Managing affirmatively through the 'Great Resignation'

The majority of our QA team has been with the company for over five years and many over ten. Recently, we also, have been impacted by the 'Great Resignation.' Our team is being heavily recruited. At the same time QA is in need of upskilling for a future of increasingly technical and non-functional testing.

Requiring a systematic approach, I developed a repeatable framework to navigate training the current QA team and hiring the quality engineering talent for our future. We have successfully made multiple recent hires with this framework. Also, it is actively directing the design of 2022 training. Attendees will learn how to develop a customized QA skills gap analysis. The framework runs on basic six sigma structure. This incorporates the sum of existing individual strengths, organizational redundancy, and domain expertise. This is then analyzed with skills required for the success of the future QA organization. Inputs include known and anticipated projects, technologies, and capabilities.

Attendees will learn how to create a key deliverable for their recruiting group. The process above requires defining skills of the 'as is' and 'to be' QA team.

Attendees will learn how to design a visualization for communicating training objectives to the team. This tool is critical for the leader of the software quality organization.

Mark Bentsen, QA Manager, ARGO Data

In 2015, Mark was invited into the Advanced Research Center for Software Testing and Quality Assurance at the University of Texas in Dallas (UTD). He presents on QA leadership, KPIs, and root cause analysis in local, national, and international software conferences. Mark is a PMP & CTAL (Full) from ISTQB.

Mark & his wife Melissa are the two time, past President Couple of 'Better Marriages Texas' and have been active in Marriage Enrichment since they said 'I do' in 2001. Prior to working in technology, he worked with YWAM & Mercy Ships in Switzerland and Namibia. He lives in Dallas with his wife and two boys, ages 14 and 18.