What can we do to avoid burnout in the QA/QE field?

I’ve read quite a few posts lately on LinkedIn that have talked about burnout in the QA/QE field. In my early career I experienced this quite heavily and still do to some extend. With our skills I feel we often notice gaps/problems/ambiguities/misunderstandings and it can be quite exhausting at times. Especially when you start to notice a cluster of problems that need to be resolved and it might be a lack of process or wider organisational concern.

I have become better in terms of focusing on what matters, what’s in my control and so on. However there are times when i still start to get a bit burnout out by it all.

  • Have you experienced burnout in the QA/QE field?
  • What can we do in our field to avoid burnout?
  • How do we know what to focus on and what to drop?
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Hey @melissafisher

There was a recent thread about this topic: How do you spot the signs of burnout before It takes hold?

Might be of interest to you!

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Ah that’s great. Thanks I’ll have a look. I should have done a search before I posted, although still would like to talk to others on this :slight_smile:

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I believe this is an important question, and one of those that is hardly talked about in our field, despite the prevalence.

From my experience, I believe a good starting point for individual professionals is really learning to focus on what matters and what’s in your circle of influence, as you rightly said up there @melissafisher :+1:t5:

We can all do better in this regard, and we can’t always get it right. But if you take it as a process, something to remember each time you are feeling a bit overwhelmed with work, that might just help get you back on track.

And in the instances where we try and still don’t succeed, that might be a good time to be open and speak to someone (your manager, or anyone with the influence to help streamline your workload)

That said, I think there’s also something to be said about what anyone in a leadership role can do to help prevent burnout in their team or support individuals who might be dealing with burnout.

For example:

  • setting clear and realistic goals for team members
  • understanding individuals strengths and growth areas and helping them work around that.
  • constantly analyzing the teams workload, and checking with the team to ensure they aren’t taking on too much more than they have the capacity for.
  • actively listening and acting on individuals concerns.
  • paying attention to changes in individuals attitude to work and checking in accordingly.

I could go on, but will leave it there for now and say,
“Burnout, for the most part, is often a product of misalignment between expectations on individuals and the capacity they have to meet the set expectations.”

Therefore, a good starting point to preventing, or supporting individuals with burnout, is to ensure that set expectations are aligned with the capacity for execution.

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Oh, absolutely! The constant context-switching, tight deadlines and chasing down bugs that mysteriously disappear when a developer looks at them.
What helped me is setting boundaries and focusing on impact.
Still learning to let go of things beyond my control, but it’s a work in progress.

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This might be interesting to read, WHO’s take on risks to mental health:

“Psychosocial risks to mental health at work
Ten categories of risk factors for poor mental health (as well as poor physical health) related to the workplace have
broadly been identified (adapted from: 14, 15).
:play_button: Work content/task design:
e.g. lack of variety or short work cycles, fragmented or meaningless work, under-use of skills, high uncertainty,
continuous exposure to people through work;
:play_button: Workload and work pace:
e.g. work overload or under-load, machine pacing, high levels of time pressure, continual subjection to deadlines;
:play_button: Work schedule:
e.g. shift-working, night shifts, inflexible work schedules, unpredictable hours, long or unsociable hours;
:play_button: Control:
e.g. low participation in decision-making, lack of control over workload, pacing, etc.;
:play_button: Environment and equipment:
e.g. inadequate equipment availability, suitability or maintenance; poor environmental conditions such as lack of
space, poor lighting, excessive noise;
:play_button: Organizational culture and function:
e.g. poor communication, low levels of support for problem-solving and personal development, lack of definition
of, or agreement on, organizational objectives, organizational change; high competition for scarce resources,
over-complex bureaucracies;
:play_button: Interpersonal relationships at work:
e.g. social or physical isolation, poor relationships with superiors, interpersonal conflict, harmful work
behaviours, lack of (perceived, actual) social support; bullying, harassment, mobbing; microaggressions;
:play_button: Role in organization:
e.g. role ambiguity, role conflict, and responsibility for other people;
:play_button: Career development:
e.g. career stagnation and uncertainty, under-promotion or over-promotion, poor pay, job insecurity, low social
value of work;
:play_button: Home-work interface:
e.g. conflicting demands of work and home, including for persons with caregiving responsibilities, low support at home,
dual career problems; living at the same site where the work is done, living away from family during work assignments.”

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Generally, if, you struggle with interruptions and workplace context switches more than most people, you might want to check yourself against known ADHD traits. Things like short or little working memory? Don’t despair, it’s not all bad, there is some good in there, talk to someone you trust to help you navigate. Are you a rabbit hole person? Maybe autism is a feature - do you struggle with FOMO, being late, managing task breakdowns, procrastination, not all of these are signs, but all can be trained and upskilled.

As A QA, we are sometimes more vulnerable. You can easily let yourself be overwhelmed, so there is that too, set boundaries and limit your responsibilities. Find ways to not worry about the product quite so much, you don’t really “own” it after all. Normalise what is going on, step back and take stock. Talk to your team leader or manager, and set yourself a roadmap or plan to deal with your worries.

Basically if you struggle in any one area, it kinda wears you down when you cannot quite find a tactic to help strengthen your mental muscle with the right exercise or tools. Ady’s original post includes some links, use them.

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This reminds me of discussions on that topic in the accessibility community, especially in talks/panels at axe-con. I think a lot of things that were brought up there are generally helpful or also relevant to testers.

I experienced burnout rather early in my career while trying to prove myself in an unappreciative environment. I haven’t been able to work the full 40h since. What really helped me was a colleague’s suggestion to make priorities someone else’s problem. Before that everything was the top priority to someone and whatever I worked on was wrong. By having the Project Managers deciding the priorities within the projects and my manager deciding the priorities of the project a lot of decisions and the backlash was gone. This also helped other people in the teams. If you’re interested in introducing something similar: I started by mailing my priorities team leads and managers with the comment to inform me if they disagreed. Over time this turned into a public document with all the team priorities.

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No worries, I’ll give my 2cents too!

I have not. I’m a consultant, I like a good challenge and I like to have a lot of work. I will speak up if I my workload is too much and if I cannot handle it and it will have to wait X time.

Probably communicate more often. I see a lot of people going into burnouts but they always keep stuff for themselves. They never open up. I’m currently coaching a few teams and I always say to them if there is an issue come to me and we’ll fix it together, that way we avoid frustration, annoyance and burnouts.

Sometimes you have to do things you don’t like, that’s a given. But if you are doing it constantly, then you should do a bit of self reflection and ask yourself. Is this a good place for me? Can I grow in this company? Is this something I want to do the rest of my life?

If the answer is No, you should probably look for a different project.

The best thing I do to avoid burnout is not to look for a “job” but to look for something I like doing. When you enjoy your work, it doesn’t feel like work.

Self-reflection is a very big must in your own evolution to avoid burnouts and communication towards others and yourself. Communicate to yourself you want to switch projects and do so if it’s really horrible.

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A lot of this depends on what options you have available and the work culture.

In terms of the work itself, I’ve been trained with the understanding that quality is about risk, and if the most critical things are taken care of, its ok if some lower risk things slip by and get back logged. Much like how my tech leads and product managers have to prioritize the projects that can be done in the sprint because we can’t do everything.

In terms of life balance, I tell everyone to rest when needed. Take breaks, take your PTO, and take sick days. Rest is like an oil change, its what maintains performance in the long run. Individuals are vital to the team succeeding and thus need to be cared for like a component in any other complex machine.

I’ve seen some burnout particularly when “that one client” has a project or “the deal that can change everything” comes around, but thats unpredictable so we should rest when we need to. Its also a good lesson to an organization to discover how bad things get when certain people aren’t around, and come up with contingencies. Its like chaos monkey just with people; if the ship goes down because I took PTO, we have something to fix.

Please forgive me if I missed the mark though, I might’ve answered a tangent to your point.

  1. If you get 60% work from one place and 60% work from another, ask your mananger to prioritize.
  2. Testing is not a 9-5 even steven load job, sometimes there are peaks. One have to accept that. And those times are normally not the most boring. I get more stessed at too little test. Of course, if the load is always too high , you need to take action. First is to tell your manager. its NOT a sign of weakness to do that. I say that as having been a SW manager for many years in multinational setting.
  3. Nearly everyone, having their first advanced job get exhaused. Working is harder than studying. For most, its a phase to get over. And learn in which direction to go on.
  4. Keep good and friendly relations with programmers and all kinds of stakeholders.
  5. See testing as a craftsman work. You learn how to do it best. And to plan it best. In planning phases especially young project managers normally allot way too little time for test. Learn your metrics and put down your foot early.
  6. Its a wonderful job. I was a tester/test leader for 7 ys before moving to mangerial tasks, to get more milk on the table for kids. Now, some decades later, hopefully just a few years from retirement I have, since 5 ys ago, returned to testing to do whats funny at work and I love it!
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Hi @wassano you input has helped me a lot. It hasn’t missed the mark. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks to everyone that has shared their thoughts with me. Very useful :blush:

I can tackle and resist much, but having a higher wage would give me more general safety in times of inflation while having a family.
Work is not the only source of stress that pushes me to my limits.

And I established for myself years ago that I do as less overtime as possible. My lifetime and sanity is way more worth than a few words of appreciation after stressful weeks or month.

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