In recent years it has been observed that more and more organizations are moving in to a very agile environment. Now people have discussed thoroughly about new roles for each resource across the board, where traditional Developers, project manager, testers, analysts, system engineers, support staff and others go. One role that has not been discussed and has been taken as peripheral, infect in some cases as obsolete is of Traditional Testing Department Lead.
As with the case with every other Testing Lead, I recently have had to face the same dilemma (infect I am still going through this transition), where I have been able cope better is due to my role of Test Management Consultant (for HP Testing Software) in my previous organization.
Traditionally it has been observed that the role of Test Lead is of a watch dog, which is going to give final authorization weather to move forward with application or not, weather the application is as of Client’s requirements, weather all needs, wants and desires of client are in place. This role was evolved from a person to identify the screen look-n-feel and document writer about 15 years back. And had its most influence over the last 5 ~ 10 years.
But now as Agile is starting to be implemented more and more, these above responsibilities are delegated to “testing” resources part of a feature/scrum team and scrum masters.
So what now for Test Lead, as he cannot delegate work, he cannot authorize or sign off an application release. Most organizations have taken the easy way out to get rid of these high earners and giving all their powers to scrum / feature lead.
My new organization has bucked the trend, to laugh out loud, they hired me.
In first few days I was of the point of view that somebody somewhere in higher-ups screwed up big time and sanctioned the hiring of a Testing lead, completely forgetting the change in organization that was going to take place.
But no, they have hired a “Traditional Testing Lead” to do very “Un-traditional” job. My new role specifies that I don’t indulge on go live or resource tasks but to be a consultant with in an organization for testers.
To help them out, to train them, to enhance their capabilities to be able to work as individuals in scrums and be the “watch dogs” within the scope of their respective scrum or feature based team.
So here I am re-inventing myself. I will try to share more information over next couple of months.
Important Announcement: if you are facing any issue regarding Agile Testing, Testing Organizational changes, HP’s products for Application Life-cycle Management, Functional or Regression Testing and/or Performance Testing, please contact at abkhalid@gmail.com , I will try my best to help you out.
You can also share your opinion and if any particular topic you want me to cover I would love to do it up to best of my knowledge.