Testing. Onboarding.

Liliia
Liliia
Aug 27, 2017 · 9 min read

Last Sunday, we did yet another meet up of the Software Quality Assurance community in Saint-Petersburg. As the part of organisational things was on me, including the topic, so we talked about onboarding processes. Oh well, what else could take me up as much as this, while the 2nd week in a new company was about to finish?


There were three surprises. First, somebody reads all the meet ups descriptions, not only headlines. So we’ve got a number of newbies from many companies — some of them were newbies in profession as well. Second, this topic wasn’t that interesting for HRs and managers — only one HR and two manager came. Really? Isn’t it their care as well? Third, all the people has more or less the same set of onboarding questions/problems. And that is an interesting one.

In the approximation of three years, it doesn’t matter how experienced you are — the set will be somewhat like:

  • How to become absorbed into a team?
  • How to find out team (and manager’s) expectations from one’s work?
  • How to make oneself helpful, not just «a learning newbie»?
  • What information should I ask for? Where can I get any specific information? About the team, the project, the workflow, places for a lunch, …?
  • What should I do if there is no documentation, no manager and I’m the first tester in a project? (this is my favorite one)

To begin with, let’s point that some of those questions could get at least partial answer still at the interview. The one could ask about their exact duties, how their work will be estimated, how long are they planning to teach you, induct into the new project; what the documentation is, what is the team structure, how interaction organised, is there any non-work activities and so on. Come on, you came for an interview because you’ve got some picture of the vacancy, company and activities you’ll have to deal with. Why not make it clear? Especially since you are a tester. But interviews in Russia is a separate topic, let’s leave it for another time.


How to become absorbed into a team?

OK, you’ve got a job and for some unknown reason they are really not going to introduce you into the new team. What should you do to finally become a part of it? (Because you have to, otherwise we just can’t even talk about tester’s job)

First, think up an unusual self introduction. Usually, on this stage, no one cares about the university you’ve graduated from, the number of experience years and so on. You have to give them some catch which they could use later to start a conversation with. How would you introduce yourself to the new person in your friends company? What do you want to talk about? Remember about the catch: replace a statement with an action. For example, say “You can ask me everything about wine” or “I can explain you the difference between Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay” instead of “I’m fond of wine”. You have to intrigue your team, so they want to interact with you, learn more about you. Use this introduction on the first team stand up (if any), in a team chat or somewhere else where they’ll introduce you.

Ah, you failed this part and already sitting in front of your computer, in the middle of the office, and have no idea about who are all those people around. No problem, there is a good place where you can find them in the informal atmosphere and steadily meet with them. All those people certainly used to have a lunch somewhere — let’s find out where and when! While having a lunch, you can join any company, meet with them, start an effortless dialogue about a recent interesting paper you read, yesterdays movie you seen and any other in the least interesting stuff happen in your life. Ask about the place your HR, manager, any person who showed your desk to you on the first day, or catch the closest developer and baffle him. Developers are really nice people, they love to solve problems and help others, just give them a problem. Not kidding, really.

What else? Any other group activity. Spend an evening in a bar together, invite your colleagues for a bicycle ride, carting, just released movie, collective outing for squash or any other sports and so on. Find out what is interesting for you and your new team and do it, have fun. Of course, all those ideas above force you out of the comfort zone. But wait, you are already there if you asked a question of joining a team, aren’t you? So relax, do those things, there is nothing scary, but lots of fun.


How to find out team (and manager’s) expectations from one’s work?

Why don’t you just ask? No, really. Btw, this is a good reason to meet closer with your team, one more to the listed above. There is no smile on my face.

First, write to your manager (if you have one, or any other general person, who is interested in your job results or affects your future career in the company) and tell him that you need him for a one-on-one conversation. And ask him, what he expects you to do, what do they need you to cover, what kind of results they want to see and in which form, and how they’ll estimate your productivity. It isn’t that hard, don’t think so. Just write down the list of questions and ask (you can warn your interlocutor and write his answers as well). It will be much harder if you’ll end up with unmet expectations, the disappointment of your team, the bottomless pit of wasted time and a failed trial period, don’t you think?

Next, ask the team members about their pains (in terms of product/project), how did they live before you and why did they decide to get such specialist as you. Find out what you can do to make their life (again, in terms of product/project) better. It isn’t necessary that they know an exact reason you’ve joined their team, but they certainly have some pains, difficulties and something that slows their work or makes it not that pleasant. This will be a key.


How to make oneself helpful, not just «a learning newbie»?

If you have such a question, there are two most likely options: you either have too long «introduction period» or you are really initiative person. And yeah, just in case, read the previous paragraph about expectations, probably those are not clear enough to you and you are starving from that.

Anyway, as in almost all the cases listed on the beginning of this post, there is no surprise: talk to your manager, ask him this question. But well, at least in Russia, it isn’t always an option — you could have wether no manager at all or just a formal one, who is actually not really interested in a team’s problems, in a project and so on. What should you do then?

Read the previous paragraph, you have to know about your team’s expectations — as a consequence, there will be an answer how to be helpful. Let’s say you have too long introduction period and can’t make it shorter because of its plan and, for example, unmovable scheduled lessons/trainings, conducted every week. In such situation, you still have some fixed scope of training activities which probably could be done faster than planned. Therefore, you’ll have some time left for any other job activities. Take a look at the project workflow and your supposed role in it, find out how can you improve any related things and suggest the ideas to your team. Explain what could be done better and how you are going to do it, what help do you need, how long it will take from you and what profit will be. For example, you see that there are no meetings notes and all the tasks in the tracker are documented with a high abstraction level. Therefore, no documented expectations and decisions, no designated tasks as result. After such meetings, developers are doing their tasks “as they remembered”, their point of view could be different from the client’s/designers/managers/TWIMC one, and, in the end of the day, there will be a conflict, corrections of misunderstanding, redoing the work, wasted time and other unpleasant things. Why not fix it, huh?

Almost the same thing is if you are, just as me, very initiative person. Take a look at the project, … One more point, you can suggest your help on the way, if you see that you could really do it and expected to do such things in the future. Example? Easily. On my second week in a project, when I just finished the training pass of the acceptance test (AT) suite and had a couple of other learning tasks, there was a real product release. Early in the morning, release candidate build was ready and needs an acceptance testing. The thing is, there were only two team testers at the moment: the first was still absent, because he used to start work day much later, and the second was me. The question about AT hung in the air and I could actually rightfully pass it by, because I’m so new and not really in the process yet, but… What did I do? I said, let’s start an acceptance, I’ll do it, and later my colleague will join me if needed. Really, why not, if I already learned how to do that and can actively help my team with a priority task.


What information should I ask for?

Well, if you’ve read through all the paragraphs above, you already know the answer :) If you know the expectations and the problems of product, you know what information you need also to work it out. Ask related questions your manager or write them in a team chat, looking for a person who can answer some questions about part X of the project.

To know your team and project even better, you’ll also need some buddy who could tell you the whole story of the product and the team. Find out who are «the oldest» team members, who have been working here for the longest time, call them for a cup of tea and ask to tell you a story. It can be quite useful, instructive and even funny.


What should I do if there is no documentation, no manager and I’m the first tester in a project?

It happens. First, are you really ready for it? Did they tell you about the situation during an interview, did they denote their expectations, intents and problems? If not, go through all the previous questions above to understand your case more clear, this will give you some ideas about further actions. It would be better if you went through all the questions on the interview, not on the workplace on the first day, when it’s much harder to jump off the train.

Second, there is always some documentation artifacts — in a team chat, in a task tracker, in a correspondence email (ask to put you in a copy for all the related emails), in the GitHub and so on. Of course, that is not that detail and not always easy-to-understand, but it exists and can give you some keys for the next steps.

And least but not last, if you are sure you can work it out, do it! Good luck to you, plenty of patience and fun. It will be hard, because you’ll have to combine a number of professions in the same time, but it will be really interesting and valuable experience. I’m pretty sure that it isn’t an appropriate challenge for a junior tester, though. Unfortunately, not all the companies in Russia think it in the same way.


I was unpleasantly surprised how bad management could be and wondering how only the companies with such a management could work. But they are.

Onboarding is all about tons of interactions and communications, beginning with the interview and ending at some point when you are chatting about the product at 2 a.m. on Sunday in the team Slack channel. As for me, it is a complicated, but the very useful thing for both sides: learning process for newbie and «fresh eyes» for the company. It makes sense.

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Liliia

Written by

Liliia

Hi! I’m QA Engineer in Kotlin language tooling team. Here you’ll find posts about my experience related to that, sometimes with notes from my past as mobile QA

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