Why Moving from QA to Delivery Management Made Sense

It's been a good number of years since I made the conscious decision to move into a delivery role. I thought it was a good time to reflect on it.

My move from QA/Test Engineering into Delivery Management wasn’t a departure from quality - it was an expansion of how I wanted to influence it.

For a long time, my focus was clear: protecting customers from poor experiences, ensuring systems behaved as expected, and helping teams ship software they could be proud of. Quality was tangible. You could test it, verify it, and sign it off.

Delivery management, at first glance, can feel further removed from that hands-on assurance. But over time, I realised something important: delivery leadership is one of the most powerful places to influence quality - if you choose to see it that way.

Quality Is Not a Phase, It’s a Culture

In QA, quality is often seen as a responsibility. In delivery management, it becomes a capability.

I’ve seen firsthand that no amount of testing can compensate for:

• Unclear goals

• Rushed timelines

• Poor communication

• Lack of ownership

• Teams operating under constant pressure

As a delivery manager, I’m now able to influence the conditions that enable or erode quality. That means shaping ways of working, protecting teams from unnecessary noise, and helping leaders understand the real cost of cutting corners.

Quality outcomes are usually decided long before testing begins.

Encouraging Good Practice at the Team Level

My background in QA strongly shapes how I work with teams.

I care deeply about:

• Building quality in early, not inspecting it later

• Encouraging shared ownership of quality across roles

• Creating space for learning, experimentation, and improvement

• Making quality visible through meaningful outcomes, not just metrics

Rather than prescribing processes, I focus on helping teams discover what good looks like for them, and why it matters to their customers. When teams understand the impact of their work, quality stops being a checklist and becomes a mindset.

Influencing Leadership Without Losing the Detail

One of the biggest shifts moving into delivery management is operating more frequently at the leadership level. This is where my QA background remains invaluable.

I can help translate technical risk into business language. I can challenge optimistic delivery plans with evidence. I can ask the uncomfortable questions early - before they become problematic later down the line.

Encouraging good practice at a leadership level often means:

• Shifting conversations from outputs to outcomes

• Making risk and quality trade-offs explicit

• Helping leaders see teams as systems, not resources

• Advocating for sustainable delivery over short-term wins

Quality advocacy doesn’t disappear as you move roles - it simply changes shape.

Delivering Quality Services to Clients Still Matters

Despite the change in role, one thing hasn’t changed: my passion for delivering high-quality services to clients.

Clients shouldn't have to worry about how we structure ourselves, what ceremonies we have, or the delivery models we follow. They experience reliability, usability, responsiveness, and trust. Delivery management gives me the opportunity to influence all of these - by aligning teams, managing expectations, and ensuring we deliver what actually matters.

Good delivery is not just about hitting dates. It’s about creating confidence through transparency and trust.

Why This Transition Made Sense

Moving from QA into delivery management has allowed me to scale my impact. Instead of improving quality one test or one release at a time, I can now help shape environments where quality emerges naturally.

I still care about the details. I still care about the customer. I still care about doing things properly.

I just influence them differently now.

On Reflection

This transition has reinforced a belief I hold strongly: quality and delivery are not competing concerns or isolated activities - they are connected.

When teams are trusted, supported, and clear on their purpose, quality improves. When leadership understands the true cost of poor practice, better decisions follow. And when delivery is approached with integrity, clients feel it.

For me, delivery management isn’t a move away from quality. It’s how I champion it - at scale.