OK, let me start. So um I think you can see my screen. So uh today I'm gonna talk about the C A management, the good, the bad and the beautiful and uh well, I am Karima Solomon. Um I'm gonna start presenting a little bit about myself.So I had uh more than uh 12 years of experience on technology. At the beginning. I just to give you a little uh summary about myself. I had some uh experience uh as a web development for a couple of years after I finished my career and then I started working with quality assurance and then automation. And during all of this time, I was able to work with the child methodologies and I had the great opportunity to have a different leadership roles. I started as a technical lead on Q A and automation. Then I had the opportunity to be a Q A manager and then a Q A uh director. And also I am really uh passionate about supporting the women in tech communities. I am a mentor right now with the in the women tech. So I am really happy to be here and trying to give some insights to the people that is interested in this, in this field. So let's start with the presentation itself. OK.

So, uh in order to talk about the Q A management or the path to, to be a manager or understanding what's the different challenges that the main idea on this presentation is that we can talk about. What's the path that in general you can take? For example, if you are in A Q A um in the Q A field and you were just starting and you wanted to know what's gonna be the next step in your career. You can uh you will start, of course, as a junior Q A, then you can think that you can move uh uh to be um like a mid-level Q A that's gonna be after a couple of years according the company where you're working on and then after you are a mid-level Q A, then uh you can be a senior.

So in general, that's like the generic path that you can, that you can, that you can take in your career as a Q A. But also there is uh some specific uh uh point that for example, you can decide right at some point of your career, sometimes the people think like, OK, I am a senior. Uh should I be a tech lead or should I take this opportunity to be a leader or what can I do to be a leader? Right? That's gonna be the next question that you're gonna have. So basically, uh I put here uh something that I saw occur in my experience that for example, when you are a middle Q A, then if you had the opportunity to be a lead, then you can be at that point, you can start being a tech lead or in other cases when you're growing in your career path as a junior Q A and then move to a mid Q A, then you are a senior.

And then once you are in a senior position, you can also think about being a tech lead, maybe if you had the opportunity. But my main point of this presentation was basically that you can understand if you had the opportunities, which kind of things you should expect if you're taking that path, as you can see whenever you are starting to be a tech lead, maybe at some point, you're gonna be the leader for one team, maybe for or two if you had the opportunity to do it, and then uh you can get uh the option to be a Q A manager.

OK? So one of the main things that you need to consider is that this is not something that you have to do. And that's the main reason of this presentation whenever I had the opportunity to be a, a leader on my teams. And then when I had the opportunity to be a manager, I didn't have some like clear points on what I need to do or what's gonna, what's gonna be in this rule, which kind of challenges I will have or which kind of things I need to do? OK. So uh that's why I wanted to talk about this specific points so that if you had the opportunity to be a tech lead and if you enjoy it and if you like the idea, then you know, at least the things that you can do or that you can consider also something to uh to mention here is that this is not the only path, right?

In this case, I'm talking about the good, the bad and the beautiful uh for um the Q A management. But also during my whole career, I saw a lot of people that they, they want to keep growing as an individual and they don't enjoy the part of leadership, right? And this is something really important because you need to consider that some specific skills or something that you need to, to have inside is that you need to enjoy what you're doing. OK. So for example, if you are a senior and you really enjoy to contribute as an individual and you really enjoy to investigate or having a deeper knowledge on the things that you're doing, that's OK. And that's great. OK? Don't think that if you are a senior, then your next level is gonna be a lead. I saw a lot of people that at some point, they think that they had to do this because they, they are already seniors and they are trying to create the situations where they are frustrated because they don't have the opportunity to be a leader. OK?

So whenever you are a senior, for example, you can keep growing your skills according your product or according your project, right? So it's not something that you had to do, but it's a possible path when it's something that you enjoy. OK. So let's start with the main point on this. Um What's the good? So everybody wants to know what's good whenever you start uh you start on this role. So I try to divide this in two main points talking about the technical part and also talking about personnel because whenever you're taking a management position is not only the experience and the technical reference that you have, of course, you need it uh mainly on this field because you need to provide guidance, right?

Uh But the personal um impact in your career in your life is really important. So that's what I divided both here. So in the first one, in the technical side is that you can actually define Q A processes, right? When you're not manager. And maybe if you are in that position right now, sometimes you want to change something or you realize that some process are not really good enough or maybe they are just taking some time or they are doing something extra. And I don't, no, if you don't have like a good environment where you can talk and you can propose something, then you cannot change the things, right? So whenever you're taking this position, you can actually define new processes, you can improve uh some processes that we already have or we can avoid something that we think are not really useful for the team. Then uh quality assurance is a critical part of software development.

And as a Q A manager, you had the opportunity to ensure that the software uh that your teams are producing meets the highest standards of quality. So that's something that you know, with your knowledge, you're helping to go in that direction, using the processes that you define it, right? Another thing is that you will start working with a cross functional teams. For example, it's not just about whenever you are a leader of your team, for example, a Q A lead on your team, then you had uh uh all the responsibilities about the things that you have in your team. But whenever you start working as a manager, you will have a cross functional teams. It means that you will talk with the stakeholders, probably you will talk with P OS, you will talk with D VA S with another teams, right? So this is gonna help you a lot also on increasing your uh collaboration skills. That's something that I put it on the personal side also, then another good thing is that it's gonna be your responsibility to deliver the software on time, right? Uh in general, when the we are delivering the things working as expected and on time, that's something really important. And uh I think that's a good uh point to consider here.

Then you are also ensuring that you have high quality products that for example, you don't have too many outages that you don't have too many customer bags and you can measure that kind of things according to the products that you have. And another important point on the technical side is that you can take the decision on the tools and the technologies. Sometimes if we take some framework or we decided to work on some specific approach five years ago, maybe the things are not as it is right now, right? So as a manager, you had the decision making on your side and you can actually take the decision on some tool, you can propose an upgrade, you can propose some Po CS, right? So everything is gonna be on your side and you can have um a different options and you can choose what's better for your team on the personal side. Uh It's really important that well, it's a promotion, right? So it's really good, you feel really good. But as I said, it's not something that you had to take because you had to take. Ok, so a leadership promotion is something that you had to enjoy. You had to enjoy, um, uh coaching people, you had to enjoy having people around and trying to train them and you have to understand that it's not gonna be that you are taking the credit for them when they are doing something great. Right?

It's in the other side is that when something is going great, you will put all of your team and all of your people in front of everything great that they did. But when something goes wrong, it's your face who's gonna go and fight for your team if something happened, right? So um it's a promotion so you can feel good about it. Of course, then as I said before, as you're working with cross functional teams, you will increase your collaboration skills because it's not just about your teams and the people that you around and maybe you had more confidence in talking, right? It's gonna be different teams and you need to go and talk. Sometimes you need to uh discuss about something, right? Or you need to push about some timeline or something like that. So you are uh improving that skills and collaboration too. Then whenever we talk about motivate, I'm talking about that you can motivate your people, right? Your new people. Yeah, the people that it's many years with you, right? You need to understand what they are doing because right now, you know, with the one on ones and any meeting that can create this close connection with your people is going to motivate them. So that's gonna be uh something great that you can have.

You can train the new people on the team. You can understand which kind of questions they have, which kind of things need to be improved. Whenever they started, you can encourage your people to grow in their professional careers, in their personal uh uh issues also, right? Whenever you had your people, you can coach them. I give the previous presentation last year about this topic. And the best thing is that you keep learning, right? Because all the time you're listening, your people, they had new ideas and they had the different visions about the things that you're doing. So that's great. And then you can provide guidance because you had a lot of experience in different fields. You something to mention I think is that you don't have to be the person that knows more in the room, right? You need to have the correct person that has the technical reference that you need. But you can provide guidance whenever somebody is taking some decision or the team is trying to improve something. And uh you can actually define a line there according to what you saw or the errors that you, that you make in the past, for example. So those are the points that I consider um really important. If you think about the good things on the role. But also of course, we need to talk about the but not everything. It's a bed of roses, right? So I try to put also a list.

Um the things that actually I saw that, um you know, some people say don't look at this as something bad, maybe it's more like a challenge. Ok? But it's also something kind of complicated whenever you are in this position. So, one of the main challenges that I saw is that, you know, when you are a manager or a care manager, you can have limited resources. And when I'm talking about limited resources is about everything, right? Maybe uh as I mentioned, there, you can have five deadlines, right?

So you don't have time enough or you don't have enough people to do what somebody wants or you don't have the the resources, the machines, the I don't know the V MS that you need or the uh I don't know all the different resources for an implementation that you know, that you need, but maybe you can't and then you had to deal with it and you had to make it work with the things that you have, right?

And sometimes uh you will have all the budget that you want, right? But in reality is that sometimes you have to see it and think about what's gonna be the best strategy to use with the things that you have. So that's a, a big challenge then uh conflicting with priorities. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority, right? So it's a problem when you had the stakeholders and when you had the technology side asking for something and when, I don't know, let's think about different scenarios, right? So I don't know, you had an attack on security, different things and suddenly you had to understand what's the main priority and you need to drive your team and trying to get the best results on that. And it's not always easy. Then as many of you may know, there is some resistance to Q A uh because they see testing as a bottleneck and sometimes you have to go and fight for it because they are not listening your guys or maybe you have a lot of pressure to deliver the software quickly or faster than you planned, right?

So those are on the technical side, on the personal, I'm gonna say that you had multiple contexts and that's not if you think about it, it's good and it's challenging that you can take different things. But whenever you're recovering too much, you cannot go deeper uh in the things that, that, that you want or you cannot understand too many things as you wish so that you can help. So I think that's something that you had to deal with. It's part of the job. But um you know, you had to be ready for it, then you're moving from an operative to administrative and it means that you will have meeting after meeting your life is gonna be meetings and something that I really didn't enjoy too much is that, you know, some, sometimes the people need you and they are like, hey, can I talk to you now?

And you're in a meeting? Right? And you are, and you cannot, uh, I don't know, it's a mini meeting with upper management or something like that and you need to ask your people to wait a little bit, right? And then that's something that I, I saw that too many meetings is something that I need in my role. But uh it's not something that can help me too much, you know, to stay with my guys, et cetera, but it's something that you have to do. You change from doing the testing to going to meetings and defining something. Another um uh a point is the under performing team members. So whenever you have a problem with a person that is not doing well or is not doing as the team is expecting, right? We had to define like a plan and we, we need to work with the person, we need to coach them, we need to teach them something that they don't know. But um at the end of the day, you need to put some timeline there, right? So you are doing your part as a manager or as a leader trying to help the person on the things that the person needs. But unfortunately, if the person is not improving or is not enough for the team, then the, the thing is gonna be to, to let the people go. Right. And that's something that I think nobody enjoyed that part.

And personally I don't enjoy that part, but that's also part of the role. Right? If something is not working, somebody is not doing the job that they had to do, the team is all the time pushing or complaining about this person, then you need to let them go. But of course, if you have like a close relationship with your people, whenever this decision is taken, it's not gonna be a surprise, right? Because the person already knows that, that they, they had to, to improve and they couldn't. And also you have to see people leave people that you really like that you really enjoy working with and they take another opportunities and they, they had to go and sometimes you can, you cannot do anything about it. OK? So those are the points that I think uh everybody needs to consider and I think I only have three minutes. I'm gonna jump quickly to the beautiful because we cannot just take what is bad or what was really challenging from the role. So what I consider beautiful is that when you succeed uh in ensuring that the software meets the quality and standards and is delivered on time, it can be incredibly satisfying and rewarding, right? Because you're doing your job, everybody's happy. All the team is happy, right?

So that's great to feel in that way. And then you can also innovate and improve the testing process because actually, as I said before, you had, you can take that decision and at some point, you can say, OK, let's change this, let's do something new, let's try something that nobody else tried before and it sounds crazy.

But if your people is asking for it, maybe it's worth to try it, right? And maybe you can, you can have amazing results on that. And then uh you can increase the efficiency and the effectiveness for your Q A team, right? And in general, it's gonna be all the credit for Q A whenever they are doing great and in the personal side, your people is gonna be happy, right? And whenever you are building this strong relationship with your team members, you know, that's something that it feels really good because the people trust in you, maybe you will be the first person that they are saying if they are leaving, they will have the confidence enough to talk to you even about any other kind of opportunities.

You can see new people full of energy and then you can have the decision making. And I think something really important. And the main reason of this conference is that you can have your voice in the room. I think it's really important that sometimes we're, we're not talking too much, right? When we are starting on this kind of positions we are trying to learn. But at some point, you know, you can speak up and you can say you can, I, I don't know, you can even complain about something when you don't agree with that. I mean, that's not bad. Right. Uh, so you had your voice in the room and you have the opportunity to give opportunities. So I think that's amazing because whenever you are, you are the sponsor of somebody else, right, you can give the choice to, to someone else to grow or to take some other new uh steps on their careers. So just to finish this and after II, I tried to put all the, all the points in the time that I had.

So, um now is your turn to decide, as I said before, if you had the opportunity uh to, to, for example, um be a leader or take that path that I've mentioned at the beginning and, and you really enjoy the leadership, then take that step if you know already, which kind of things you will have in your career.

And if you don't enjoy that part and you think that you really don't want that, that's OK too, right? So both parts are great. So you can decide according what, what is making you happy. OK. So basically that's all that I have. I, I try to put here my account on Twitter and also on linkedin so that you can contact me. And if you had any questions, uh I don't know, I think we don't have time right now to do it. But please uh you can send me a message on linkedin. And as I said, I am um as a mentor on the community right now, you can also contact me there and whenever I can help you in something, uh feel free to, to contact me. So I think that that will be all. Um I, I just see one question here about what Q A stands for, it's for uh quality assurance. So I'm talking about the quality assurance management and yeah, I didn't see any other questions here. But please, if you had any, anything else or about Q A about automation or about any, any leadership questions, feel free to reach out to me. And thank you, thank you very much for being here to, to come to my presentation. And yeah, let's continue with the rest of the presentations in the, in the event. Thank you, everybody.