AI might dominate today’s conversations, but how can QA stay relevant by driving meaningful improvements—no matter the focus? True QA transformation isn’t about chasing the latest tools or technologies—it’s about learning how to lead initiatives that create measurable, long-term impact, whether it’s AI, process optimization, automation, or any other area of quality enhancement. Teams often recognize the need for improvement, yet progress stalls. Customer frustrations grow, leadership questions QA’s value, and testing remains reactive. The challenge? Guiding efforts that gain traction, produce meaningful results, and align with business goals. When I became QA Manager, I faced the same struggles. Simply advocating for change wasn’t enough—I needed a systematic way to define, implement, and assess initiatives that resonated with both teams and leadership. To address this, we developed a results-driven approach using OKRs to introduce impactful, business-aligned practices. In this session, I’ll share how to: • Align QA with Business Goals: Introducing user-centric testing based on real behaviors helped testers uncover gaps missed by traditional test cases. A Test Environment Stability Initiative further reduced CI failures, ensuring stable demos and faster releases. • Secure Leadership Buy-In: Reframing QA outcomes with business-focused metrics—like fewer escalations and more predictable delivery cycles—kept leadership informed with regular updates. • Engage Teams Effectively: Connecting testers with real customer insights, sparked creativity, enabling better test design, and fostering ownership. Additionally, I’ll show how AI tools can be used to recommend relevant objectives and validate OKRs generation, reducing planning time and freeing team to focus on execution. This isn’t just about isolated success stories—it’s about sharing a practical, repeatable method for driving change across any QA initiative. While my examples illustrate the approach, the real takeaway is gaining knowledge that you can apply in any context. As the saying goes: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” By the end of this session, you’ll have the tools to plan, implement, monitor, and deliver initiatives that bring value today and ensure QA’s relevance into the future.