As many organizations are adopting the Agile Project Methodologies and giving up the traditional Software Development Life Cycle or waterfall project methodologies. The existing project roles such as QA Manager, development manager, etc. are losing their core meaning. Here, we are going to discuss the QA manager role in Agile projects which have become redundant. And many resources in this role are worried about their future as the QA Manager. So here we are discussing What is QA Managers in Agile Projects
The agile project methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban, etc. have very limited roles such as product owner, scrum master, and team members. It is powered with the key focus to deliver the business objective which is open to the frequent changes in a very less period. Therefore, in such a situation, the role and responsibilities of the QA manager are not clearly defined or explained in the agile methodology.
Why QA Managers Are Not Needed in Agile Projects?
Given below are the reasons why the QA manager role is not required in the agile project to manage the testers and the testing effort.
Missing Testing team
In the agile project methodologies, we cannot hear the teams such as the Development team, testing team, etc. The testing team is composed of a group of testers who work together without the mediation of the developer and manger by the QA manager of the QA lead. In the case of the agile project methodology, the term testing team is totally missing and there is no testers group and therefore, there is nothing left for the QA manager to many teams or groups of testers. The team members in the agile project methodology are composed of designers, business analysts, developers, and testers where everyone manages themselves and held responsible for their own deliveries contributing towards the high-quality software.
Missing Accountability
In the agile project, each team member is held responsible for their own deliveries contributing towards the high-quality software and therefore the QA manager is not at all held accountable for any defects dipped into the production. Unlike the traditional waterfall model where the QA manager explains what went wrong in testing and what extra step the team is going to take going forward to mitigate any defects promotion to production, here all scrum team members gather together and discuss the issue and what extra care they can take together to mitigate such situation in future. Hence, there is nothing the QA manager could contribute in terms of accountability as the whole team is held responsible for any defects leakage to production. The mature scrum teams are known to deliver the higher quality software product with the fact that the QA is an inherent part of the Agile development methodologies.
Missing Testing Team Day-to-Day Management
The Agile model welcomes the frequent changes in the business priorities and therefore, the agile team accommodates these priorities. The traditional SDLC model with the QA team cannot cope up with the frequent changes as the testing happens in phases. Therefore, there is no need to manage the day-to-day team activities by the QA manager.
Testing by Developers
In the Agile teams, the developers are advised to the unit test for their own code along with the test acceptance criteria in the user story, so that the assignee to test the user story could focus on the functional testing aspects only based on the test acceptance criteria. The unit tests written by the developers help to unveil the defect quickly right after the development has completed and if anything gets changed that break the existing functionality then it will be notified quickly to the agile team as the unit test will fail. The solid unit test cases associated with any application reduces the dependency on the testers where they can focus more on the exploratory and UAT testing which do not require any extensive planning and documentation.
Transitioning of QA Managers to the Agile Ways of Working
Now, the question is that how the transitioning of the QA Managers can happen towards the agile ways of working to help in the agile projects? The answer is very simple. Since there is no need for the QA manager role in the agile project methodology and therefore, this role needs to be accommodated in certain areas where role will add value to the agile team as follows.
- The QA Manager is an experienced tester who can provide advice on challenging test scenarios. With the help of their experience, the agile team can learn to fit the effective testing means into any agile projects.
- The QA manager can help to provide technical expertise, e.g. proper use of test techniques in the appropriate test cases.
- Quality Assurance manager can act as an advocate of QA throughout the organization.
- QA manager in the agile model can facilitate inter-team communication among many agile projects within an organization
- The QA manager in the agile model can present an aggregate view of testing to the high-level management
- The QA manager can help to budget and forecast for the testing requirements as a service dependent on the organizational process.
- Being an experienced tester cum manager, the QA manager can provide Personal support, coaching, and professional development for the testers.
- Quality Assurance manager can act as an escalation point for testers.
- The QA manager can help the organization in the recruitment of QAs as well as the Automation Engineers required for any projects.
- Manager can help to ensure the Scrum Teams to implement and follow the best practices to mitigate the defects promotion to production.
Over to you!!
The role of a QA Manager in Agile methodology could be more of a support team member who can facilitate the training and consulting to the testers in the agile team ensuring the best QA practices and coaching towards delivering the higher-quality software product.