We (testers) know, acknowledge and understand that our role is not to be the gatekeeper of the product. We provide information to the [business] stakeholders who can then make a decision based on their (usually) larger world view.

But what if management hasn’t latched onto this idea yet? Or you yourself are just starting to see the light?

Well, that is a bit trickier.

First, I would say that the person you need to talk to is your boss. Not the team, nor your counterpart in development, but the person who holds your job in their hands. Explain your idea of your what your role should be and explore the differences between what they think it should be. Ultimately, their opinion trumps yours. And if you think otherwise, then be ready for an unpleasant review next time around.

Depending on how good you are at manipulating existing structures to your will, you could slowly change their opinion to be the same as yours.

But chances are good that they will say ‘Sorry, you are the QA/Test person and its your job to be in charge of quality’. And short of finding a new job (more on that in a second), well, you are the gatekeeper whether your like it or not. On the upside though, this has been confirmed by management. Never underestimate the power of such a confirmation. You have been given the soapbox to stand on and a stick to wield.

But it only works if you wield them. Remember, you were given approval, instruction actually, to do so.

This I find is not always comfortable for people. Unfortunately, the ability to do so becomes more important the more senior you get. A key characteristic of a test ‘lead’ is the ability to go nose-to-nose with their equal on the dev team and not go hide in the corner with their tail between their legs. But such is the daily agenda of a gatekeeper.

One way I’ve found to head this off is point out what you perceive the role to entail right in the interview process. That way everyone understands what the role is going to be like and both can say ‘no thanks’ if it does not meet the desires of either party.

Being a gatekeeper is one of those things that seems like a fun job requirement as you absolutely have impact on the quality of the product. It is also very stressful since we as testers rarely have all the information about the larger world our software operates in to make a fully informed decision and blame for production failure has an easy target to aim at.