bat, bringing a degree of motivation because you have accomplished something. Some plans get stuck, and you don’t understand why. So, I began categorizing each goal into two categories: my zone of responsibility and zone of influence. In my area of responsibility, I include all artifacts of the QA team (for example, automation framework, TMS, test report, QA CI, etc.). A zone of influence is shared with other project participants, where you cannot make direct changes without agreement with others (for example, developers’ environment, PR process, deployment pipeline, Jira). Life became more manageable because I now know that activities in my zone of responsibility will take less time and effort than in the area of influence, where the idea needs to be communicated first, brainstormed, make a presentation, etc.
Delegation skill fits well in the zone of responsibility. You know what and where needs to be done, and this work will not require complex communication with other participants.
It’s also essential to be able to build roadmaps and resource maps. The roadmap helps build a route. I took this phrase from psychology, where there was once an experiment that people are more likely to do something if they have more specific steps to do something or where to go (research). One of the advantages of having a roadmap is that it helps you save time by providing a clear plan of what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and what comes next. Additionally, a well-planned roadmap allows you to allocate specific time slots for each task, optimizing your schedule.
By the way, I only recently really understood Pareto’s law. I plan 20% of my time for each goal to achieve a good result (not for the perfectionist, although I used to be one and now understand that business doesn’t need it).
People
In turn, I strive to do things that will make it easier for people to do their work correctly.
Here are some guidelines I try to follow:
- Colleagues should receive positive reinforcement for their results. Feedback (support, attention, willingness to understand the issue and understand the situation)
- It is essential to understand them and the situation in which they are.
- Respect for personal space, namely their area of responsibility (which they feel is personal) and their confidence that their opinion will always be considered and taken into account
- The ability to show your authority that is always associated with the leader’s competence, so it’s vital to continuously develop in different directions. Show that you understand what they’re doing, the specifics of their work, the difficulties they might face, bottlenecks, etc.
- For a leader, other people are an inexhaustible source for upgrading their competencies, therefore, interest (curiosity) is an inalienable quality of a leader.
It is necessary to develop your department and be able to establish partnerships across the organization, from Development, Platform to Publishing.
Also, hiring people and their further development is integral to guaranteeing a quality process and product. This is the fastest way to achieve results together. It’s always important to share your experience.
Innovation
This part is my favourite. I always learn something new and enjoy it. Previously, I studied everything I encountered, which was new to me. In recent years, I have been consuming new information as necessary, for a specific task. If I want to learn a new field, I first determine the goals of my studies. Of course, along the way, you come across many new things, but then, you first analyze the topic, try to understand why you need it and plan other learning.
But there are several problems here:
- use in work
- free time for studying
Implementing some innovations in an already-formed team can be challenging. You need to study the topic well, argue its usefulness to managers, calculate some metrics and benefits it will bring, develop a roadmap, present it to colleagues and get feedback and positive feedback, and implement it if there is time for it.
It is easiest to do something from scratch. Changing the existing one is very difficult and requires many skills to not break the previous one and make the new one more convenient. That’s why you study something new in-depth in case there is a vision that it will help.
Another thing is free time. When you have a family, you can’t sit in the evenings and on weekends, watch conferences, read articles or books, or code something. But on the other hand, you understand that you don’t need this because there needs to be a balance between work and personal life. Because if you don’t invest your time in one of the spheres of your life, there will inevitably be problems (family, sports, health, friends, rest, cinema, theatre, travel, hobbies, etc.)
Testing Strategy
“It’s unbelievable how much you don’t know about the game you’ve been playing all your life.” Mickey Mental
The basis for me is the construction of the map. I mentioned above that when people see where to go, they are more likely to do so. That’s why I put Testing Workflow as a foundation. It’s important to define what the team will be doing during the sprint. My experience in recent years is based on two-week iterations, and I first try to describe the general approach and then adapt it to the team. I generally divide the work into two main categories: in-sprint testing and preparation. But I will describe the details in a separate article. If you are interested, send me a private message [social links below].
Another component is my activity map…
From this map, I draw up my vision, and it helps me see the big picture of what I can do. It allows me to study correctly and purposefully. When I need to tighten some area, I write it down there. If I hear something new somewhere, I can add it to some activity area.
But the most important and challenging thing is not what I do but choosing what is necessary now. Depending on the stage of product development, the company’s business metrics, the composition of your team/s, the competence of your colleagues, and what you already have. It is necessary to understand what resources you have to achieve the set goal. And the goal is always clear: you need to win.
This is a game that each of us plays, and each game has its own context: Do you need to be fast? Do you need to be cheap? Do you need to please the user? All at once?
I don’t believe in self-organizing teams. First, I have never met this anywhere. Secondly, there should always be a leader who will pave the way or suggest where to move, what is essential now and who can see at least half a year ahead.
Conclusion
Your “house” is a symbol of your leadership, vision, and strategy. It demonstrates where you are heading and where you can lead the people who follow you.
There are additional thoughts appeared during the writing of this article:
- Constantly evaluate the state of affairs. Always pay attention to the current stage of your project’s development and where you are now.
- Be open and communicative. Consider who you have yet to communicate within the company and who still needs to learn about your work.
- Understand that every situation is unique. Your “house” may differ from other people’s houses, and that’s okay. The main thing is to have your own strategy that will help you achieve your goal.
- Be flexible and adaptive. You can scale your strategy depending on the {situation} — it can be applied to a separate task and to a whole team, product, project, company, or even a country.
Use your “house” as a basis for forming and implementing your professional plans. This will help you be a more effective leader and succeed.
So, invite your {situation} to your home.
Resources
- I also highly recommend the concept of “Strong Opinions Loosely Held,” which is described here with some incredible advice. Always allow others to have a conversation with you.
- https://kickoff.pmi.org/ — a resource for project management (starting course).
- https://developsense.com/rstf-risk — software testing risks.
- https://dora.dev/research/ — research and trends in software development.
- https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar — current IT industry trends.
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