A Tester’s 4th Dimension - Management
A test manager who has a non-technical background recently asked me whether it’s important for him to learn technical skills and testing techniques. I thought of the 3-D model of a tester’s career - testing skills, domain knowledge, and technical expertise. Since I stole the 3-D idea from Rex Black, I asked him to help me update the model for test managers. Rex says-
My experience as a test manager directly managing teams of testers has been that my knowledge of testing has been very important, because it helps me understand what my team can and can’t do, and to communicate that effectively to management. My knowledge of technology has been quite important as well, because it allows me to more effective facilitate quality risk analysis sessions. I have found that domain knowledge I can usually acquire in sufficient doses fairly quickly. I think for the individual testers who design tests and/or do exploratory testing, domain knowledge is more important, and grows more important the more complex the domain.
Added on to the usual trilogy of tester skill areas, a test manager must also be a competent project manager. Testing efforts are typically highly constrained and forced to react to no end of disruptive events during the execution phase. Only well-organized, meticulous, skilled managers can handle it.
So perhaps management skills are a fourth dimension to add to the 3-D model. As a manager continues up the ladder, I think management skills become progressively more important than the other three.
It’s interesting to note how Rex deemphasizes domain knowledge, especially in light of a recent client of mine who put a heavy emphasis on domain knowledge for all employees, but some observers claimed that project management skills were lacking. I still think that it’s important, to have domain knowledge well-represented on a test team, even though some testers may not be domain experts.