Section 6 Review

Section 6 built the core team-management skills every QA leadership track eventually needs: hiring for real judgment, making performance reviews genuinely reflect ongoing attention, giving timely and specific feedback, and coaching people toward their own defined goals.

Knowledge Check

Work through these four scenarios before checking the Section 6 Solutions.

Scenario 1: The Checklist Rejection

A hiring manager evaluates every QA candidate against a checklist of 15 specific tools, and a strong candidate with different tool experience but excellent reasoning is rejected. What should the hiring process have assessed instead?

Scenario 2: The Reconstructed Review

A QA Manager writes performance reviews once a year, based on vague, general impressions reconstructed from memory shortly before each review is due. What's missing, and what should change?

Scenario 3: The Six-Month Delay

A QA Lead notices a recurring, specific issue in a team member's bug reports in March but waits until the September review to mention it. What's the cost of this delay?

Scenario 4: The Forgotten Goal

A team member mentioned a career goal in passing eight months ago, and it hasn't come up in any one-on-one since. What practice would have prevented this?

Next: Check your answers against the Section 6 Solutions, then continue to Section 7 — Cross-Functional Leadership.