If Nobody Owns It, Nobody Does It

Three engineers. All assumed someone else was handling the instrumentation calibration.

Test day arrived. Nobody had done it. The test window slipped a week.

This happens more than anyone admits.

The test plan says "Test Engineer" is responsible. But which one? Who reviews the data? Who signs off on readiness? Who owns squawk resolution?

When the answer is "the team," the answer is nobody.

You don't need a 50-row RACI matrix. One page that answers three questions for every key decision:

Who makes the call. Not "engineering." A name.

Who provides input before the decision.

Who gets informed after.

Test readiness. Data review. Anomaly disposition. Configuration verification. These are the moments where ambiguity costs schedule.

The fix takes 30 minutes at program start. Write down the names. Get agreement. Keep it visible.

It's not complicated. It's just rarely done.

Where This Breaks Down Most Often

In my experience, role ambiguity hits hardest at three points in a test program:

Test Readiness. Who has the authority to say "we are ready to test"? On some programs, the test engineer assumes the project engineer will make the call. The project engineer assumes the test engineer already confirmed readiness. Neither one formally declares it, and the test proceeds with open items that should have been caught.

Anomaly Disposition. A squawk comes up during test. Who decides whether to continue, pause, or retest? If there's no predefined authority, this becomes a committee discussion. Committee discussions take days. Days cost test windows.

Data Review and Approval. The test is complete. Data is collected. But who reviews it? Who approves the results? Who determines if a retest is needed? Without clear ownership, test reports sit in draft for weeks because nobody is officially responsible for closing them out.

The One-Page Fix

A simple roles table at the front of your test plan solves this. Three columns: Decision Point, Decision Authority (name), Supporting Input (names). Cover the 8-10 key decisions in your test program.

This isn't about bureaucracy. It's about making sure the right person knows they're the right person — before it matters.

The Test Plan template in the Test & Validation Essentials Bundle includes a roles and responsibilities section built for exactly this — key decision points mapped to named owners.

Get the Test & Validation Essentials Bundle → https://solriseengineering.gumroad.com/l/tier1-testvalidationessential