So, I was offered a promotion to the role of QA Manager - while I struggle a bit with the idea of removing myself from a lot of day to day testing, itās a great opportunity for me and Iād be crazy to pass it up.
My one weird point with it currently is itās a bit of a hybrid role - both managing the testing team and also the triage process of issues reported by our (mostly) internal users. That being the case, the title was suggested of QA & Support Manager. The Support part of it doesnāt quite feel right to me - Iām not managing a call center with client-facing users and a fully staffed Support team, itās strictly the triage process through ZenDesk.
I can see a bit how it all could fall under the āQAā banner (though QA in and of itself is even hard to accept being that we donāt ASSURE Quality).
Any other thoughts on what best suites a manager-level position focused around advocating for quality and the bug triage process? Iām drawing a blankā¦ curious if anyone has done something different. Thanks!
Congratulations and think of QA as Question Asking/Asker rather than Quality Assurance.
As testing alone does not assure quality, the best chance of assuring quality is if whole business is involved in quality. Quality requirements, quality development processes, quality testing etc.
Two hats, one Test Manager and the other Triage Manager.
The good thing about being Triage Manager is that you have a lot more influence over the advocacy over what issues need to be addressed sooner and can advocate what priority issues are assigned.
Am curious about the aspect of the Support part that doesnāt quite feel right to youā¦? Is it the work itself or it being under the manager hat?
From personal experience I saw that when a āpeopleā manager has another side ātechnicalā role, it helps greatly with keeping a connection to the ground, as long it doesnāt fully take overā¦
My view is QA Manager & Support Manager are 2 different streams. Escalate this issue to your Manager in the 1-to-1 meeting. Explain it logically that you donāt have any experience in Support and you find it very difficult. You are good in QA stuff. If your manager is not a management puppet he will listen to you else start searching elsewhere.
There are some bosses or directors who are under an impression QA Manager does not have enough work. Load them with other responsibilities. So they add up other roles in the current role(QA Manager).
If you are good as QA Manager continue as QA Manager. Do not change your stream. Right jobs are available for right people.
My response makes an assumption that your test team is part of the engineering/R&D organization. AND that the issues reported are coming from the end users who are last mile consumers of the product that passed your teams quality gate.
First, you are moving up the value chain to contribute in your organization as a manager now, which means a lot. Just because you are now going to build more talents with all the experience and the nitty grittiy and the tricks of the trade and the ideas that you have had as a tester. You are not just going to wear the the hat of a technical specialist in your trade but also of someone who is now responsible for the aspirations of your team. So, congratulations.
Now for the triage of issue reported by the users, I feel its a great opportunity to be involved in this process as this is the feedback loop that would give you a lot of insights on the processes that you followed internally at test before the product was deployed. Ofcourse it depends on how huge is the flow of issues. If thatās something that doable in your day to day work, go for it. Although i would suggest asking for a resource to do the first level filtering before you take a dip at it. In many organizations, the issues reported from the end users first goes through the different tiers of support and by the time it reaches the engineering teams, its actually proven to be an issue that needs a fix. But that depends on how big the organization and how massive is the flow of issues.
As for the name, QA Manager is just fine, you donāt even need to have the support tag added to the title. If āAssuranceā bothers you, try QE, for Manager, Quality Engineering. What i feel you need to focus on is, Is there any learning to do with the feedback from users, will these feedbackās help strengthen the quality processes internally, will these feedbackās help the test teams to provide/preempt design flaws in the first place.
Personally, I feel what you hear from end users could be very valuable to your growth as you move ahead.
Congrats on the promotion, well deserved I am sure.
Maybe something simple like āQuality Managerā? I say this because it could encompass anything that the org considers part of qualityās domain.
At the end of the day tile and what you do should align but I have personally always been more concerned with what I do over a title as thats what matters the most but I do understand for the sake of career progression why you would want this to align and show progression.
Firstly congrats!
Iāve done similar and titles are what you make of them. Iāve been QA and support and itās pretty much what you describe. Internal support. A team of 1.
This didnāt really bother me as I still had a hand in technical issues and developed me further, alongside my QA management, which became solidified with exposure to meetings with senior managers.
IMHO, itās what you make of itā¦ Good luck!