Testers, want to know how to positively influence managers?

The previous note contained a list of tips for testers on how to positively influence programmers .

But the recommendations on how testers can have a positive impact on managers.

• Provide project service, and do not be a hindrance. You supply information, rather than implant processes.
• Give managers the information they need to make decisions, and then let them make those decisions.
• Be fully aware that they are not making technical decisions, but making business decisions.
• Remember that the product does not necessarily have to meet your quality standard.
• Neither the development manager, nor anyone else is burdened with an official duty to make you happy. Perhaps part of their job is to help you work more efficiently. Help them figure out how to do this. In particular, pay attention to the fact that ...
• The problems that slow down testing are extremely important because they do not take long to detect errors, and it becomes more difficult to find them. Therefore, report not only errors in the product, but also problems that slow down testing.
• Pay attention (because this is a common thing) why testing takes so much time - how little time you spend on actually testing the product, and how much time you spend on researching errors and reporting, setting up work, meetings, solving organizational issues and other work, to provide test coverage.
• Concentrate on making the reports accurate (say, achieving accuracy of 5-10%), but not ultra-accurate, since a significant part of the problems in software development can be detected and solved using first-order measurements, and not by analyzing six decimal places. whose values ​​are obtained using models that themselves turn out to be incorrect.
• Show to managers that most of the problems that you find are not detected by the thoughtless repetition of test scenarios, but by actions and observations that are not covered by test scenarios, i.e. thanks to an intelligent study of the product.
• Help managers, as well as programmers, realize that test automation is more, much more than creating a program that forces a computer to press keys.
• Help everyone understand that automation enhances some types of testing and significantly limits others.
• Show that your job is a product study that requires knowledge, and explain to managers how we actually discover problems.
• Help managers and programmers avoid misunderstanding of the "testing phase." Actually it is: the phase of detection and correction of errors.

about the author

Michael Bolton is one of the most active evangelists of the context-oriented testing school. He has over 20 years experience in testing. Michael regularly speaks at conferences, conducts trainings and seminars, has been a regular columnist for one of the most popular testing magazines in the field of testing Better Software since 2005 and has a wonderful testing blog www.developsense.com/blog.shtml
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On November 17-18, Michael Bolton will hold in St. Petersburg a two-day training "Rapid Software Testing", developed by him in collaboration with James Bach. Details here: habrahabr.ru/blogs/testing/105133