The document discusses the importance of effective leadership in software testing, emphasizing that leadership must understand and actively engage in testing rather than delegate it. It outlines the differences between organizational and operational test leadership, urging leaders to create a quality culture and adapt testing strategies to risks. The 'act 2 lead' heuristic is proposed as a framework for integrating testing in all aspects of software development to enhance quality and improve practices.

1. QUALITY
SUMMIT 2024
Quality &
Process Excellence
Summit 2024

2. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Leading the Charge:
Inspiring Customer-Centric Quality Teams
Taking action to lead software testing

3. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
kari.kakkonen@act2lead.net
+358 40 5239 004
https://www.linkedin.com/in/karikakkonen/
Kari Kakkonen
● Expertise Capability Owner at Gofore Verify Oy
● CEO and Author at Dragons Out book teaching testing to children
● Author of ‘ACT 2 LEAD Software Testing Leadership Handbook’
● 28 years in testing, a bit less in agile, DevOps and AI in all industries
● EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award, Tester of the Year, Exemplary DevOps Instructor
● FiSTB 2002-, TestausOSY 2002-, ISTQB Exec 2015-2021, TMMi Board 2021-
● Married, 1 son, kayaker, snowboarder, roleplayer, a cappella singer

4. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
How many of you think that…
…testing is really understood* by leadership
(as CxO’s, directors, managers, product owners, etc.)?
* e.g. terms, process, relation to risks, test types and approaches,
coverage, competences, how to improve…

5. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
How many of you think that…
…testing is really lead* in all leadership levels?
* e.g. quality culture, vision, strategy, context, decisions, capabilities,
time, budget, competences, visibility on current state…

6. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Our observations
There are way too many people*
who should understand and lead testing,
but they don’t.
* e.g. director, head of, manager, product owner, people selling and
buying testing, developer, and even test manager and tester.

7. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Conclusions
Testing is not lead (but “delegated” or people are “trusted”).
Poor quality testing and software.
Testing is poorly understood and not valued as a profession.

8. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
What is test leadership?
● Leading testing and testers through the product lifecycle.
● Aims to ensure inline to the business needs and risks.
● Test leadership work cannot be separated from other leadership work.
● Done at two levels:
○ Organizational (company, department) level e.g., by Head of Testing or leaders at all mgmt levels
○ Operational (product, project, team) level e.g., by Test Manager, QA Lead or the dev-team
● Often organizational level test leadership is forgotten as all efforts are in
operational level

9. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Test leadership at organizational level
● Strategic leadership to clarify what testing means in your organization
○ Vision and principles to align and empower the organization
○ Handbook and guidelines for all teams to take into account
○ Guide leadership and managers to lead testing
● Quality culture: talk about importance of quality and testing
● Get visibility to quality of testing practices
○ Look for systemic and team level problems
○ Improve practices: let the teams help each others and support individuals
● Lead competence development
● Testing community to share learnings, educate people, and promote testing
● Take needed actions - ACT 2 LEAD!

10. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Test leadership at operational level
● Operational leadership (test management) puts testing into practice in teams
● Practices aligned with the organizational level vision and guidelines
○ Plan, resource, coordinate, and improve testing
○ Make sure all needed testing gets done
○ Guide teams and individuals in testing
● Integrate testing to software development process and operations
● Respect the autonomy of teams and individuals
● Get visibility to software quality and risks
○ Test results, bug statistics, debriefs, quality, risks, retrospectives, approaches used.

11. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Said by Edwards Deming
“Support of top management is not sufficient. It is not enough that top
management commit themselves for life to quality and productivity. They
must know what it is that they are committed to — that is, what they must
do. These obligations can not be delegated. Support is not enough: action
is required.”
Out of the Crisis, Deming, W. Edwards.

12. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
Heuristic
Approach to problem solving that employs a practical method
that is not guaranteed to be perfect,
but is sufficient for reaching an short-term goal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

13. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Add
Add testing to everything so that testing is not a separate
function, process, team or phase.
Lead it as a whole.

14. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Add
Contracts, plans, budgets, KPIs/OKRs, decisions, product
management, development process, operations, team
structures, communication, meetings, competence
development…

15. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Context
Understand your context and lead testing accordingly.
There is not just one correct way to test or lead testing.

16. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Context
Business, users, risks, test object, schedule, team structures,
resources, competences, development process, terms…

17. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Transparency
Create transparency into testing.
The better the visibility, the better it can be led.

18. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Transparency
Quality culture, testing practices, quality of software, risks,
defects, competences, vendors, decisions, improvements…

19. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
2:
2 ways to test: by humans and through automation.
Humans are good at exploring the product, and automation is
good at checking the product - both are needed.

20. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
2
Test automation, static code analysis, CI/CD pipeline,
regression testing, reviews, exploratory testing, pair testing, bug
bash…

21. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Learn
Learn to test and test to learn.
Use learnings to improve testing and leading testing, as well as
to improve the software and business.

22. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Learn
Trainings, community, study groups, book clubs, library,
coaching and mentoring, social media…
Feedback loops, retrospectives, blameless post mortems,
passive work (feedback, monitoring, surveys), A/B testing…

23. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Enable
Enable good quality testing by creating a quality culture where
the importance of quality and testing are understood.
Boost the culture via your daily work and decisions you make.

24. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Enable

25. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Adapt
Adapt testing to risks.

26. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Adapt
Identify and mitigate risks by testing (e.g., organization, product,
and feature level), focus testing to high-risk areas…

27. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Diverse
Ensure that testing is diverse.
The more diverse testing, the more diverse information you get.

28. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD as a heuristic
Diverse
Different test types, test approaches, ways to learn, ways to
improve, test environments, test data, people, test automation…

29. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
ACT 2 LEAD summary
● Leadership must understand testing to lead it.
● Leadership cannot delegate all the actions; they need act to lead.
● Leadership at operational level is not enough; you need
organizational level quality culture and leadership.
● Use ACT 2 LEAD heuristic for leading software testing.
● Help leadership to lead testing
○ ACT 2 LEAD may sound trivial for us*, but not for leadership.
* e.g., testing professionals, developers, product owners…

30. Copyrights © Marko Rytkönen and Kari Kakkonen
www.act2lead.net
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