Quality of the Test Team

An important factor regarding the effectiveness of software testing is the human factor: ‘the test team’.

There are some tools available to help with process and to implement and to manage and to check, but the testing is mainly driven by its participants, that is, the members of the test team. The test team is responsible for improving the whole development process – not only quality of checking and quality of error logging. Therefore the quality of the test-team itself matters a lot. 

And I believe that - other than available support from team leaders or quality of development team members - the specific factors affecting quality of test team members are: experience of the testing role, attitude, training given to the team, team size, technical skills, domain experience, and also the range of team.

That testing processes have an influence on development and delivery is indisputable. However, rather than the processes, the testers themselves are the biggest influence on test effectiveness; mainly their attitude and motivation - if team members are unwilling to perform testing effectively, the efforts will be doomed to fail.

The quality of the team influences the time needed for defect prevention, defect detection, defect collection and also the quality of the output. Effective size also matters. The larger teams tend to need more time to agree on a common position due to more discussions among members.

Also, the types of people in the team may influence the work results. If one very dominant person is more or less controlling the team, their opinion will dominate the results. This can be advantageous; if they are good at contributing, but can also have the adverse effect. Their input in everything might discourage some members and also not help them to grow or get empowered.

On the other hand, if teams are comprised only of people that are known to agree on everything, the results may not be respected by the people performing the next process steps, rendering the steps taken so far useless. If the right people form the team, the issues raised can be solved smoothly, with good results in terms of quality of output. A team consisting of the wrong combination of people may consume considerably more effort.