In general, a stakeholder is someone who has an interest or is concerned with the outcome of the project or activity or decision. This could be an individual, a group or an organization. Stakeholders can impact and / or be impacted by the outcome of the project. Test Managers must be able to identify software testing stakeholders and manage them effectively.

The primary responsibility of a Test Manager is to obtain resources like people, infrastructure, hardware, software, etc. and make maximum use of them to perform the testing processes.

These processes are usually part of an internal project led by Engineering or IT managers, which has to deliver the system or software or application to be used internally or externally.

Test Managers are concerned only with the testing processes. As these test processes enhance value of the product by supporting its overall success or averting severe failure, Test Manager needs to plan and control the test activities with this in mind.

The test processes, associated tasks and work products must be arrived at as per the stakeholders requirements, requirement specifications and software development life cycle.

People who are interested in any of the following activities are the testing stakeholders:

• Testing activities on the whole
• Testing work products
• Final product quality

A stakeholder may be involved in any of these ways:

• Explicit or implicit interest in test activities
• Receive test work products
• Explicitly or implicitly affected by the deliverable quality

Who are the stakeholders in a testing process depends on the organization, project, product, etc.

Some of the roles that may be stakeholders include:

• Product development leads, team and managers – They are responsible for implementing the tests, receiving the test results and take actions like fixing bugs based on the results.
• System and Database designers and architects – They design the software, receive test results and take action based on test results.
• Business and marketing analysts – They define the product features and their expected quality. They also contribute in defining test coverage, analyzing test results and taking decisions on the basis of those results.
• Senior-level management, product managers and project sponsors – They contribute in defining test coverage, analyzing test results and taking decisions on the basis of those results.
• Project Managers – They lead their projects to successful completion while achieving the objectives, balancing required quality, maintaining schedules and as per budgets. They are also responsible for acquiring the necessary resources for testing activities and working in coordination with Test Managers in planning, monitoring and controlling test activities.
• Technical, customer and help desk support staff – They provide support to the customers and end-users who use the delivered software.
• Indirect and direct users – They are the users who use the software directly, receive output from the software or get support from the software.

The stakeholders list discussed here is not exhaustive. As a Test Manager you need to identify the stakeholders who are relevant and necessary for your project.

There may be other stakeholders like account managers, business unit heads etc., who are also stakeholders in the project. Apart from the successful deliver of the project, the business unit head may also have an additional interest in the profitability of the project while minimizing the cost of quality and other costs.

Test Manager also needs to evaluate the specific relationship the stakeholder has with the testing process and how the test team is fulfilling the stakeholder’s requirements.

Besides finding the stakeholders, a Test Manager must make a list of other software development life cycle activities and work products that have an effect over or are affected by testing process. If this is not done, the test process may not be able to realize its optimal efficiency.

In the next topic we will learn how software development life cycle activities & work products affect testing.

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