Hi!
Seeking advice on onboarding a new tester remotely.
In some weeks a new tester will join our cross-functional team. Currently, I am the only tester there and will be the main contact for the new colleague. To help to get the tester started, make her familiar with our tools, processes, environment, and quirks.
Maybe also some mentoring, as I do have a bit more experience (whatever that may mean).
I want to be helpful and supportive but not a helicopter colleague. But where to draw the line?
Are there any tips from people who started their job remotely? What did you like the most and what didnāt you like at all?
Or if youād onboarded people, are there activities you are doing always and others you gave up doing?
Iām a consultant and during Covid Iāve been starting small projects remotely, ā¦ all the time. Hereās some of my insights:
Itās a 2-way street. You can guide them as much as possible but they are going to have to give you some feedback also. I would book a 1:1 meeting with them every week or 2 weeks and ask them what theyāll need. How itās going, what can be done to improve the way of working. Donāt suggest anything yourself and let them come up with ideaās. Theyāll feel better and feel like the have added value.
Many new testers are scared in the beginning of not having an added value.
Weāre having some pair-testing/mob-testing sessions with a few people just so they can learn the way of testing but also the people. Compliment them, when they find something even if itās a dupe say ānice findā make them feel welcome and part of the team.
We tend to give them challenges as in ācreate X and Y in the app and get it to status archivedā ā if they have questions, feel free to ask (just not me, you can ask questions to anyone of the dev-team to get to know them a bit also). Really fun and really works to get to know the team!
What I liked a lot is that my credentials & access are fixed the day when I started at my clients. There is nothing more annoying then starting a new job and having 0 access. Especially during the remote-working.
I was in exactly the same situation in March - only tester on my team onboarding a new colleague remotely.
We paired a lot. A. LOT. I think we were pairing for 4-5 hours a day for the first few weeks. I also added her to all my meetings and included her in all Slack conversations I had - to get her to know who is who, what they do, what they know etc.
And as Kristof said, letting a newbie feel theyāre valued and appreciated is crucial. I made sure I acknowledged everything she found - and there was a lot, as can be expected from a fresh pair of eyes I also made sure she knows she can ask anything at any time and not be ridiculed for not knowing.
The last time I joined a testing team was back in November 2020. It was fully remote.
Things that worked well
A āNo stupid questionā channel on Slack. A place for folks to literally ask anything about the product, process and domain
Lots of documentation to explore, about product, process and domain
A department-wide (actually, a company-wide of about 120ish people at the time) virtual get together every Friday afternoon
1-2-1 chats with various people and various roles
An induction document that set things to do and people to speak with each week for about 6 weeks. And then an expectation after 3 months and 6 months. The later was particularly loose as the intention was for me to work that out and agree on what that looks like with my manager.
Things that didnāt work so well for me
A one week induction of meeting after meeting after meeting. It was so intense. It covered every part of the business and I met with tonnes of people in a group setting - with other newstarters too. While the intention was good, it was just waaaay too much.
Hey!
As a Automation Tester who joined multinational team .I could say that few most important topics are.
Tell new tester that they can make mistakes too
U fail and succeed as a team
Speak up if in doubt
Double check or ask someoneās opinion on certain topic
Take a pressure/task in their own pace
Show them sources to broad their knowledge
Show them that itās impossible to be expert in every topic and no one expects them to be one
If they are overworked ,tell them to speak up about this and ease a burden
Teach them to say āNoā sometimes
Tell them to value their time for a rest/meals
thatās the main ones on top of my head.
If you need more specific to tester values, i can write some about it as well.
Good luck for being a mentor
I would write out what we will cover and how the first few weeks will look.
I think a lot of people like to have an idea of what the near future looks like.
Also important to write down who to ask for what and to make introductions (I would often do these through slack but sometimes through calls, depended on the person and how close their relationship would be)
Below is a blog post I wrote on getting started on a testing project which you might also find useful
I was in a similar situation a few months back, Iād pretty much just echo whatās been said already tbh. My top four would likely beā¦
Regular meetings to see how they are getting on, once a week to start moving to decrease in frequency after a month or two (dependent on the colleaguesā needs)
Encourage them to voice their opinion in meetings
Ensure they know thereās no such thing as a stupid question
Donāt be afraid to push back if you feel something isnāt right, just because somethingās being done a certain way, doesnāt mean itās correct!!
Be open minded about the suggestions and findings, especially about your way of working, sometimes its very helpful to get back to seeing the forest instead of all the treesā¦as we in germany say.
