Clear goals and vision for testing. It is important to know where we are heading in testing and that this is agreed with senior management. Discussing the terms or reference for testing with your team, producing a one page document and publicising it. This shows commitment towards testing.
Support for your engineers. It is important for QA Managers, to listen to the team. Discuss various courses and staff development with your team. Think about sending them on testing courses, conferences or testing seminars to improve their skill.
It is also important that we are seen to strike the right balance between hands-off and hands-on QA management. Small things like sitting with the testers rather than in a large office and actually helping with testing will motivate the team. It shows them that you are involved rather than removed.
Promoting the value of testing. Another way to motivate the team is to promote the value of testing at every opportunity. This is such an important aspect because so often QA engineers are not valued for the work they do. The primary reason, is that we do not produce anything that is tangible. The QA Manager must constantly reflect and report on how individuals, as well as the whole team, have added value to the project and company.
Career path & Salary acknowledged. Salaries for testers should reflect their skill and the value that they add to the company. There should be no differentiation between QA, developer and designer's salary structures.
One of Maslow's motivational needs is self realization an opportunity to improve in the job we find ourselves in. Therefore a career path for SQA is essential if we are going to meet this need. Unfortunately many organisations do not have a clearly defined career path for the QA Engineers.
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