Why I Lost My Job As a Test Manager and What I Learnt As a ... · Why I Lost My Job As a Test...

@stephenjanaway

Why I Lost My Job As a Test Managerand What I Learnt As a Result

@stephenjanaway

I DID NOT GET FIRED!!

@stephenjanaway

Who Am I? - Stephen Janaway

www.stephenjanaway.co.uk

@stephenjanaway

www.testinginthepub.com

@testinginthepub

@stephenjanaway

Inspired By….

• My experiences.

• Some dinosaurs.

• Radiohead.

• Winston Churchill.

• Take That.

Background

@stephenjanaway

My so called typical Career So Far….

Junior Developer

Tester

Test Team Lead

Test Manager

Quality Gate Manager

Senior Quality Gate Manager

Senior Test Manager

@stephenjanaway

“Testers test, programmers code, and the separation of the two disciplines is important”

Elisabeth Hendrickson

Photo © Stefz

@stephenjanaway

Test Manager

Dev Manager

Dev Manager

Dev Manager

Dev Manager

@stephenjanaway

So What Was the Problem?

• Too many teams = too much task switching.

• Lack of touch points to teams.

• No team to interact with day-to-day.

• Fire fighting = Perception of only being a blocker.

• Too many managers required in decision making.

Photo © Andrew Smith

Change In the Air

@stephenjanaway

What Changed?

• No more Test Managers.

• No more Development Managers.

• Cross functional, autonomous, independent teams.

• Teams aligned to architecture.

• Delivery Managers - team manager, scrum master, point of contact, etc.

@stephenjanaway

Delivery

ManagerProduct Owner

● Designers

● Architects

● Developers

● Testers

● Ops

@stephenjanaway

Image © Nana B

Agyei

Keeping a Focus On Change

Image © Ian Sane

Test Community

@stephenjanaway

http://labs.trademe.co.nz/projects/the-self-organising-organisation/

http://blog.crisp.se/2012/11/14/henrikkniberg/scaling-agile-at-spotify

@stephenjanaway

Test Community

• Testers group with a community leader and committee.

• Responsible for arranging events:

• Discussion sessions.

• Internal speakers.

• Showcases.

• External speakers.

• Being the voice of testing.

• An enabler - getting testers together, talking and learning from each other.

Image © Niall Kennedy

@stephenjanaway

Lean Coffee

• A simple and democratic way to discuss topics and have conversations that people want to talk about.

• It’s structured but agenda-less

• Started in 2009 in Seattle

• Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith

• Today - all over the world

• http://leancoffee.org

• http://www.meetup.com/Lean-Coffee-London/

@stephenjanaway

Lessons Learnt

• Bottom up works but you need people overseeing it.

• It takes time and effort.

• Keep asking what people want - seek regular feedback.

• External speakers help (but organisation is greater).

• Don’t incentivise community engagement.

• Some people just won’t engage - focus on those who do.

Image © Chris Hunkeler

Test Coach

@stephenjanaway

T Shaped Test Coach

• Responsible for:

• Coaching and training about testing.

• Running the testing community.

• Working with teams to improve their testing.

• Educating managers and senior managers.

• Raising the company profile in the external testing community.

• Bringing the latest, greatest and most useful new ways of working into the group.

Image © Doug

Disclaimer

We won’t be able to provide the silver bullet for all your problems but we’ll definitely be able to help you on your journey to greatness!

Photo © Richard Lee

Education³

@stephenjanaway

Education - People

• Educating Managers

• About testing

• About managing testers

• Performance review and competency development help

• Educating Senior Managers

• About testing

• About investment in testing

• Educating Testers

• How to talk about testing more effectively

• How to fight their own battles...

@stephenjanaway

Education - Skills

• Educating Testers

• Testing Mondays - context driven testing sessions.

• Testing Showcases - information sharing.

• A conference a year.

• Internal conferences.

• Widely publicising online events and meet-ups.

• A blog post a day.

Mentoring

@stephenjanaway

Mentoring

• Pairing testers with other more experienced testers.

• Facilitates learning and “someone to look up to”.

• Helps fill a gap left by not having Test Managers.

• A great learning opportunity.

So What Happened?

Everyone Is Responsible For Quality

Next Steps For Testing Management

”Where do we go from here?The words are coming out all weirdWhere are you now when I need you?”

Radiohead - The Bends

@stephenjanaway

What If This Affects You?

• It’s not the end.

• You have transferable skills.

• Use the opportunity to your advantage.

• Use your transferable skills.

• Remember your roots a spread the testing word far wider :)

@stephenjanaway

And Not Just If You Are a Test Manager

• Support as a tester.

• Someone to look up to.

• A subject matter expert to learn from.

• Learn how to explain the value of testing.

Never ForgetWhere you’ve come here from…

Image © Ian Sane

Love Your Community

@stephenjanaway

“Now this is not the end.

It is not even the beginning of the end.

But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”

Winston Churchill

@stephenjanaway

www.stephenjanaway.co.uk

@stephenjanaway

www.testinginthepub.com

@testinginthepub

Thank You