[ Paul Gerrard | Will The Test Leaders Stand Up | The Testing Planet issue 10, Page 4, March 2013 , Paywall] paraphrased:
There are five broad choices for you to take if you are a test lead or test manager:
- Provide advice to the business leaders, as an independent agent cajole project leadership and review performance
- Take control of the knowledge required to define and build systems. Demand clarity and precision in requirements
- Help agile projects to recognise and react to risks, coach and mentor and manage testing
- Manage the information flow between the key groups and continuous integration system, control change and delivery
- Manage outsourced and offshore teams, manage relationships
It’s probably 6) All of the above
Complexity is a Matter of Perspective 
Or in some companies, do none of the above and watch anarchy ensue. 😉
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So put another way:
1) measure productivity (and improve, I presume)
2) Quality Control
3) reduce risk uncertainty iteratively
4) communication conduit
5) manage people/teams towards goals.
I agree… mostly. I don’t think there’s much of a future in #2 anymore. Command and control systems aren’t scaling like they used to.
I might offer an alternative to #2, though. Something around Understanding the Customer and Quality through telemetric capabilities.
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https://jlottosen.wordpress.com/2016/10/16/shift-coach/
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[…] Wither the test manager? myself 2013 […]
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[…] Paul Gerrard | Will The Test Leaders Stand Up (2013) pointed out that a future for the test manager could be in Help agile projects to recognize and react to risks, coach and mentor and manage testing (See Wither the test manager) […]
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