Testing Manager - Don't try to create a control culture

Testers often receive, and give, detailed advice about how projects should be managed. I think that much of that is naive. The worst and most dogmatic of it comes from testers and consultants whose product development experience is limited to testing(or otherwise measuring or evaluating) the work of others.

Testers often see projects at their worst. Testers face the consequences of poor and incomplete decisions and half-done tasks, without noticing the planning and work that allowed the product to get as good as it is. What appear to be poor and incomplete decisions are often thoughtful business decisions with which you disagree. It is easy to believe that you know better and would do it better.

Some processes make it easier or harder for testers. However, a competent test group can provide solid service to a wide range of project managers, who work under very different project management styles, including the inconvenient ones and the ones that make the testing part of the project less efficient.

Some processes seem dstined to produce bad products. This is serious problem; someone should manage this. Unfortunately the worst group to manage this is the testing group. Testing group don't have the resources, the experience, or the political power to fix the broader development processes or to manage the fixed processes.

I am not saying that you(the human being who is doing testing today) should learn your place and stay it. Far from that, I encourage you to expend your role and influence in the company. If you want to and have the competence to manage the project manager, do so. But do that job from an appropriate role - as the project manager's manager. It's not the role of the test manager.