Leading and Managing a Team - Alexander Yarulin

Author: Alexander Yarulin

Introduction: This course walks through the basic qualities of leading and managing a team, especially as it pertains to the software testing world.

First of all, let's define a team leader. 

There is one important misconception about the term "team leader.” It sounds like this: “Team leader is the coolest specialist in our team.” This is not true. For example: The highest scoring player in soccer team is not always team captain. As a rule, the other players become team captain. Why? I believe it is appropriate to draw an analogy between a football team and a team of testers/developers/designers etc. Each team should have its own captain. Let’s call him “team leader.”

So, there are several questions about this term:

• What are the qualities of a team leader? (see question ‘Why’ above =)
• What are team leader duties and responsibilities?
• What mistakes team leader should avoid?
• Is it easy to be a team leader?

Qualities

1. Excellent professional skills (but not necessarily the best on the team): To be able to reasonably accept or reject the arguments of other team members during professional discussions.
2. Courage: Do not be afraid to make decisions being ready to bear personal responsibility for them.
3. Diplomacy: To be able successfully resolve conflicts and contradictions within or outside the team. This quality is very handy if you need to indicate to anyone on the shortcomings in his work.
4. Psychologist: To be able to understand people at a deeper level.
5. Sense of humor: A good joke is sometimes the surest way to defuse the situation and reduce tension in the team.
6. Self-critical: Be able to find problems not only in others but in yourself.
7. Optimist: Without this quality it will be very difficult to inspire people to achieve goals.
8. Analyst: These skills are essential for the ability to adequately assess the timing, risks, as well as decomposition of tasks.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Directly participate in the formation of the team (interviewing, for example)
2. Make general purposes clear to every team member
3. Maintain the motivation of each team member at a level that allows one to perform tasks as efficiently as possible.
4. Allocation of tasks to the most appropriate staff.
5. Ensure the exchange of experience among team members (providing a mechanism for reuse of knowledge).
6. Maintain friendly and constructive atmosphere.
7. Conduct periodic debriefing.
8. To be attentive to the initiatives of the team members, encouraging helpful suggestions and filtering out the useless ones.
9. Provide information on the status of the team, the timing of tasks and their degree of readiness at the request of management.
10.  Promptly report any problems that affect the final result, which cannot be solved by the team.

Mistakes to Avoid

1. “Do you want to do well? - DIY”. You should trust people despite your fears for the result.
2. In making decisions, do not forget to think about how you will monitor their implementation.
3. Do not ask people to do something that you yourself would not do.
4. You are a leader, because people respect you and trust you, and not because you considered yourself a leader.

Conclusion: Leadership comes in various "flavors" and I hope this course provided you with some insight into this topic.