Chapter 8
Staffing and Managing a Test Team
Hiring, motivating, and retaining an excellent staff are among the most important tasks any manager performs. The extent to which a manager does a good or poor job at these tasks largely determines the extent to which he or she is a good or poor manager. Although these are survival issues for all managers, from those at the neighborhood steak house to corporate CEOs to successful politicians, staffing and managing a test team has its own unique quirks. This chapter offers some pointers on a few of the issues that are particularly deviling:
- What personal attitudes, behaviors, and work styles make for good testers?
- How do you avoid hiring the wrong people for your test team?
- How many people do you need, what skills should they have, and what positions do they fill?
- Do you want to organize your staff by projects or by areas of test specialization?
- How do you find, interview, and hire good test team members?
- What motivates test staff, and what demotivates them?
- How can you use interim staff such as temporaries, contractors, and consultants?
If you reached your current position as a test manager by rising from a technical position, you are particularly likely to find this chapter useful.
The Right Person for the Job: What Kind of People Make Good Test Engineers
Let's start with personal traits for testers, because there's no point in worrying about someone's skills, position, or career goals if that person just isn't cut out to be a tester. ...
