I’m taking the month of January to assess my life (per usual new year thoughts but no goals set yet).
In the new year, do you take the time to assess your role as a tester? Process and practices? If so, what type of guide do you use to view QA with fresh eyes?
Yes, I practice the “zoom-out” view on the tools and processes at least once a quarter. The same goes for my personal goals and learnings.
Another source of motivation to reassess might be a conference talk I watched or even a chat with some other engineer.
For the majority of new ideas - I usually take my time and think about the pros and cons of new approaches, how they mix with the current ones, and which benefits the team can get by applying them.
Hi Judy,
I take a bit different approach.
I set yearly objectives and review then quarterly. It’s not something I can’t change, however the idea is focused on big goals. E.g. Getting a promotion, a new role, being a peak performer, becoming a tech lead in the team, whatever I like.
Then I break down into steps I need to do to achieve it. Research and google what next goal entails. I access my technical skills, core skills, write down the opportunities I need to look for, I talk to people to get feedback, I talk to people who are already doing those roles. Anything that makes it more clear and easier to achieve the goal. I even write down the point to figure out next steps. It helps to decrease procrastination and give you space to think.
Those goals are absolutely big and sometimes scary. However, the growth lives in there. I love when it’s something I never done before.
Worth mentioning, I won’t be learning a process, a tool, a programming language in isolation. All of those need to feed into some goal. I love to be crystal clear why I need to learn one or the other thing.
Not particularly. I’m a fan of continuous improvement and continuous learning, so taking this time to assess / reflect at a specified time seems rather arbitrary to me. Rather, I like to check in on the state of things regularly. For example, when approaching big milestones (like a major release or welcoming someone new to the project) and whenever I find myself with some extra capacity (which I realise can be rare!). I like to think: If I were to come on to the project for the first time now, what would my impressions be, and what would I want to work on?
That being said, I used to write “X Years in Testing” blogs every year, up until year five, where I reflected more on my journey over the last year, with some thoughts for the future. That was much more of a personal thing, rather than being project-specific. I think my next instalment will be at the ten year mark.
Out of interest, what are some of the main points that have come out of your assessment this time round?
Right now, I’m in the middle of my January assessment (life, work, everything else 
) so I’m not trying to make any hard decisions but do more of what @al8xr mentioned, a “zoom-out” perspective.
Our team is in the middle of an interesting intersection. Our automation is in place (we can run it locally) but it’s not in CI yet. So, it’s useful but it’s not where it needs to be. My hope is to get the engineering team familiar enough with the testing framework so they can fix any tests they might have broken themselves. But, again, we aren’t there yet. So, I’m taking the time to assess my documentation (is it clear), and looking for any quick wins when it comes to exposure and education for the team.
So, yeah, no clear goals yet but right now I’m trying to take the seat of objective observer and see if what we have in place right now is really serving us.
Sounds like a great plan! And also like there’s lots of opportunity to make a positive impact. How exciting! 
I’m love innovation a lot so I’m constantly browsing forums and posts, watching video’s and learning ne things. If I see something that could improve our workflow, I’ll just address it to our work.
Sometimes when people sigh or look sad, I’ll ask what’s it’s about and if they have to do anything repetitive, I’ll see if I can find a solution for them. This could be process automation, not always test automation 
I like to review our QA process constantly, we have a Bi-Weekly meeting with all the testers where we discuss all kind of topics. If there are any complains, we’ll address them and see how we can fix them.
Personal goals, I never set personal goals at the new year, I set personal goals whenever I see something I want to learn. I’ll set it instantly, I’m not the person who needs a new year in order to learn something 
OOOOh, I love the idea of “process automation”. Can you give me an example of this?
A Simple example would be to copy files from A to B.