10 Essential Qualifications for Test Lead (QA Lead)

Published On: June 17th, 2021|Last Updated: January 7th, 2023|Categories: Top 5 Best|Total Views: 610|Daily Views: 1|

In the testing world, there are many challenges to be faced in daily work life. With the guidance of a good Test Lead/Test Manager, a test team can easily face their challenges in work and take a good example for their future career from them. Let us see here some of the qualities of both hard and soft skills required/ expected in a Test Lead

1. Proper Work Estimation Knowledge

Proper work Estimation is much important to accomplish work within deadline. A Test Lead can never overload his team members. He should not make them risk their health or family life due to the overburden of work. At the same time, he cannot complicate the organization’s expectations, deadlines and compromise on the quality of the product they deliver.

How to make it?

  1. Making realistic estimation involving all team members
  2. Keeping in mind on any unforeseen situations
  3. Making proper use of all team members and available QA Tools

See Also: How to Test Mobile Application Manually

2. Proper Knowledge on QA Tools and SDLC Processes

The Test Lead should have immense knowledge of at least a few QA tools that are highly used. Specifically, any Lead should be a learner. They must inspire their team members to learn new technologies and tools. But at the same time, a lead never has the control to push their team to learn what they do not have an interest in.

How to make it?

  1. Conducting or encouraging team on regular learning session or discussion on recent high demand QA tools
  2. Automating or allowing the team members to automate some manual activity using the tools they learn and helping on the same
  3. Sessions for understanding current QA process being followed and what can be improved

3. Good Communication Skills

Think of a Test Lead who lacks on his communication skill struggles to communicate to his team, developers, business analyst, client, or project manager. This will create great confusion when things are not communicated properly between people.

How to make it?

  1. A Test Lead may lack on his communication skill initially but should ensure on its improvement day by day
  2. Making sure that nothing goes uncommunicated /miscommunicated to team or any project member
  3. Helping team members to improve on their communication skill

4. Good Negotiation Skills

An adequate negotiation skills are required for a Test Lead in order to guard his team members and ensure their work-life balance. Improving on this negotiation skill will be much helpful in resolving any problems that are faced in the project

How to make it?

  1. Negotiate on requirements that is not realistic or requires much rework
  2. Negotiate with proper reason or solutions for any production issues that are missed
  3. Understand each of your team members and negotiate on their productivity individually of required

See Also: Software Testing Guide for Beginners to Advanced

5. Leadership Skills

Team Lead or Test Lead or Test Manager requires a lot of leadership skills to efficiently manage people. Some of the leadership skills are Active listening, Creativity, flexibility, planning, time management, reliability, etc., These skills not only builds a good leader but also a very great employee for an organization

How to make it?

  1. Be flexible in your and as well team members work timings
  2. Don’t project as a stubborn leader
  3. Plan everything ahead with the team
  4. Be reliable and rely on the team

6. People Handling Skills

Handling people is an art. Though the Human Resource Manager doing it for all employees in the organization, when it comes as a team, it’s the duty of a Lead to handle all the queries and concerns of their team members.

How to make it?

  1. Motivate team in all aspects of their work and personal life
  2. Be open and listen to the team members
  3. Control emotions and understand emotions of your team members at every point
  4. Connect with members as one-to-one at regular intervals to hear from them

7. In-Depth Domain Knowledge

Domain knowledge is something that is required for all testers. At least a tester should have a thorough knowledge of the domain area in which he is currently working.

How to make it?

  1. Gain a lot of knowledge and stay up-to-date with domains
  2. Encourage and help the team members to gain knowledge on different domains

See Also: 10 Easy Ways to Improve English Communication Skills

8. Better Technology Knowledge

Technology is what makes people implement great thoughts. To stay up-to-date with the latest technology helps to guide team members and suggest the best solutions to project decisions

How to make it?

  1. Stay up-to-date and inspire team members to be aware on the latest technology solutions
  2. Implement the latest technology in the project or testing level wherever we can.

9. Programming /Automation Skills

Programming comes as a basic quality required in IT. Testers require basic programming knowledge that will help in automation testing. A Test Lead should be proficient in some programming languages like Java, Python etc, and possess knowledge of at least few automation tools

How to make it?

  1. Learn and encourage the team to learn to program involved with the development of in-test application
  2. Discuss with Developers on technical & programming and decide what is possible /not possible to implement
  3. Make good use of available automation tools in the industry for quality testing of the project

10. Knowledge on QA Metrics and Framework

Testers are expected to have a good understanding on the frameworks they work on. A Test Lead (in fact, Testers) should have some basic understanding of the framework concepts and they should be able to create their own framework for testing if needed.

How to make it?

  1. Understand, involve and make the best use of QA metrics and framework
  2. Analyze currently used framework and other frameworks available in the market and choose the best option
  3. Allow Testers (Team members) on any framework in which they want to work or learn

All of the above qualities are not only intended for Test Lead, a tester or any IT Engineer should need to improve on the above qualities to make their career grow.

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