QA Function - Who's Responsibilty? What skills to look for?

Question

Our company is exploring hiring a QA specialist and I had a couple of questions. I'm not sure if there are any cut and dry answers here but any input is appreciated. Here are my questions:

1. Would a QA tester report to the business side or the IT side? It seems like there may be benefits to either.

2. What skills are best - should we look for a veteran tester and expect to teach them the business, or should I look for someone who is familliar with the business and expect to turn them into a tester?

Any additional tips or suggestions. Thanks.

Answer 1

The most important is the right kind of attitude - find someone who is proud to be a tester. For acceptance testing I would value business understanding and client facing skills as he needs to verify the correct behaviour every now and then.

I think the required IT skills depend on how much he is expected to do automated test writing. At the very basic level the QA guy is expected to be able to write reports including how to reproduce an issue and what makes it an issue.

Answer 2

1. I think QA belongs on the IT side. They need to work closely with the development team during development of the product, not just after the development team is finished building it.

2. Some of the best QA people are people that started as programmers but found it just wasn't their thing. They need to be technical and know how software works so that they can find the edge cases and not just the normal expected inputs. Most importantly, they need to have a curiosity about how things work and then want to figure out how they can break it. They also need to be methodical and pay attention to detail. All the sorts of things that make a good programmer but maybe they want a bit more interaction with people. As for veteran tester vs. being familiar with the business - I say find a veteran tester if you can. It's easier to teach them the business then it is to teach them the right attitude or mindset for testing.

Answer 3

Go for someone who you feel really enjoys testing. Many see it as a stepping stone to other jobs, which doesn't help.

Skills wise look for someone that will compliment your team. Being IT competent is essential, but they don't necessarily have to be a coder. A lot depends on your business/team/resources.

Answer 4

Hey.
QA means also ensuring that you are following some process, follow internal and external regulations, that everyone do things what their responsibility defines, etc. Lot of things you shouldn't be concerned now.
So you need Tester. And to whom he reports it depends on who he will support.
If customer, to ensure that customer gets what he wants and to show customer that he gets what he asked for, than tester reports to business.
If he is supposed to support the team in ordered to deliver better product, than he supports to the IT.
As for what background he should have, TLiebe had here best answer.

Answer 5

As others have said, get somebody who wants that job as a tester, not just A job.

Find somebody who is experienced, both in the technical aspects of QA, but also in the process and business of developing software. Many testers out there, even senior ones, have little grasp of how to strike the balance between testing something and getting it out the door.

In your case, look specifically for somebody who has been a one man (or woman) band before and has helped build not only a QA team, but worked on improving the company's SDLC and tooling.

My advice is DO NOT have them report to the business people (or to the dev manager if you can avoid it). That is a conflict of interest. QA's basic job is to find and report on issues and offer opinions about readiness for release.