Library › Book 23 › Influencing Without Authority
Influencing Without Authority
18.1🔒The QA Influence ProblemQA engineers face a unique influence challenge: the quality of the software depends on other people's behavior. You can design the best…
18.2🔒The Six Sources of InfluenceAdapted from the "Influencer" framework, these are the six levers you can pull to change behavior:
18.3🔒Practical Influence TacticsWeak: "I think we need more time for testing." Strong: "In the last 3 sprints, we shipped 4 critical bugs to production. Two of them were…
18.4🔒Influence MapsAn influence map helps you identify who to influence and through whom.
18.5🔒ExercisesBeginner: Identify one quality practice you want to influence (e.g., code review testability checks, unit test requirements, or test…
18.6🔒Q&AResume phrasing- Drove adoption of unit testing practices across 4 development teams by building influence maps, pairing with willing developers, and…
18.7🔒Q&ACover letter framingQA's effectiveness depends entirely on influencing other people's behavior -- developers writing tests, product managers defining testable…
18.8🔒Q&AInterview framing"I approach influence by solving the other person's problem, not mine. When I want developers to write unit tests, I do not frame it as a…
18.9🔒Q&AWhat not to say- "Developers just do not care about quality" -- blames others without taking responsibility for influencing the outcome. - "I escalate to…
18.10🔒Q&AQuestion 1Prompt: A senior developer on a team you do not manage refuses to let QA review their pull requests, saying their code is thoroughly…
18.11🔒Q&AQuestion 2Prompt: You want to implement a "quality gate" in the CI/CD pipeline that blocks deployment if critical test thresholds are not met…
18.12🔒Q&AQuestion 3Prompt: You are the only QA engineer on a cross-functional team of 8 developers. The team culture treats testing as an afterthought. How do…