The Path to Great Relationships Part #6. QC/QA Engineer and Project Manager
This article is written by SoftServe Project Manager Oleksii Kononenko in partnership with Nadiia Koval, ex-QC Lead who became a Project Manager. It was inspired by the brilliant articles about cooperation between the Project Manager & Tech Lead and Project Manager & DevOps Engineer written by Leila Mamedova. We hope you’ll find this article interesting and valuable.
It’s difficult to argue that quality is a critical factor that affects our reputation for the client. Clients always expect our deliverables to be of a high level of quality. In this article, we will talk about QA/QC processes and the people responsible for these processes. We will overview how to choose QC Engineers and cooperate with them. The author asks you to consider this article just as one of the possible points of view — if your experience disproves some (or all) of his statements — he will be glad if you drop a line in my e-mail (okono@softserveinc.com). Well, it’s always helpful to share an experience.
What’s the difference between Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) engineers?
QAs focus on preventing defects; they use a proactive approach: establish various processes and techniques used on the project and their relation to the project goal. While QCs use reactive methods to identify bugs and make necessary arrangements to have them fixed. Make sure there are both roles in your project. Usually, they are mixed, performing combined functions when needed. To simplify, we will call them QA/QC engineers, though it’s worth understanding that these roles may require different skills and personality traits. So, if you can separate them — do it.
How could you choose the right QA/QC engineers?
First and foremost — you need to create a good vacancy description. To do it, define what technical skills and personality traits a candidate should have. You will never find the right person if you don’t know whom you are looking for (except by accident, but it’s not a good management tool). To my liking, the most important traits for a QA/QC engineer are:
- Attention to detail. It’s obvious — a person with an overbroad attention focus will most likely be skipping bugs. Though it’s not a popular thought in IT, for QC, it’s more important to focus on process than quick results. A systematic approach is the key to the quality of your product.
- Responsibility. Sometimes QCs get code for testing at the last moment. And though your team should avoid it, by all means, you should be sure that you can rely on your QC team at such moments. They are also a contact point in case of any problems with quality. Quick reaction and attention to letters, messages and feedback during project development or delivery builds a strong relationship with your client and compensates for any negative cases.
- Analytical mindset and persistence. It’s great if you have a BA on your project and this team-mate described the requirements in detail, and everyone understands them. In this case, QC Engineer needs to convert them into test cases. But what if there is no BA on the project, the client wrote the requirements, and you need to work with them?
As we know, quality is compliance with explicit and implicit requirements. And the “implicit” ones raise the most questions. Even if the client didn’t describe what file formats their form must ingest, your need to clarify both file formats and the most significant admissible size.
- Excellent communication skills and emotional intelligence. Being responsible for quality is not an easy task. The task of a QC is, if not to resolve acute conflicts, then at least to support the lead/PM in this, keep calm, and communicate with everyone respectfully. No less critical skill that QC should develop at once — is the ability to explain and describe everything in simple words. The sooner a developer understands a bug description, the faster they will fix it. The same goes to the clients — they need to understand the situation with the quality of their product, but they don’t want to read your 10-page reports. Showcase the main things, highlight the most important, and visualize your report with simple charts — resulting in everyone being happy. If they want more information — they will ask for it.
- Motivation. The work should be interesting for an employee, and you must be sure that you know what direction the employee is interested in and what you can suggest to they. The interview is a mutual process — sell your vacancy to a candidate. But only in this case you gain understanding if you can provide the candidate with what they are interested in. Otherwise, it will be a mismatch, don’t lie to each other.
And how to check it all?
Unfortunately, the time for an interview is limited in time, so make sure you check specificallywhat you need. Get prepared in advance.
Cases. Ask a candidate to do something right at the interview — to create test cases for some functionality or to test a part of the system and create a bug report. Why not? But prepare this test in advance based on your understanding of what you want to check with it. Improvisation, in this case, may look inappropriate and won’t do anything.
Talk to a candidate’s ex-managers (at least two). I have always been surprised why PMs don’t come to me for feedback about a person I have worked with. The feedback we post while releasing an employee to reserve: 1) is short, 2) an honest talk to a colleague-PM may give you much more information.
Clarify the rules of the game. At the interview, explain to the candidate what you expect them to do. Not abstractly — but at the level of precise actions. Otherwise, you have planned for QC Engineer to talk directly to the client regularly, but the candidate has the relentless desire not to do it. Another example — some of our colleagues from non-Ukrainian locations (Poland, Bulgaria) prefer working not from 10 AM to 6 PM but, for example, 8 AM — 4 PM. Clarify it — otherwise, you may get into an awkward situation if you realize it after you introduce the candidate to your client, and your team is working 11 AM — 7 AM to have maximum overlapping working hours with your client’s team.
What else I pay attention to:
- How a candidate communicates, whether they can convey their idea well. The one who thinks clearly — also expresses clearly. It may alert you if you ask a direct question, but the candidate moves to some vague abstraction (especially if the candidate did it more than once).
- Whether the candidate listens to their interlocutor and answers the question they were asked (not the one they wish to answer).
- Flexibility and ability to adapt to changing environments. It isn’t easy to check, but at least you can ask a candidate to provide examples from his experience.
- Professional curiosity and desire to learn something new. Ask them to tell you what the candidate likes and what they have read/watched/learned about it recently. If nothing — it’s weird.
- Absence of peremptory judgments. Be wary of those who believe there are two opinions: their own and a wrong one.
Final three things that Project Manager could take into account while building fruitful collab with Quality Control Engineer
Don’t be enchanted before the time. You will truly understand what kind of person they are only during probation: explicit or implicit — it always exists. Make sure you’ve given a candidate enough time to demonstrate their skills and you’ve done everything possible to adapt him to your circumstances.
Conduct regular 1-on-1 meetings. During those meetings, explain your expectations. Tell the person what has been done well and what could be better. Set up goals together. A goal you assign the QC/QA Engineer on your own — is your goal, nothing else.
Last but not least, cultivate responsibility for the quality of your product in everybody. Not “collective responsibility” — but everyone should be responsible for the quality. Let developers not be lazy to test their functionality, let them adequately perceive the role of QC, provide them with builds for testing on time, etc. And then you will have minimal problems.
Don’t miss our other articles about collaboration between Project Manager and team-mate:
