This tutorial covers the Elective area of the Test Management Body of Knowledge (TMBOK) required for the Certified Test Manager (CTM) certification. This tutorial also covers the Elective area of the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

For cost and cities where this course might be offered, check our Public Training Schedule.To bring this course to your test team at your location, contact our Education and Professionals Services Group.

The transition from leveraging the hard skills of an engineer as a test lead to implementing the soft skills of a manager can be frustrating and time-consuming for new test managers; this course attempts to provide the test lead with a boot camp introduction to these soft skills. Transitioning from lead to manager is a challenge – a test manager must hit the ground running with skills in personnel management, test strategy, and project management.

New test managers especially do not have the time to deep dive into just one of these areas – to be effective quickly, they need broad exposure out of the gate. This tutorial provides that broad exposure, and provides an experience which new test managers can leverage in working their day to day tasks.

Course attendees will leave with practical exposure to and real-world examples of key concepts in each of three soft skills areas: recruiting and retaining, documenting the test strategy, and managing the project effectively.

Attendees will return to the workplace with a set of self-written objectives for applying concepts in each major skill area in 30 and 90 day timeframes. They will have set goals for hiring and retaining team members, for planning and documenting their strategy and for managing their projects more effectively.

• Introduction
  • Presenter Background
  • Agenda for the day
• Hiring and Retaining the Best
  • Recruiting and hiring top talent
    • Screening
    • Interviewing
    • Making the offer
  • Retaining the Best
    • Motivating your test organization
    • Training your testers
    • Challenging your best
• Documenting the Test Strategy
  • Key concepts in test strategy (finding a common terminology)
    • Overviews
      • Unit testing – when to be involved
      • Integration testing
      • System testing
      • Performance testing
    • When and what to automate
  • Documenting and publishing the strategy
  • Estimating the test effort
• Managing the Test Effort Effectively
  • Scheduling and resource allocation
  • Leveraging strengths, backing up weaknesses
  • The testing timeline and the testing scorecard – plan, execute, and report
  • Fighting for quality – managing up for support
  • Managing defects (vs tracking defects)
  • The test report—when the project is finished