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Some of the responsibilities of a team leader is to empower your team with the necessary tools and skill sets so that they can excel at what they do.
According to the State of Quality Report 2024, some of the most prominent challenges QA teams face include a lack of time to ensure quality, difficulty in applying test automation, and frequent changes in requirements.
Training and education is the key to overcoming such obstacles. The end goal is to reduce internal silos and equip your team members with more technical knowledge.
Let’s see how all of that can be done:
Step 1. Assess training needs
Clarify the purpose of the QA Academy. Is it for upskilling, standardizing QA processes, or preparing the team for automation and AI testing? From here you can start to set clear goals and what you want to achieve after the training.
There’s a crucial concept you need to understand here, which is skill gap analysis. The skill gap is the distance between the current competencies of your team and the desired competencies.
Are they lacking in:
- Manual testing
- Automation testing (Selenium, Appium, AI-driven tools, etc.)
- Performance testing
- API testing
- DevOps
Make sure to go beyond the technical skills and also consider soft skill gaps like communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking. To foster transparency, you can create a shared document where all members of the team can share their thoughts and ideas about the goals they want to achieve at the QA Academy.
Step 2. Develop the curriculum
Based on the first draft of your skill gap assessment, you can start developing the curriculum. A recommended framework is to divide your curriculum into “levels” of knowledge:
Level 1: Foundational QA concepts
Level 2: Advanced topics
Level 3: Tools and technology
Level 4: Methodologies
Here’s a simple syllabus for your reference:
Topics | Scope | Observations |
Product Knowledge | Provide QAE knowledge about their projects to understand how they interact with the product and the customer. | E.g.: ‘How does the customer use our products?’, “How do I test the Data Analysis?”. |
Testing Techniques | Cover different test case designs and test techniques such as equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, exploratory testing, ad-hoc testing, and decision table testing. | Practical sessions with hands-on tutorials, e.g., Exploratory Testing with real product features. |
Agile Testing Practices | Discuss how QA fits into Agile methodologies, emphasizing iterative testing, user stories, and collaboration with development teams. | Include case studies from actual sprints or Agile ceremonies where QA plays a critical role. |
Automation Testing & Test Frameworks | Provide hands-on training on using automation tools (e.g., Selenium, Cypress, Katalon, Browserstack, etc.) and frameworks like BDD for automated web testing. Cover test script creation, execution, and reporting. | E.g.: How to start BDD in our automation framework, or Component testing practical session with mixed groups. |
Advanced Automation Techniques | Explore different automation frameworks such as Data-Driven, Keyword-Driven, and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD). | Practical session on building automation test suites using these frameworks; mixed groups of Developers and QAEs. |
API Testing and Automation | Introduction to API testing tools like Postman, Rest-Assured, or JMeter. Provide hands-on sessions for testing APIs, focusing on integration tests and contract testing. | Use real product APIs to test and build automation suites for API testing. |
Performance Testing | Training on tools like JMeter, LoadRunner, or Gatling. Include how to plan, execute, and analyze performance tests, identifying performance bottlenecks. | E.g.: Performance testing for high-traffic scenarios for our web application. |
Step 3. Identify your training resources
Now that you have your syllabus ready, who should be the teacher? Even internal team members can be teachers, as long as they have the required skills! There are 3 types of training resources/mentors for you to consider:
- Internal experts: you can always leverage senior/high-skilled team members within the company to deliver training sessions. It is the most cost-effective approach that, at the same time, helps to foster a learning culture within the organization.
- External experts: a good option is to invite industry experts to hold workshops and/or engaging with educational platforms (e.g. Udemy, Coursera, LinkedIn Learning) for specialized skills. For a tailored learning experience in the QA industry, you can consider automation courses offered by leading QA Academy such as Katalon Academy.
If you want testing certifications, consider ISTQB certification, which is a highly sought-after qualification.
Step 4. Establish learning tracks
Next, you can create structured learning paths based on role and experience levels:
- Beginner: Introduction to QA, manual testing, and defect management.
- Intermediate: Automation frameworks, regression testing, API testing.
- Advanced: Performance testing, security testing, AI-driven test automation, leadership skills.
For example, here are some of the latest learning paths in Katalon Academy:
Step 5. Create a Feedback and Improvement Loop
A challenge many educators face in training and development projects is monitoring and quantifying the effectiveness of the courses. It is recommended that you design a feedback form to collect participants’ thoughts on how the training impacted their work. Track improvements in productivity, defect rates, and overall software quality before and after the training.
