Project-Driven

One way I've typically ran my QA Departments is to make sure that they align with the needs of a project and it's stakeholders.

I have experience leading both centralized QA Departments that not just prioritize their own work but work closely together with Producers and other stakeholders to lend support but also leading Embedded QA and again fostering close relationships with Producers and other Department Leads to ensure QA remains flexible.

Within that experience I have sought to make sure that the QA Department adheres to the following principles:

Flexibility

I think it's important for a QA Department to balance being flexible and accommodating to the ever changing needs of a project while at the same time finding common ground with other stakeholders when there are priorities that QA must focus on for the greater good of the project.

I usually achieve this by running a dedicated QA specific roadmap alongside the production roadmap and make sure they align even in changing circumstances.

There should also be flexibility in the way a product is tested by different testing methodologies whether it's automation, structured test case based testing or exploratory testing.

Specialization

QA Testing comes in different flavors and it's important to diversify these expertise in order to cover QA Testing from various perspectives. However I think there's equally a balance to strike here between specializations which have well established roles within the Industry (such as compliance testing) and making sure that everyone within the QA Department is able to perform certain tests if the need arises.

I achieve this through having awareness of what specializations are available and utilizing them accordingly and knowing what gaps there are within the QA Department and providing training for those or resolving gaps in another way.

Alignment

Creating video games is a very collaborative process and it's important for all stakeholders to align around needs, dependencies and priorities. This I think is particularly important for QA as it is one of the departments that interfaces with the majority of other departments throughout development.

I tend to foster and evaluate this on a regular basis by having conversations with key stakeholders to ensure alignment.

Shared Responsibility

To me "Quality Assurance" has always been a name which perpetuates a false narrative.
I don't believe the QA Department "assures" Quality at all and saying so gives the false impression that the responsibility for a high quality product lies with the QA Department.

I disagree. Within Game Development, everyone should be accountable for its Quality and has the responsibility to drive that Quality within their respective departments.

The QA Department, by its nature, is intimately familiar with how Quality can be defined and measured - and should support all stakeholders with doing so.

Prioritization

Knowing what to test and when and what is important at any given point in development is key.
Knowing how to utilize resources effectively and what to test in-house vs. what to delegate to Outsourced QA is essential. And understanding that priorities can change and being able to adapt is crucial.

I have experience working with production, outsourced QA and other key stakeholders on a project to constantly re-evaluate priorities.

Milestone-Driven

Milestones are essential to align large development teams around a common goal and QA needs to service these goals.

I have experience with maintaining a dedicated QA roadmap that runs in parallel to a production roadmap in order to ensure alignment and focus on whatever is important within a project at any given time.

Scalability

As mentioned, priorities can change and things can happen during development that require QA to be flexible and scalable to adapt to any given situation.

In my experience outsourced QA has a tendency to be much more scalable than in-house QA and I have experience utilizing both effectively and scaling them accordingly based on project needs.