Do you catch yourself dreaming about working in the best test team ever? Maybe one where you get to adopt any new philosophies you chose? How about one that gives you complete autonomy to try new things without having to justify them in triplicate?
Perhaps you feel frustrated by a seeming lack of willingness to embrace change in your current organisation? Or driven mad by the countless myths and misconceptions that your company mistakes for testing?
Or are you plain fed up with waiting for that promotion that for whatever reason always seems to be just out of your grasp?
A new job at a new company can be extremely appealing especially if you feel frustrated and fed up at your current workplace.
But before you abandon ship, look around one last time, check to see if you really have explored all avenues. You may discover some opportunities that you hadn’t previously considered; opportunities for example to learn new skills.
Why not try creating a ‘dream’ job description. You know, that one you really deep down want? Allow yourself to explore and dream a little of what it would be like there. Is it more autonomy, or perhaps its something specific, like wanting to adopt a more Exploratory approach to testing? Be brave and make the dreams big!
Next work out how this job differs with where you are at right now. Be honest and make it personal. It’s not a test; this is for you only. Work out where the gaps are between what you want and where you are; this is where you will want to focus your energy. Make a list of things you want to work on. Try and make them as concrete and real as possible by being specific. The more specific and detailed you are, the easier it will be able to try out.
Yeah sure, you might not get a chance to try out being a Test Manager, but you could perhaps practice some related skills.
By now you may have an idea of the skills you want to improve. The real challenge is to find ways in your current role to learn and apply these skills.
To do this, you will need to sell your ideas in such a way that these skills are perceived to benefit either the company or key stakeholders.. Preferably both. Start by looking at the problems you and your team are encountering. Speak to people who have a vested interest in testing. This could be your fellow testers and your team leader, or it might be a project manager.
Discover what drives them, what’s frustrating them and what they need from your testing to get the job done? What could be done to make life easier for them?
Sometimes when speaking to people, its easy to mistake a symptom as the problem, so a word of caution here, and take the time to fully understand what I call the “underlying problem’. (This itself can take a bit of skill but it’s one that’s well worth learning). If you spend time trying to solve symptoms, it’s strange but the underlying problem never seems to get solved!
Now it’s time to work some magic. Look at these problems and examine them. Is there something in all this mess that you can use to advocate on behalf of that new skill, or implement that change? If your test manager is over stretched, why not offer to help out on some outstanding tasks?
And you will need to speak to your boss. Explain your ideas and make it clear that this will benefit the company too. If you’re nervous about doing this, seek out people who may be receptive to your ideas. Then you can approach your boss as a collective.
Even better if these people have influence within the organisation. Speak to them and ask them for some ideas on how you might influence some change. Failing that, use the testing community. There are plenty of people willing to mentor and help you through a particular challenge. (For an example of this, go to my podcast on the EuroSTAR website, where I help coach a tester through a particular challenge).
The things I’m suggesting here are not always easy wins. Hopefully you will at least partially succeed in getting what you aimed for; on the other hand you may come out of this process feeling that you got nowhere.
But that’s not quite true is it? Look back at the skills you’ve had to use so far? In particular I’m talking about being persuasive and influencing people. These are real and incredibly valuable skills to have.
Personally, I think the concept of a dream job is a myth. No matter where you work, there will be challenges to face, both technical and/or people-related. If you move around a lot (like me), you’ll start to notice that often the same problems appear to move with you, suggesting that perhaps the problem lies within!
Are you sure that by moving to a new role the problems won’t reappear, albeit in a slightly different way?
The more I ponder this issue, the more I become convinced that testers need to be able to influence people around us in order to effect change. Very simply, if you want things to change around you, learn to influence those around you.
Look at it this way, you may even find that by creating the learning opportunities you want, you feel sufficiently compelled to stay where you are. On the other hand, if you still feel like you want to leave after up-skilling, you will have some new skills to put on your resume.
Regardless of the outcome and decision you finally make, you have learned a little about influencing and effecting change within an organisation. Do not overestimate the power of these skills. They are gold dust!
I always like to walk away from a company or job knowing that I’ve tried my hardest to work in that environment. After all, no work place or boss is perfect.
When it comes to change, it can be easy to let fear gets the better of us. We make assumptions that our companies are adverse to change, or that they will never adopt the ideas we have. That may not necessarily be the case. Maybe they need a brave tester to put ideas on the line, in a persuasive and clear way. Maybe, just maybe, that tester is you.
Author Profile – Anne-Marie Charrett
Anne-Marie Charrett is a testing coach and trainer in software testing hell bent on helping testers discover their testing strengths and become the testers they aspire to be. Anne-Marie is working on a book with James Bach about coaching, with a target completion date late next year. Anne-Marie offers free IM Coaching to testers and developers on Skype (id charretts). Anne-Marie has worked in the testing industry for more years than she lets on. She believes that its time to bring testing out of the dark ages and into a new age of enlightenment, where testers all over the world are admired and respected for their critical thinking and for being, well so darn smart! She also is campaigning to make St Thomas the patron saint of testers, after all, he was a true skeptic. Anne-Marie describes herself as Iristralian having been born in Dublin and now residing in Sydney, Australia. She happily engages in work in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere. Anne-Marie can be found on twitter at charrett and also blogs at http://mavericktester.com.
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