One of the key challenges Test managers facing these days is addressing the training needs when the budget is tight. Planning for the growth of your team is even more important now in this rapidly changing agile market. To keep up with the demands of the market, employees are more interested in acquiring new skills and hence expect the organization to provide trainings. In the absence these, good employees leave the organizations in no time. But for the managers, reality sucks. It is not always easy to plan for costly trainings for your team members mainly due to budget constraints or number of approvals needed. In these circumstances, what the test manager should do? Well, there are various ways by which the manager can plan for knowledge improvement and a feeling of accomplishment for his team member
Plan for informal trainings
A test manager can increase the skills present in the team by organizing informal trainings. Every organization is full of experts in various subject areas. Test manager in collaboration with project managers/ program managers and HR can plan for informal trainings for the team members. This has several benefits. Firstly, it improves the relationship between the senior and the new members. Secondly, more often than not the trainings in such occasions are more work oriented instead of being theoretical. Thirdly, for the persons conducting the courses it often provides the opportunities to showcase their talent and skills and hence a great motivator.
Cross trainings
Cross trainings also help a lot in improving the morale of the employees. Most testers are enthusiastic people; they want to learn different things. Assigning the testers to different groups when they are not billable for learning or providing help in any possible manner improves the relationship between different groups or members.
Economical online trainings
Not all the trainings are very costly. Companies like Udemy.com are providing excellent courses in minimal cost. Test managers can plan for these types of online trainings where cost is a concern and skill is a mandatory requirement.
Mentoring
Mentoring is an effective technique to improve the capability of an employee especially when the areas of improvement for her have been identified. The senior members in the organization can act as mentors for the team. This often works very well for people have great willingness and less ability. However, it works equally for people looking for refining or improving their skills in certain areas by collaborating with senior staffs.
Needless to say, all these should be linked to the performance management and appraisal systems.
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