“When talking about our lead’s performance with Redmond, finally the conversations will always bringing into the topic of working proactive within team. Though the responsibility of different project lead is similar, there will be different output for the leads. There is always difference between good and very good.

What is “proactive”? Being proactive means thinking and acting ahead. The merely "good" project lead understands the basic responsibilities of a project lead. The very good, proactive project lead has internalized these project management responsibilities and makes them a normal part of the project work. Proactive project leads don't perform these duties just because they're required. They perform the responsibilities because they understand that these project management processes give them a much better chance for success.

Suppose that you are a lead, please try to answer below questions

1. Do you like to only accept experienced people because they have been well trained?

2. Do you like to give the new comer a chance to get his feet wet at the first working day?

For the first question, if you answered yes, you may be reactive because many of the practices that a new employee has learned elsewhere may be not fit for your current work. They still need to be re-trained in order to be better employees for your team. For the second question, if you answered yes, you are not very proactive since a proactive lead would recognize that employees cannot be put on the job until they have learned how to do the work correctly.

Another comparison is the way to communication with Redmond team. A good lead may just finish team daily report, listed all issues found during the day and send to Redmond as his routine work. While a proactive lead understands that a status report is the minimum requirement for communicating. A proactive lead will use different ways to proactively determine and fulfill the various communication needs of the project stakeholders, not only limited to mail, but conf call, IM meeting …etc. Being a proactive lead, you should maximize the use of limited resources by making creative decisions and by using the management talent, experience, and common sense available to you. Then you will not work as fire fighters to put out fires that could have been resolved through more effective, proactive planning.

In fact, not only project lead, but our testers should learn the way to be more proactive. Being proactive and positive will bring you to the success of your career.”