Any time you attempt to set off on a new path, take a suggestion from your childhood and find a buddy. Even in the corporate world it is a good idea to find someone who can agree with you and back the changes you are hoping to make before you set off down the path. Making the right choice in partners can make all the difference. For a quality assurance professional getting ready to make a change to the overall project or development process usually the best person to get on your side is the project manager. With the PM’s support you can make a lot of change happen fairly quickly on a project by project basis.

Depending on what development model your company uses some form of QA process may already be built in. But, if you find yourself or your team struggling to get what you need to efficiently complete your work on a project then have a heart to heart with the project manager. Find out what the project manager expects from each role, how they envisioned things occurring and then make suggestions that might help the communication or work flow within the project improve.

What changes could your project team as a whole make to improve communication? Do you meet too often or not often enough? Are project meetings open forums where members are allowed to discuss current status and problems or are they just task reminder meetings for the work ahead? As a Quality Assurance professional do you see changes that could be made to facilitate the right people getting the right information at the right time?

- Charity