Alignment of quality and test professionals with the rest of the team, especially with the project and program management is important. Sometimes there will be conflicts on how the management perceives the test and quality analysis results. Quality and test professionals should strive in avoiding test results conflicts. In this article, let’s see how it is done.
There are three core pillars that are bedrock of alignment and smooth functioning of quality and test functions with the rest of the team. They are also key in avoiding conflicts in test results. They are:
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Transparency
Let’s look at how these contribute to conflict avoidance and resolution
Communication
How many times have we thought that we have updated the project team with a specific test result containing details like screenshots, analysis, and data, and we hadn’t? Many of us can say that not many times but it certainly happened. The key is to have a system in place for communicating every test result such that nothing gets missed out. The confidence of the team goes up when it is constantly updated with relevant details on a timely basis so that things can move forward. As I said, all relevant details like data, screenshots, analysis points need to be in the communication. This will avoid situations like ‘This works in my machine’!
Collaboration
Quality and test professionals need to collaborate with the project management through various means, some of them are:
- Planning and scheduling
- Requirements and scope discussions
- Risk assessment discussions
- Communication and reporting
- Defects management
- Resources management
If the collaboration is well-oiled, most of the conflicts including the test results will be reduced.
Transparency
Quality and test professionals can be transparent in their work and communication in several areas including regular and consistent status reporting, using visual dashboards, using collaborative tools like test management tool, project management platforms, and communication platforms, having regular meetings, proactive communication, clear defect reporting, sharing documentation like test plans and strategies, test results, and knowledge sharing, keeping the team updated on key performance indicators, and how test decisions are being made using data.
Conclusion
By following the three pillars of communication, collaboration, and transparency, the quality and test professionals can succeed in avoid test results conflicts, thus leading to superior quality. In your organisation needs strategies in designing these pillars, please feel free to get in touch with me. Glad to help!