Top 20 Test Manager/Lead Interview Questions

1) Mention the responsibilities of the Test Manager?

Role of QA Manager includes

• Manage project from initiation through closure
• Test planning
• Obtain customer acceptance of the deliverables
• Approve intermediate deliverables and patch releases to the client
• Submit effort inputs for billing
• Issue Management
• Mentoring, coaching and off-shore team management
• Submit reports for weekly status to the test coordinators
• Participating in weekly review meetings
• Publish KPIs for all testing projects on a weekly basis
• Resource mobilization for projects

2) Mention what is your approach if you find that the testers in your organization are performing a test on the deliverable even after significant defect have been identified?

As a QA Lead, your approach should be

• Acceptance criteria should be tightened
• Test cases should be re-evaluated
• More test cases should be added if possible, with equivalence class partition cases and boundary values
• More test cases should be added to check invalid conditions.
• Show Stopper criteria should be modified

3) Mention what Requirement Traceability Matrix is?

Requirement Traceability Matrix is linking of requirement documents to test cases. It is used for the following reason

• To ensure that all the application requirements are tested in the verification process
• To check Test Coverage

4) How would you select a Testing tool for your project?

1. Identify features required in an automation tool as per the project needs
2. Evaluate commercial and noncommercial tools that meet the requirements
3. Estimate cost and benefit of the tool. Cost could include licenses and training.
4. Make the final decision in consultation with team members.

5) What are some key challenges in a Testing Project?

Key challenges of software testing include

• Testing phase us usually under a time constraint
• Understanding the requirements can sometimes be a challenge
• Application should be stable enough to be tested
• Setting priorities for testing
• Lack of skilled testers
• Regression Testing
• Frequent Requirements changing
• Lack of tools, resource, and training

6) What is a Test Plan?

The test plan is a document describing the activities and the testing scope. It is the basic requirement for testing any software product.

7) What are types of the test plan?

There are three main types of Test Plan

1. Master Test Plan
2. Testing level specific Test Plan
3. Testing type specific test plans

8) What people skills should a Test Manager have?

1. Effective and clear communication
2. Should build good relationship with team members
3. Good listening skills and emotional intelligence
4. Motivate team members
5. Resolve conflicts and ethical issues.

9) What is 'Configuration Management'?

Configuration Management covers the processes used to coordinate, control, and track test artifacts.

The test artifacts could include automation Code, requirements, documentation, problems, designs, change requests, designs, etc.

10) What is PDCA model?

The PDCA model stands for

1. Plan: Identify improvements and set targets
2. Do: Implement improvements
3. Check: Check result of improvements
4. Act: Learn from results

It is a Test Process Improvement (TPI) method.

11) What are informal reviews?

An informal review is a way of checking for defects without running code. Informal reviews are implemented many times during the initial stages of the test life cycle of the document. Informal reviews are not documented.

12) Mention the types of Risk in a Test Project

The types of Risk in a Test Project can be broadly categorized as

1. Strategy Risk: This includes Budget, Communication and Management risks
2. Project Definition Risks: This includes Project target, Scope, and requirements risks.
3. Human Resources Risk: This includes Skill, Team members and organization risks.
4. Project Schedule Risks.

13) What are the countermeasures that test manager should take against risks?

Test manager must take following steps to mitigate the risk while developing product

• Avoidance: Eliminate the risk factor that is involved
• Reduction: Mitigation plan to decrease the impact of risks and to take corrective measures
• Sharing: Transfer the risk to another resource such as insource or insure
• Accept: Accept the risk and prepare a planned budget for these risks

14) Explain how test manager can estimate the project and what to estimate?

During Test Estimation, a Test Manager must evaluate four things

1. Cost
2. Resources
3. Human Skills
4. Time

They can estimate the project in following ways

• Work breakdown structure (WBS): Breaking down project into smaller segments
• Three-point estimation: Three-point estimation is based on statistical data
• Functional point method: Give weightage to each function and measure the size

15) What is three-point estimation?

In the three-point estimation, three values are initially produced for every task based on previous experience. For example, to complete a specific task the different possibilities are

• Best case estimate: 120 man-hours or 15 days with experienced team members
• The most likely estimate: 170 hours or 21 days with enough resources and moderate team members experience
• The worst-case estimate: 200 man-hours or 25 days and with a team that has lesser work experience

16) Mention some of the best practices for test estimation

Some of the best practices for Test Estimation is

• Add some buffer time: Having a buffer time is always an advantage, it may help to deal with a delay caused due to unexpected reason like talented member quits the job suddenly,
• Account resource planning in estimation: Make sure that your estimation is realistic and considered crucial factors like availability of human resource.
• Use the past experience reference: Through your past experience try to avoid all the obstacles or possible hindrance that are most likely to happen
• Stick to your estimation: Estimation is not full proof. It may go wrong also. In the early phase of the project, you should re-check the test estimation and if required make modifications as well.

17) What does a good test report include?

A good test report should include

• Project Information
• Test Objective
• Test Summary
• Defect

18) List out some of the software quality assurance best practice?

Some of the best practices for software Quality Assurance includes

• Continuous Improvement
• Documentation
• Tool usage and automation
• Metrics
• Team work and shared responsibility for SQA

19) By what factors you can determine the quality of the test execution?

Two ways can determine the quality of test execution

• Defect rejection ratio: (No. of defects rejected/ total no. of defects raised) X 100
• Defect leakage ratio: (No. of defect missed/total defects of software) X 100

20) How will you manage Team Conflicts?

With the diversity in backgrounds and working styles of team members, the first step is to expect and prepare for conflicts during the test project.

The next step is to hold a meeting and appraise team members of the project status. The Test Manager needs to keep communication open for everyone such that the team frustrations and anger are vented out. Lastly, ask the team members to co-operate and stress the importance of their cooperation for the success of the project.