How Dare You not Test the Product?

I see this very often. A screenshot of something ridiculous that has made it’s way to Production. Usually it is an issue that the team has missed to fix it. Unfortunately the first reaction is to blame someone than quickly fix it. Often fingers get pointed to the Product Manager because how dare they? I’m not trying to channel Greta Thunberg Everyone in a product team needs to be responsible for testing the product instead of depending on QA or Producthere. However the one thing that seems to be similar is that testing the product and responsibility towards causing issues that impact climate change negatively is a collective responsibility. 

Source: Screenshot of Amazon purchase

The final product is everyone’s responsibility.If you are part of an organisation where you raise your hands MasterChef style after completion of your part ,then that is troublesome for both the product and your org. The product is fortunately or unfortunately everyone’s collective responsibility. If the product manager does see an incorrect label or copy in the mockups created by the designer, she should not be waiting for QA to point it out. Similarly if an extremely common sensical mistake is discovered by the developer ( e.g a spelling mistake) they don’t need to wait for someone from Product or QA to point it out. 

Source: foodsided.com

In large organisations there are separate functions and processes to make sure unit tests, regression tests and user acceptance tests happen properly. And in smaller enterprises you may come across smaller teams where many of these functions do not exist. In my last startup, we had no designer and no QA. While I did own these responsibilities as a Product Manager, the developer would still correct some obvious mistakes on her own instead of waiting for me to point it out. To be honest, we just didn't have time for “ It’s not my job”. While everybody has their own role, some responsibilities overlap and in this case it is testing the product thoroughly. So if the final product has some glaring issues that could have been fixed/pointed out by anyone in the lifecycle scheme of things, then it is everyone’s fault, not just QA or Product.

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