We received the following question from one of our readers – I’m a Senior Tester, I have been with my company for 8 months. I have 4.5 years of experience. My project lead doesn’t allocate enough time for testing. We get last minute builds from developers, we work late nights/weekends to complete testing.

This happens in all releases. I have brought it up with him earlier but he just says that it’s how the projects are & we have to adjust with it. Other team members are also burnt out but they stay quiet fearing that it may impact their appraisals. How can I handle this?

Surprisingly, several QA Leads and QA Managers themselves suggested leaving the organization and quitting it.

Some Managers also suggested escalating the issue to senior management, showing how the quality is getting impacted etc.

A lot of visitors gave very interesting and helpful suggestions about using agile methodology, risk based testing, automation etc to avoid issues in the project.

If you are facing burnout in your job or getting last minute builds for testing, we hope you will find the answers useful.

Some of the answers are below.

• Please raise this issue with the higher management . If you are not getting enough time for testing, then it may be possible that the product developed with the equal amount of efforts from tester and developers would be of a very poor quality.
• In planning, mentioning  and detailing the different activities including very small activity is also important. when he starts giving time or estimating across all activities,there will be a clear idea he can see. ask for the process of test strategy doc
• Do some estimation correctly and show the same to your manager and get approval and act accordingly
• Convince and go for RBT – Risk Based Testing Strategy.
• You will tell to PM that if you test this application at evening it was just test roughly so may be some of the critical scenario missing (it just tested as positive)
  so need to test that application in  the next day so its good to company as well as team
• Should try to adjust sprint time to accommodate testing time if your place practices agile. Talk to the dev team and possibly Scrum Master if the PM is also acting as a scrum role. More info is needed.  Like what types of apps (React, Angular, java, etc),
• Just look for job change if u have talent and skills u can survive anywhere
•  First of all – During sprint planning select less tasks.
  If PM will say that the spring scope should be the same then:
  • Ask for scaling of the testing team.
  • Less work with documentation.
  • Just prioritized testing.
• This is not the right approach of SDLC, if they don’t give importance to testing and leave it to the last minute that is the case of poor planning
• I would discuss these issues in your retrospective (where I assume the project lead is not present) and have the scrum master pick this up as an impediment with the project lead.
• Quit and join an organisation who follows agile methodology with feel-free work culture. Simple!
• Famous quote, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
  Furthermore, FIGHT for your weekends. Tell them you are out of town and are not available due to poor scheduling or release issues.
• Look for another job, that’s what i would say or speak to your Scrum Master
• Increase the No of resources , do automation
• Try to find better solution for testing and tell him that like a suggestion for the improvement of the testing team. Giving better solution will always make good. Talk with the project manager about the last minute build, tell him to make proper time set.
• Escalation to the senior management, simple solution.
• Put paper and get rid of that organisation
• Better don’t give signoff saying testing is not completed since build was not provided on time and loop in directors and all
• Do the best from your end. Don’t bother what ever things. If you bother those things then you loose your interest of work. Just focus on your work & note your doubts. Clarify with your superior or colleague. Finally try to find related job profile.
• Had the same problem, only thing you can do is to move on. “Thank you, next” 🙂 – they dont do our work so they don’t get to understand. Good luck
• You should talk to your project manager regarding this. If project manager doesn’t listen you can talk to HR regarding this.
• I think, you can choose the Agile-model for developing when the developing and testing are carrying out in the same time
  Good luck!
• Try to convince him that it’s necessary using some facts or find a better place or have a talk with bigger boss
• 1.Prepare your test plan, run plan with tentative days of time required for execution and share it your next level superior to negotiate the time for test execution
  2.Explain the consequences of allocating less time for testing ie.poor quality, production issues and budget and release date extension due to issues.
• Hi, In my company we are using the JIRA tool. It is like two weeks sprint. Every Monday we have meetings with client, manager, PM. In That meeting, we have discussion about the two weeks sprint stories.
• Hi. This is usually happens with start up companies. What you should do is have a test plan where smoke testing should be taken as priority, this will help decide whether build is testable or not then sanity testing and regression test
• Apply for other jobs and quit when you get better opportunity
• Explain that you don’t want to burn out and are going to work less overtime. Give suggestions on how they can help. If they don’t improve anything, refuse to work overtime and go home at 5. If that still doesn’t work, you should probably find another job.
• Unfortunately the only way to correct this poor behavior is to escalate to your management, his management, the customer or anyone who cares about the quality of the product is being delivered.  Document issues/risks in project repository and test plan.
• Find another place where they get the idea about what and when to test and how quality is produced. you cant change people but you can change your self.
• Ask the manager what He/She will choose between the 2 choices
  1) Give less time for testing by breaking some testing policies and get 75-80 % success
  2) Give adequate time for testing by following all testing policies and get 95-99.99 % success.
• By priority management! Any late change in the project shall result in a priority assessment. Then the new added task will results in a overload regarding the project plan and schedule. If the new added implementation or task is more important from
• 1) Help make the user stories and their acceptance criteria more clear, so that this will be easier to implement for a developer 2) assess quality risk and test effort for each user story. Only low risk development should be done at the end.
• Because of one person they cannot change his timeline an way they work you should go with automation testing or change the job if automation is not possible
• Test early and use parameterization.  Keep in mind the DRY method when writing test cases…Don’t Repeat Yourself
• Look for another job.
• Try to approach him politely by subjecting if you guys could hire more testers
• I would say your projects lack proper planning and also think your project lead doesn’t value your role. You need to make him understand that due processes need to be followed and probably attempt using Agile methodology for project delivery. All the best
• Plan to test the previous release more deeply and assume a risk for the current release.
  Or release less versions with more functionalities. The team will have more time to focus on each release.
• Hi, i recommend to get involved from the beginning of the project, prioritize (context dependency) what need to be tested and use automation tools (for documentation and/or testing).
  These are only recommendations because each project- team is unique.
• Pen down the loop holes before your sprint begins or at the very start when you being shared with the requirements.
  Address everyone with risk and discuss the same in the forum. And all your concern should be addressed to whomsoever responsible to answer
• Learn new things and wait for any new project otherwise leave the org
• Be calm and Learn  Pressure handling techniques. Become robust.
• You should make your own testing estimate. Let your project lead analyse it. If he rejects it with no reason just stop working overtime) and change company, team, project lead.
• You should inform Senior manager
• I would suggest –
  1) follow agile process.
  2) prepare your test case as soon as you get the specification.
  3) since the main concern is that you get last minute build, I would suggest you to use automation to verify test cases.
• It sounds like the time is taken away by development.  How is that the project lead’s fault?