PM Decoding #5 from QA to PM: switcher's story
My name is Anna Voitovych, and I've been working as a Project Manager at SoftServe for the last two years. Before becoming a PM, I worked as a QC for three years and gained invaluable experience by learning how to work with foreign clients, deal with pain points, and solve various problems. These critical skills shaped my understanding of IT and motivated me to transition to the PM role. How did I get to this point? What motivated me? I will dive more deeply into this article.
From student to QC
My journey with SoftServe started in the autumn of 2017 when I became a student of SoftServe IT Academy. I joined the academy because I was surrounded by friends and family already working in IT. In addition, I was incredibly fascinated by how quickly the IT industry in Lviv had grown over the past 20 years. This industry has so many opportunities for personal and professional growth that I decided to make IT a part of my life.
I studied the "Quality Control" course for three months and gained a certificate. This course gave the basic knowledge of the Fundamental Test Process, Requirements Analysis, and experience in Defects Tracking and Test Execution. The academy prepared me to apply for the QC role.
After graduating from the IT Academy, I was officially employed by SoftServe. So my life as a QC officially started when I joined a team working in the healthcare space. This project gave me so much experience because I learned how the SDLC works, what team cohesion is, client interaction, meeting deadlines, etc.
After two years at SoftServe, I decided to work for a smaller production company to gain even more knowledge. The challenges I faced at this company were by no means less difficult to overcome than at my time in SoftServe. This experience allowed me to work not only as a QA but also as a BA. I worked closely with product requirements and built a more intimate relationship with clients. These skills and experiences slowly helped pave the way for my transition to a PM.
3 critical skills for QA/BA
I'd like to further expand upon the invaluable skills that I gained as a QA/BA:
- Learning to be correct and cohesive in a team environment with developers, PMs, DMs, UX/UI, etc., was the most educational for me. Every team member has their personality, likes and dislikes, working styles, etc. Figuring out how to navigate my team's professional and personal differences allowed me to eventually gain the skills to manage my teams.
- Closely working with clients is a learned skill that every member of the IT community must learn. But, unfortunately, "the client is always right" isn't necessarily accurate. Often, our teams would see better patterns to complete projects, make the code more scalable, and save our clients money in the long run. But this meant I had to learn to politely disagree with a client and share why specific patterns would lead to better outcomes.
- Learning about SCRUM, AGILE, and various other processes aided me in my transition to PM. I learned how to analyze requirements, estimate projects, present demos to clients, and much more.
These three skills still influence how I work, and I implore anyone wanting to become a PM to learn these skills ahead of time.
Want to become a PM? Study!
Another important point I'd like to highlight about my transition to Project Manager is my educational process. I had to read various books, take online courses (I highly recommend Project Management Foundations and Cert Prep: Scrum Master on Linkedin), and constantly stay up-to-date about new theories and processes regarding the SDLC.
Rita Mulcahy's PMP Exam Prep book is one of the most influential books I have ever read. Her work outlines all the processes and areas project managers should cover. Another vital educational resource is Lyubov Samoylova's PMP Prep Course. She helped me easily digest all the information I needed to become a successful project manager.
After a year of working at a small product company, I realized it was time to return to SoftServe and use the knowledge and skills I gained to become a PM. It's all thanks to the resources and courses I mentioned above and the skills I gained from real-life working experience that allowed me to gather the courage to interview for a PMO Associate position.
After passing the interview, I got a mentor (at SoftServe, we have a broad mentors community — with over 200 mentors are Project Managers) and helped to manage her projects. These six months of being a PMO associate were considered my onboarding, which was very helpful for me, given that I was transferring into a completely foreign role. During this time, I took part in the Manager's onboarding camp at SoftServe, which opened my eyes to what is indeed required of a PM.
There I learned about the following:
- Business Development
- Agile Processes
- Cost management
- Human resource management, and much more.
After six months of shadowing my mentor and passing the Manager's onboarding Bootcamp, I was eventually given my team to manage and officially became a PM.
My experience as QC Engineer helped me immensely during my PM role during onboarding. I already had an understanding of how all processes regarding projects worked. The next step was to learn how to manage these processes. The most significant advantage of my experience was building good cooperation and methods with my QC team. I also understood that every PM should value their QC team because testers are the backbone of any project. They help find and fix bugs and make sure that various pain points are solved promptly.
Conclusion
My journey from Quality Control Engineer to Project Manager was full of work, challenges, and obstacles, but it was worth it because it brought me to my dream job. I learned not to be afraid when changing one's professional direction and how to implement skills from one role to another. Overall, I'm very grateful to work at SoftServe, with such incredible people and many unique opportunities.
