Role & Responsibilities of Test Manager / Test Lead

Your company, a financial corporation, built up a banking website. This is the biggest software project ever in your company & your boss wants the highest quality product

However, they are not sure how effectively it will work when launched in real business environment.

Your boss assigned you as the Test Manager of the project. Your task is to verify and evaluate the quality of the website XpertLab Bank before delivering it to the customer.

If this is the first time you have taken in-charge as a Test Manager, you may ask some following questions

What is Test Management?

An important part of software quality is the process of testing and validating the software.

Test Management is the practice of

• Organizing and controlling the Testing process.
• Ensuring visibility, traceability, and control of the testing process to deliver high-quality software.

Why do we need a Test Manager?

The role of Testing in software development Life Cycle

The following figure shows the position of Testing in Development process

Let’s take a look at advantages of software testing in the Software Development Life Cycle:

• Improves the quality, reliability & performance of the system.
• Produces good quality products in the competitive market.

What is the Role and Responsibility of Test Manager?

The role of the software test manager is to lead the testing team. The test Manager plays a central role in the Team.

The Test Manager takes full responsibility for the project’s success. The role involves quality & test advocacy, resource planning & management, and resolution of issues that impede the testing effort.

The Test Lead / Manager is responsible for:

• Building up and leading the Testing Team to the success of project
• Defining the scope of testing within the context of each release / delivery
• Deploying and managing resources for testing
• Applying the appropriate test measurements and metrics in the product and the Testing Team
• Planning, deploying and managing the testing effort for any given engagement.

The Test Manager must understand how testing fits into the organizational structure, in other words, clearly define its role within the organization.

Being a Test Manager, you must guarantee all the following requirements:

here are tons of difficulties and challenges you will face when leading a project. Here are some typical issues:

• Not enough time to test
• Not enough resources to test
• The project budget is low, and the schedule is too tight
• Testing teams are not always in one place
• The requirements are too complex to check and validate

You already knew some typical difficulties in Test Management, let’s start with a practical example

Your boss wants to discuss with you about the project planning, the test sufficiency, budget, and progress. Are you ready? Let’s join in the discussion

The above example is just one of many difficulties you may face in your Task.