becoming.kick ass.testmanager
DESCRIPTION
Do you want to be a valuable test manager? One who is valuable to and valued by the organization? Test managers can be awesome champions and not victims. Learn how. See the video of the original keynote here: http://youtu.be/pdaXhaW2ev8 The audio is for the updated version of the Let's Test keynote in 2013.TRANSCRIPT
Becoming A Kick-Ass Test Manager
Johanna RothmanNew: Hiring Geeks That Fit
@johannarothmanwww.jrothman.com
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Awesome Champions
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
No Victims Allowed!
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman4
© 2013 Johanna Rothman5
People
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Develop High-Value People
No commodity-testers anywhere in the world
High-value people
Hire people who are smarter than you are
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Feedback and Meta-Feedback
Not evaluation or praise; feedback
When you use a peer-to-peer feedback approach:
Create an opening
Describe behavior or results
State the impact
Make a request
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Coaching and Meta-Coaching
Not just teaching, offering options with support
You create an environment in which everyone coaches
everyone else
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Career Development
Where can people go?
How do they know?
How can you help them?
Testers are generalists; help
them move into other
positions if they want to
How are your testers climbing
the career ladder?
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Lead Hiring Effort
Recognize when you need
more people
Initiate the hiring
Job analysis
Job description
Manage the phone screens
Manage the interviews and
interactions with HR10
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
How Do You Do All This People Stuff?
One-on-Ones
Biweekly is okay if you
are agile
Monthly is too far apart
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Business
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What is Important to the Business?
Making money
Saving money
Testing is about
information, not about
defects
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Holistic View of the Project or Program
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Quality Changes Over a Product’s Lifetime
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
One Way to Improve Quality?
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Partner with developers
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Leadership
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Forget About Solo Experts!
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Forget About Multitasking!
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Build Tester & Organizational Capacity
Know your tester capacity
How many of you know
your organizational velocity
now?
Remove system obstacles
Recognize when a team is
stuck
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Communities of Practice
Build functional skills across the organization
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Project Portfolio Changes Over Time
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Only Staff the Strategically Important Work
When you consciously do
not staff the unimportant
work, you lead
Not making those decisions
creates management debt
As well as chaos
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Remove Organization Obstacles
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What are some of your organizational obstacles?
© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Grow People
Grow people organically
Some testers are developers
whose code doesn’t ship
Some testers are not, but
these days, they had better
add value in other ways
What information are your
testers providing?
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Understand What’s Important to the Business
Facilitate release criteria
that fit your project
Provide information, not
just defect information
What do your dashboards
say?
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Lead
No multitasking
Spread the expertise-love
Know your tester capacity
and build upon it
Build communities of
practice
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Be More Influential
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Awesome Champions
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© 2013 Johanna Rothman
Let’s Stay in Touch
Tons more on jrothman.com (articles and blogs)
Pragmatic Manager: www.jrothman.com/
pragmaticmanager
Please link with me on LinkedIn
@johannarothman
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