Embracing Change: From Tester to Quality Coach

A presentation at Ministry of Testing Cork Meetup by Areti Panou

What would happen if the QA suddenly left your team? @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 2

Where I was “team of 10” Agile DevOps culture Daily deployments On-demand feature releases Team testing @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 3

What I was doing Testing Coaching testing Quality engineering @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 4

What else I was doing Testing Coaching testing Corporate Quality Management System (QMS) compliance Quality engineering @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 5

And then, I left the team Testing Coaching testing Corporate Quality Management System (QMS) compliance Quality engineering BYE BYE! @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 6

@charrett on Twitter @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 7

Shaping new Quality Coaches ONCE UPON A TIME… QUALITY Teaching WHY? WHY NOT? Mentoring PLAN A Coaching PLAN B Hands-on Advising @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 8

What would happen if the QA suddenly left your team? How can you influence quality beyond testing How can you distribute quality efforts How can you prepare to involve others @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 9

How can you influence quality beyond testing Analyse each step of your deployment pipeline Seek customer input Expose obstacles @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 11

Analyse each step of your deployment pipeline Purpose Alerting Importance Automation Trustworthiness Dependencies Duration Expansion Maintainability Frequency @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 12

How can you influence quality beyond testing Analyse each step of your deployment pipeline Seek customer input Expose obstacles Look into the value of each step and seek to optimize it @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 13

Seek customer input • Identify all channels of communication • Calculate the time interval until it reaches the right person • Analyze the reasons of the negativity • Bring attention to what normal looks like • Analyze customer behaviour after big changes • • Come up with ways to know that your users are still happy • Get insights on the things they like the most Organize user-shadowing @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 14

How can you influence quality beyond testing Analyse each step of your deployment pipeline Look into the value of each step and seek to optimize it Seek customer input Expose obstacles Utilize what your users think when they are sad, happy or neutral @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 15

Expose obstacles Company policies Lack of knowledge External dependencies No access to customers @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 16

Sharing inspiration @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 18

How can you distribute quality efforts Identify quality tasks Look for hidden activities that are in no job description Discuss quality tasks Share ownership of quality tasks @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 21

Discuss quality tasks Purpose Document Create tickets Automation Importance Dependencies Knowledge @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 22

How can you distribute quality efforts Identify quality tasks Discuss quality tasks Look for hidden activities that are in no job description Optimize the work by engaging the knowledge of the team Share ownership of quality tasks @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 23

Rinse and repeat Identify quality tasks Share ownership of quality tasks Discuss quality tasks @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 25

Show the benefits of engagement in quality @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 26

How can you prepare Look beyond the things that threaten quality and pursuit steps that build it in your product. @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 28

How can you prepare Release control of quality assurance and embrace quality enablement. @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 29

How can you prepare Trust your team to do quality work as well as take care of the overall quality. @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 30

New class of Quality Coaches has the team’s back We influence quality beyond testing We distribute quality efforts We prepare to involve others @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 32

There is always room for improvement We influence quality beyond testing We distribute quality efforts We prepare to involve others What else can we do? @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 33

Thank you. Contact information: Areti Panou Product Owner – Internal Program Management Tools @unremarkableQA unremarkabletester.com areti.panou@sap.com

References • https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35747076-accelerate • https://www.angryweasel.com/ABTesting/modern-testing-principles/ • https://testingindevops.org/ • http://dearauditor.org/ • https://www.impactmapping.org/index.html • https://www.ministryoftesting.com/ @unremarkableQA © 2019 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. ǀ PUBLIC 36

Areti Panou
@unremarkableqa

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What would happen if the person that is doing the quality assurance in your team suddenly left? Would the team be able to continue delivering features uninterrupted? Or would there be unforeseeable delays?

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Buzz and feedback

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In her job as quality coach, @unremarkableQA helped people on different teams learn to be quality coaches. Mentoring, sharing her experiences, working alongside them. #MinistryCork @MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
A shout out to @charrett from @unremarkableQA in tonights meetup in @MinistryCork pic.twitter.com/V1xGWkRKIg
— Heather Reid (@heather_reiduff) February 13, 2020
Shout out to @charrett's definition of a quality coach by @unremarkableQA in her @MinistryCork talk (is there a hash tag for this?) pic.twitter.com/SF7Vo66Ewi
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
95 people on crowdcast enjoing @unremarkableQA talk on coaching and great attendance in the workbench.
— MinistryofTestCork (@MinistryCork) February 13, 2020
@ministryoftest Cork members enjoying pizza before @unremarkableQA talk on Quality Coaching. pic.twitter.com/AZXMLGX7JJ
— MinistryofTestCork (@MinistryCork) February 13, 2020
@ministryoftest Cork February Meetup
Thank @unremarkableQA for delivering a fantastic talk on coaching, to all those who attended in the workbench and the 100+ who joined on crowdcast.
Follow us on Meetup and Twitter
Meetup: https://t.co/WEAsk5hfK1
Twitter: @MinistryCork pic.twitter.com/ALOl4fwRXN
— MinistryofTestCork (@MinistryCork) February 13, 2020
Great presentation from the remarkable @unremarkableQA https://t.co/TkVbJIiHXI
— Mags (@3weststreet) February 13, 2020
If you don't have buy-in for experiments & change from the teams & mgmt, you don't have a good chance for success. If you can get buy-in from the team, you might be able to sway mgmt to try it more widely. Show some results. @unremarkableQA @MinistryCork #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Patience, endurance, sneakiness, being open to know things outside of your comfort zone, letting go of control. Knowledge will come because you have a plan, just go for it - some of @unremarkableQA's tips for what aspiring quality coaches need.
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Coaches question the status quo, but they aren't the only ones who care about quality - both internal and external. Keep trying to improve, use what you learn from others! @unremarkableQA @MinistryCork #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Influence quality beyond testing. Distribute quality efforts & ownership. Do we need a quality coach? @unremarkableQA says, probably yes, to help the rest of the team get thinking about quality and how to build it in. @MinistryCork #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Look for action items to work on. Build on lessons learned. I like @unremarkableQA's positive and collaborative approach. She says you have to let go of having control (or the illusion of it) over QA and embrace "quality enablement". @ministrycork #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
How to influence dev team to engage in quality and testing? It is more work, they aren't used to it. Show them how it will help improve their day-to-day work. For example - being able to fix bugs much faster. @unremarkableQA @MinistryCork #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
🦾🦾 story by @unremarkableQA her journey on becoming a quality coach for a team
Analyze each step for deployment pipelines and she took care of below 👇
Purpose
Importance
Trustworthy
Duration
Maintainability
Frequency
Expansion
Automation
Alerting
🤘🤘🤘
— Trisha Chetani (@trisha_1212) February 13, 2020
Talk about quality tasks and attributes, AND document the knowledge so everyone has access going forward. @unremarkableQA @MinistryCork #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Some of @unremarkableQA's go-to resources - so happy to see @TestingInDevOps community site in there - check out Areti's awesome guest blog post there! #MinistryCork @MinistryCork (and +1 on all these!) pic.twitter.com/jcCBNgmQSz
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Make an impediment wall - what's blocking your team? @unremarkableQA #MinstryCork @MinistryCork (IME this is magical, and though it seems obvious, we often fail to do it)
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Great ideas for getting info from customers - baseline "normal" behavior, look for customer behavior patterns after big changes, find out what they find most valuable & if they're still happy. Customers often won't complain, they'll just leave. @unremarkableQA #MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
Look at the value of each step of your deployment pipeline and consider value and purpose so you can optimize it. @unremarkableQA (personally I like @aahunsberger's Test Suite Canvas and @a_bangser's pipeline visualization exercise for this) #MinistryCork @MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020
What would happen if the tester/QA left your team? @unremarkableQA shares ideas for influencing quality beyond testing, for example, analyze your deployment pipeline (automated or not), get customer input, make obstacles visible. #ministryCork @MinistryCork
— lisacrispin (@lisacrispin) February 13, 2020

Embracing Change: From Tester to Quality Coach

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Ministry of Testing Cork Meetup

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