Principle 1 - Exercise 1: How can you improve the business?

Time: 5-10 Minutes

Purpose: Think about how your activities are, or can improve your business

Introduction: Test is often seen as a cost to the business. In Modern Testing, we argue that test specialists are a value-add to the business. What are some things you are doing or will do to improve your business

Activity:

  1. What are new things you can do to improve the business?
  2. What will you try on your team?
2 Likes

There are a lot of things one would like to improve. But two points point that is pretty high on the list and will definitely take some time is enabling our development team to be… I do not know how to call it… self-sufficient? I want to make sure that this team knows everything they need to know about the product so they can discuss new features that integrate into the existing software, that they have every skill necessary so external dependencies are reduced to a bare minimum (Ops, test writing, database accesses) and that they have all the tools necessary to improve themselves, e.g. by showing them how to use retrospectives and metrics. Especially metrics seem to be a sensitive topic as it can easily be used for evil. “How often did we deploy last week?” can quickly turn into “Why didn’t you deploy more often last week?”.

This is a really insightful answer - I think increasing communication and getting the team to reflect (retrospectives) will do a lot to improve the business.

Missed this one. I think there are many ways our business could improve. I think greater collaboration and transparency between development and other departments represents a huge easy win for our business as the dev teams are actually quite screened off from other departments. One of the challenges here is that other departments seem perennially busy and run without the kind of space to breathe or freedom our development organisation (usually) enjoys.

Solution: Work with peers in other departments to understand if there are spaces where greater interaction would easily benefit both sides; learn what we can do to help make their lives easier rather than adding a new burden of “sync up time”; find ways technology can support their work and win back time to build better relationships. Be the one to move first, rather than waiting for them to magically create or find time for us. Hook them with what they really want rather than what we want from them.

What can I do to improve the business?

  • Create visibility on tests which are currently being run. Make it appealing for PO’s and Devs to read and critique each one (you have to make it approachable for people to have input otherwise everyone will be too busy)

What will I try on my team?

  • Create a meeting with QA’s, Devs and PO. Pick 5 tests which we believe can either give flaky results, or we believe are complex to test to ensure to associated bugs. Go through our process of each of these and be critiqued on them. Modify and adjust
  • What are new things you can do to improve the business?
    As a large consumer of SaaS, we are heavily reliant on vendor quality. the value for us lies in establishing robust quality standards and processes that can be consistently applied across our enterprise platforms. This includes demanding evidence of vendors’ internal quality practices and ensuring they meet our agreed-upon standards. By doing so, we can ensure high-quality outcomes, maximise the value of our solutions, and minimise business risk.

  • What will you try on your team?
    Clearly define and strengthen the practise of quality and test management within software and project delivery. Repeatable Structured, Quality Assurance (QA) methodology that is flexible for use on ALL workstreams (Strategic Programme, Project, or BAU) to improve quality and reduce risk of failure. Monitor vendor performance over quality through published KPIs to comprehensively measure and evaluate quality throughout delivery.