Build a QE/Test function from scratch

Recently a testing friend reached out to me to say they had a possible opportunity to build out a testing function from scratch and whether I had any advice / words of wisdom. I found it very humbling they have asked me, however, before diving into this myself I took a step back to think and also to ask the wider testing community what their thoughts were.

I’ve started to come up with my thoughts from my own experience in a simple mind map. This was a few minute job and I’m sure I could write a whole book on this topic.

Where to start

Vision — Mission statement

What I would initially suggest is to start with Vision. Write down where you want to get to and articulate this into a mission statement. The one I created at my current workplace includes thinking about areas like quality standards, approaches, testing techniques and principles to drive quality excellence. The idea of this mission statement is then it will filter down into everything you do.

Assess where you are

Now you’ve got a vision of where you want to be. Make an assessment of where you are today. I did this by taking lots of ideas from things like the test maturity model and had sections such as test planning, test design and execution, culture and so on. If anyone is interested I can dig out what I did when I next open my work laptop. I then scored them between 0–4. Then I could see where everything sat and where things needed the most attention.

Create goals / roadmap

After you’ve created your mission statement and assessed where you are — create goals that your team and yourself can work on to get to achieve the vision. Along with that you could create a QE roadmap in a kanban style board to track where you are.

It starts with you

I like this phrase as it literally does ‘start with you’. Building up a new function for any discipline is not easy and can be quite stressful / a lot of pressure, but you can be in control of it all.

• Patience: You’re not going to build this over night. It’s going to take months and years to build something, so remember patience and all the little wins over time.
• Positivity: Positive mindset is everything — you can be an energy motivator or literally be a energy vampire. Maintainting those good vibes is so important to get things done.
• Professionalism: Perhaps this goes without saying, yet maintain your professionalism. There are going to be roadblocks and challenges ahead. The way you handle them are crucial.
• Confidence: You’re in the position of building out a function for a reason. Someone saw something in you. Having that quiet confidence is a good thing and will push you forward to that vision you’re aiming for.
• Problem solve/adapt: You’re going to have to experiment and find out what works for you in your situation. I’ve built up functions in different teams and there are different contexts, so you need to adapt and problem solve.

So there are two big sections — where to start and it starts with you. What else would you add?