The Role of the QA Lead in the Context of Scrum Teams
Scrum teams are characterized by a high level of autonomy. The responsibility for delivery, development processes, and testing rests with the team. Quality responsibility also lies with the team. The team is accountable for how they perform their work and achieve results.
It might seem that with such a level of collective responsibility, testing leads are no longer necessary. After all, if the team independently makes decisions on many issues; if the most pressing team concerns are discussed in retrospectives (often not related to testing), then ultimately, the team chooses its own path, and leads become redundant, merely being part of the development team, testing complex tasks and that’s it.
In reality, of course, this is not the case. Test leads, or individuals performing this role, are essential to teams. Besides the usual routine leadership work, they must possess a set of specific competencies. This article aims to discuss these competencies.
Yes, team members can and should collectively make decisions on many issues. However, determining which QA process questions to bring up for discussion in the team, how to formulate them, and how to convey suggestions for certain actions squarely falls within the influence of the test lead.
Previously, the test lead was essentially a task manager who helped distribute testing tasks among testers in the team, knowing their strengths and weaknesses. Often being the best testers, they knew the object of testing better than anyone, trained newcomers, and helped with various testing processes. Constantly seeing problems and imperfections in the development process, the test lead and their team of testers devised workarounds and fixes on their side of the processes to make their lives easier and improve product quality.
Typical examples of such situations include:
- Programmers not writing unit tests, necessitating testers to intensify and extend testing.
- Programmers not assisting with impact analysis, leading to testers requesting code access to perform white-box testing.
- Managers complaining about the lengthy testing process, prompting an earlier start to testing and selective regression. Testers try writing automated tests as best as they can.
- Poor swagger and API documentation — no problem, we’ll just focus on UI automated tests.
I believe everyone reading this article can recall at least one instance in their career where, instead of addressing the problem at its source, testers patch up issues using their resources.
Before delving into the roles a test lead can play, I’d like to touch on a crucial managerial paradigm worth applying if you’re a leader in a Scrum environment.
Servant Leadership
This term, originating from the 70s and often heard in the context of Agile and Scrum methodologies, translates to “servant leadership,” which might sound a bit jarring. Hence, I prefer using the English term.
The essence of this approach is that we, as leaders, do not assign tasks from the top down, as is customary in traditional “top-down” leadership schemes. Instead, we provide an environment focused on the needs of the team and each of its members.
In Servant Leadership, leaders prefer influencing employee decisions rather than controlling their work. They highlight people’s strengths instead of pointing out their flaws. They actively listen rather than issue direct commands. The goals of such leaders are always long-term. A servant leader should possess skills such as:
- The ability to listen;
- A sense of self-assurance;
- The ability to anticipate;
- Empathy;
- The ability to motivate and persuade;
- The ability to facilitate change;
- The ability to take responsibility for others’ successes;
- Emotional intelligence;
- Strategic thinking;
- Community-building skills.
This phenomenon has been the subject of many articles. I recommend delving into servant leadership if you aspire to be an exceptional leader. It’s worth noting that while this concept emerged from the Scrum framework, it is not limited to it.
Now, keeping in mind the importance of being a servant leader, I’d like to highlight the following roles that leads should embody:
- The test lead as a QA expertise center;
- The test lead as a people manager;
- The test lead as a development team process evangelist;
- The test lead as a relationship manager.
The Test Lead as a QA Expertise Center
Despite many decisions regarding testing and quality assurance being delegated to the team, this does not inherently increase the team’s testing expertise. Someone needs to be more of an expert than the rest. And who, if not the test lead, has the right (and capability) to take responsibility for being a helper and expert in quality matters? Yes, the team makes decisions, but the basis for those decisions often lies in the hands of the test lead and their team of testers.
The Test Lead as a Development Team Process Evangelist
Admittedly, this is my favorite role. Remember, Scrum postulates that we do not separate programmers and testers; they are all simply members of the development team. One of the test lead’s important tasks is to educate the entire development team on testing. Ideally, everyone in the team should know the theory and practice of testing at a junior QA level.
The Test Lead as a People Manager
Regardless of the Agile context, a good lead must possess people management skills. The ability to communicate with employees, assist them in challenging work (and sometimes personal) situations, motivate achievements, and provide psychological support are all crucial for the job. At a minimum, this involves conducting one-on-one meetings and team-building events.
The Test Lead as a Relationship Manager
This role of a lead (any lead, not just in testing) is not the most obvious. The test lead is still part of the team but also someone who looks beyond the team’s confines. They stay in contact with the business and receive inputs from it. Besides conveying the company’s goals and explaining the goals of the department or team to their employees, it’s also important to provide feedback.
It’s crucial to communicate any problems and challenges the team or a specific employee faces to their supervisor (often the QA manager/Head of QA). It’s also important to talk about the team’s successes. Achieving set goals (you do set goals, right?), or the feats of someone in the team, are all important aspects of a lead’s job. With the advent of Scrum, this role doesn’t disappear. Yes, the Scrum Master does this work from their side. But in terms of the quality department (or QA guild, depending on your organizational structure), it’s the test lead who should highlight the successes and challenges of their team.
In Conclusion
The test lead is a multi-armed Shiva whose task is not just to test better and faster than everyone else in the team, sometimes delegating tasks for refactoring the test repository or writing automated tests.
The test lead is a manager. And like any manager, they possess a plethora of competencies and skills that need to be developed. I’ve tried to describe a complete, perhaps even overly ideal picture of what skills a great test lead should have. But don’t rush to tackle everything at once. The key is to focus on developing certain key competencies for you but be aware of others and improve them to an acceptable level when necessary.
Ichak Adizes, in his developed methodology, stated that one manager cannot fully cover all aspects of managerial activity. Depending on your experience, available skills, and predispositions, some things will come easier to you than others. It seems this is a topic for another article…
Thank you all for reading! Comments are welcome, as each of us has unique management experience or observations of managers at work. It would be great if you shared your views on this matter. Perhaps I’ve missed something. If you’d like to express gratitude for what you’ve read, I’d also be very appreciative!
