A few weeks ago I was in a discussion with my peers and somebody asked me “hey, what type of manager are you?”. I thought about the question for a brief second and replied “I’m a manager who takes care of his people”. Now this was a very high level answer, with many facets to it.

The People

I take care of the people on my team. I listen to them, speak with them, understand their goals, objectives, and challenges, and help them achieve and overcome them.

I also stand up for the people on my team. I back them up and they know they have my support in matters where they need me. I put them in a position and situations where they can succeed.

One of the most important lessons I learned very early on in my career from my friend and very first mentors Tim Voet, is that when things get ugly, leaders protect their team from having to deal with it when they shouldn’t have to, and when praise and glory comes along, they make sure the team gets it and receives that recognition. This is something I make sure I always do.

The Team

I like to hire good, passionate, people with a positive and good attitude. People who want to learn and be part of something great. That goes a long way. I spend a lot of time with my team, coaching, and providing many of the hands on test training sessions that I teach. These are highly participatory sessions and everyone gets involved and comfortable working with each other, learning from one another, and working well in a team while exchanging test design concepts and ideas.

I teach many different skills, strategies, techniques, design mechanisms, and coach my team on how to apply them in their context.

The Practice

I’m a highly skilled context-driven test professional that has built test practices from the ground up, and help evolve test teams to be effective and provide value in innovative and highly functioning project teams. Every company is different, business goals are different, teams are different, every project is different, every software solution is different. Context matters!

Leading and Managing

I lead and coach the people on my team. I manage the test practice. Skilled software test professionals are smart, intelligent, and extremely capable people. I help people who aren’t fully there yet, get there. I help test teams be fully functioning members of software development teams. I work at companies to manage and build their test practices to add value and help improve the software solutions they deliver.

I work hard, behave and act in an ethical and truthful manner at all times. I communicate clearly and respectfully. I pride myself on professionalism and lead by example.

That’s the type of manager I am.