How the Onsite Quality Team at BestSecret is Redefining the Role of the Quality Engineer
In a tech industry where the role of the Quality Engineer is often misunderstood or undervalued, the Onsite Quality team at BestSecret has successfully adapted to the agile era and influenced, promoted, and led quality strategies that have a ripple effect throughout the organization.
Introduction
Traditionally, quality assurance (QA) teams are responsible for designing, automating, and executing tests for software. While this approach has its benefits, it can also create silos of knowledge and become a bottleneck in the development process. At BestSecret, we have adopted a unique approach to quality control that is aligned with our agile culture.
The Onsite Quality team was composed of only two members for an extended period of time. It wasn’t until December 2021 that the team grew from 2 to 5 people, and the current working model was implemented. Therefore, everything described in this article is based exclusively on the work done by a mostly new team during 2022.
Our Onsite Quality team does not design, automate and execute tests, but instead focuses on promoting a culture of quality, researching emerging tools and technologies, continuously improving processes across the organization, and playing a key role in shaping the overall direction of our software quality processes. This approach allows us to be more agile and responsive to the needs of our development teams.
How we work
Our Onsite Quality team does not design, automate and execute tests, but instead is responsible for promoting quality culture, researching emerging tools and technologies, and continuously improving processes across the organization.
Each member of the Quality team is responsible for leading quality initiatives in specific verticals. While we cannot currently offer direct support to every area of the business, we work closely with development teams to design quality strategies, attend refinements and other ceremonies, have one-on-ones with Engineering Managers and architects, collaborate with Product Managers, and do our own research and proofs-of-concept (PoCs) that can benefit the team. These PoCs are later presented and shared at Quality Guilds so that other teams can benefit from them as well.
In order to stay informed about other guilds led by other teams (such as Architecture, Frontend, IT Security, or Cloud Guild), we have implemented a rotation schedule that assigns a different member of the Quality team to attend each guild session. The assigned member is then responsible for bringing back all relevant information to the rest of the team, following up on topics in which we believe we should be involved, and sharing a summary or any important links in our internal chat. To encourage participation and maintain a flat hierarchy, the rotation schedule also assigns a weekly facilitator to lead the weekly sync and monthly retro. This ensures that all members of the Quality team have the opportunity to participate as facilitators and attend the guilds, without overwhelming anyone since the system limits each person to no more than 1 or 2 commitments per week.
During the weekly syncs, we establish a set of weekly goals per vertical related to quality topics, review the goals from the previous week, and ask for help from other team members if needed. We have found that this format for the weekly sync promotes the natural flow of information between the members of the Quality team, increases awareness about ongoing activities and quality challenges, promotes teamwork, and helps us to organize our weekly work by setting clear goals.
In addition, we hold a Show and Tell session to share our work with the teams, an internal monthly quality retro as well as a monthly QDR wrap-up to review the current state of Quality Decision Records (QDRs) (more on this later).
We also hold a quarterly retro with the teams we support directly to review the collaboration model and promote continuous improvement. This helps us to continually assess and improve our work processes and ensure that we are meeting the needs of the development teams.
Oh! Almost forgot… last but not least. We also take a 30-minute break every Friday to relax and catch up over coffee.
What are QDRs?
This process allows small, local ideas to have a large impact on the organization and helps to preserve consistency and build a unique quality identity at BestSecret.
At BestSecret, we use Quality Decision Records (QDRs) as a way to document and discuss decisions related to quality. QDRs are based on the concept of Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) by Michael Nygard, which are a way to document important decisions and their context so that they can be understood and used by future team members.
Our use of QDRs arose from the need to share ideas that we identified as opportunities in small projects or teams and wanted to define as a global strategic decision for other teams or projects to reuse. This can include ways to address a problem, recommendations on frameworks or tools to use depending on the technological scenario at hand, or even best practices for designing certain tests or tackling a particular challenge.
Our usual process, though not rigid or set in stone, involves identifying a need, issue, or opportunity. We then assess whether this is localized and specific or if it can affect or influence other projects or teams. If it is the latter, we prepare a QDR and describe the context and potentially some of the options. Depending on the situation, we share the QDR internally within the Quality team or just with the development team that is more involved at that moment with that initiative. The sync, ideally, will lead to a proposed solution or decision, which will be shared on relevant Slack channels for review. During the Quality Guild session, the decision is presented and, if there are no objections, discrepancies, or open topics for discussion, it is approved and action points are written to implement it.
It is worth mentioning that QDRs can be created by any engineer, not just by those on the Quality team. In 2022, 25 Quality Decision Records were created at the Onsite business unit. Some examples of QDRs that have been approved include:
- Test Pyramid naming convention
- Mitigate environment dependencies in APPS pipelines
- DoD for bugs
- Use of REST Assured vs Karate for API tests in Java/Kotlin projects
- Test Plan Template
Quality Guilds
Yet another key part of our approach to quality at BestSecret. Besides being where different options and alternatives for QDRs are discussed and approved, Quality Guilds serve as a forum for sharing knowledge and discussing best practices related to quality. These sessions are held twice a month and are open to all e-commerce teams. They provide a channel for sharing knowledge and discussing best practices related to quality. In 2022, we discussed 42 topics in our Quality Guilds (more than 4 times the ones we discussed in 2020 and 2021 together!), covering a wide range of topics such as
- Mutation testing
- Testing strategies for E2E tests
- Android Device Farm
- Cypress code coverage plugin
- Performance Test Repository
- BDD experiences at PnP (Production and Planning)
- Performance tests integrated into Gitlab CI pipelines using K6
It is important to note that these sessions are not designed for all topics to be led solely by members of the Quality team, but rather for any engineer from any team to present a problem, question, challenge, or situation to be discussed in the group. Additionally, Quality Guilds are an ideal forum for presenting quality improvements in more detail than in a demonstration or “Show and Tell” session.
Conclusion
One key benefit of the approach taken by the Onsite Quality team at BestSecret is that it has increased awareness, coherence, collaboration, and communication among teams. By working closely with development teams, promoting a culture of quality, researching emerging tools and technologies, and participating in guilds and other ceremonies, the Quality team has been able to build strong relationships and foster a culture of shared responsibility for quality. This has helped to break down silos and encourage a more holistic approach to quality, resulting in more cohesive and effective efforts to improve processes across the organization.
In addition, the Onsite Quality team’s approach has streamlined the development process by providing valuable insights and recommendations to development teams. By conducting proofs-of-concept, leading transversal topics towards quality, and aligning ways of working across different platforms, the Quality team has been able to identify and test new approaches that have helped to streamline workflows and eliminate bottlenecks.
In a tech industry where the role of the Quality Engineer is often misunderstood or undervalued, the Onsite Quality team at BestSecret has successfully adapted to the agile era and influenced, promoted, and led quality strategies that have a ripple effect throughout the organization. This task is not easy without the support and trust of the business unit and the company as a whole, but when it is demonstrated that this approach and helping teams have full autonomy around quality is more efficient than creating knowledge silos or treating quality as something separate from an engineer’s daily work, it is worth it.
