Quality & Testing | The goal of my new job

I have been in my new role for a few months now and I have been thinking about my long term goals. After some thinking, I came to the conclusion that the ultimate goal of my new job is to make my role redundant. I need to do the work that will make what I do, surplus to requirements. Only when I have done this will I have been successful. People may think this is strange and something negative but actually it is something that is positive, for both me and the company I work for.

So, what is my role?

My job title is quality lead and I work across multiple teams (Each team contains engineers, an engineering manager and a senior product manager) to build a quality first culture. I help teams on all things software quality as well as work on broader company wide quality initiatives. I don’t do any testing like I have done in the past, if fact all of the testing is done by the developers. We follow a quality assistance model that was developed by Atlassian. Details about this can be found here: Developing quality assistance skills

Currently my role includes doing things such as:

• Running risk cause analysis sessions

• Running mob/blitz testing.

• Bringing in ways to help the team improve in areas such as feedback speed and understanding risk

• Helping with story refinement and writing acceptance criteria

• Helping with company quality initiatives

• Mentor and coach teams on testing and quality

• Being a voice that promotes a quality assistance model

What is my goal?

My goal is to make the teams I work with become self-sufficient in quality and testing without the need for a quality lead. What does self-sufficient mean? It means that anything from a quality and testing perspective the team can manage and execute, they do not need someone to test for them or to tell them what they can do to improve testing and quality. They are able to know what to do when and know how to consistently look for ways to improve their testing and quality practices.

So to make this possible the teams I work with need to be able to do things such as:

Understand what quality looks like	They know what quality looks like for each feature they develop. They will keep this in the forefront of their minds and understand the risks that threaten that level of quality.
Know the best way to test for specific features	They will understand the different types of testing and make sure that they use the right ones at the right time. Also they will how best to plan and strategise testing for things like performance and security.
Continuously look for ways to improve and optimise their quality and testing practices	The team will be aware when quality practices are not where they should be and be able to put new practices in place to get them back on track. They will also be able to optimise an already good process to make them a more efficient quality focussed team.
Think about things from the customers perspective	They will be empathetic to the customer and look at things from their perspective so that the deliver great features that satisfy the customer.
Use production to guide them	They will know how the users use the system and bring that knowledge into the features that they develop. They can also use lessons from the past (i.e. bugs and issues) to improve how and what they test.

How long till I reach my goal?

This depends. It takes time to help a team and it comes down to the classic question of how long is a piece of string? Each team may take different amounts of time to become self-sufficient. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, the most important thing is that the teams get there. Being patient with the teams is essential as each team may require different types of mentoring and coaching to reach the goal. Mistakes will get made and it may be that I take teams down the wrong road, but providing the teams and me realise this and we get back on track going in the right direction then this is OK. Remember, you learn an awful lot more from your mistakes than you do your triumphs.

The main thing is to make sure that I helping the teams towards that goal.

What advantages does it have by making my role redundant

With no quality lead there will be:

Two engineering teams that put quality at the heart of what they do
Teams will be able to identify quality issues quickly and resolve them
Teams will be able to adapt and change according to the needs of the business.
Faster feedback loops. Not having a quality lead will speed things up as there is one less feedback loop to worry about
Quicker feature delivery
Quicker value delivered to users and clients

What do I do afterwards

Sit by the beach and relax? Yes that would be great but I’m not going to get paid to do that !!!! Once my role is redundant then there are a few things that I could do. I could move role. So from being a quality lead I could can move to roles such as, engineering manager or working in a product role. Also there may be other roles available in the company that my skills may be a good fit for. It may be that I go and work with other teams that need some help from a quality perspective that need that coaching and mentoring to help them develop and grow. Wherever I do afterwards I will have a whole bunch of skills I would have learnt and gained that can call upon to help the business continue to grow and deliver customer value.

Why making my role redundant is exciting

It may not seem like it would be exciting but it is, If you think about the skills that I would have built up throughout the time of reaching my goal. These will be invaluable across the business.

These will include things such as:

Helping teams improve what they do and how they do it
Drive change across multiple teams and the wider organisation
Influencing others
Mentoring and coaching others
Develop team members testing and quality knowledge

Summary

So in summary, making my role redundant is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. Its good because it will mean that the teams I have helped will be more efficient and develop and produce higher quality work, which in turn will help the company grow and move forward. Being part of a company that is moving forward will provide a set of opportunities that I can become involved in using the set of skills I have developed during that time.