thinking through your role
TRANSCRIPT
Reinventing my role @
…an experience report
Reinvention: Looking at the way a problem
has been solved and acting as if we are
solving it for the first time.
A process of how we move from one way of
thinking to another and how might we create
solutions unburdened by rules.
My eBay career: 2011 to present
Director
QE Search (Front End)
Director
Live Site Quality
QE/PM
End-to-End Solutions
QE/PM (CommerceOS)
Quality Evangelist
Engineering Excellence lead
2012 2013 2014 2015 20162011
reorg reorg reorg
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QE Manager: Search Front End
Mission: Manage a team of 8 Quality Engineers
Establish trust and credibility
• Collaborate with PM/PD team peers
• Coach my team – inspire and build them up
• Serve my team – shoulder their burden
• Partner with other teams (Search Back End)
• Understand dependent teams
• Learn about tools and techniques
• Develop relationships with adjacencies (Support)
Triangles are tasks. Blue means requested
from my manager; orange tasks come from me
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2011 Opportunity: Director: Live Site Quality
Cultivate Testing Culture
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2013 : QE / PM : End-to-End Solutions
• ScrumMaster for the team
• Come up with scenarios
• Run the OOSLA program
• Triage bugs
• Influence the design
• Demo to other teams
• Foster adoption
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• Evangelize the framework standards
• Coordinate with Documentation team
• Make the standards easy to use
• Host office hours
• Triage bugs in the platform, drive closure
• Analyze and drive environment fidelity
• Run the OOSLA report
2014 : QE PM: Commerce OS
Blue triangles mean the task was requested
from my manager; orange ones are my ideas
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2015 Opportunity: Quality Evangelist
• Host a bi-weekly discussion series
• Run the weekly test leads meeting
• Plan and coordinate events
• Create a quality-centric monthly
newsletter
• Look for patterns and practices
• Attend quality engineer meetings from
across the org
• Talk to customers
• Define “Engineering Excellence”
• Run the OOSLA report
Blue triangles mean the task was requested
from my manager; orange ones are my ideas
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• Continue the bi-weekly discussion series
• Run the weekly operations meeting
• Maintain the newsletter
• Continue to attend quality engineer meetings
from across the org
• Plan and coordinate team events
• Start a SLACK channel
• Help with Agile Transformation
• Align with efforts in other initiatives
• Build an initiative core team
• Administer the culture activity platform
2016: Engineering Excellence Lead
Blue triangles mean the task was requested
from my manager; orange ones are my ideas
From the book “Explore It!” by
Elisabeth Hendrickson
Engineering Excellence Domains
Tester Live Site Quality Excellence
Program Manager Practice
Evangelist Leader
Testing (mechanics)
• Creating feature models
• Having test ideas
• Questioning
• Product and project issues
• Concerns & risks
• Participating in bug bashes
• Reproducing bugs from Support
• Evaluation: Matching what is expected or desired to what is actually happening
Discovery • What is this thing?
• Where should we go today?
• How does this work?
• Finding other factors no one else has
• Looking at a bigger piece of the puzzle
• Finding out where we may be broken if conditions change (i.e. Anticipating)
Storytelling • Writing a bug report
• Writing a status report
• Talking at standup
• Creating scenarios for testing
• Creating reports, but testing the data and user expectations
• Helping others tell THEIR story (newsletter)
• Make it easy to tell stories (e.gnewsletter)
Testing as a process of optimizing attention
What is a Role?
“A person's allotted share, part, or duty in life and society; the character, place, or status assigned to or assumed by a person.” [Oxford English Dictionary]
1. A task someone is currently performing.(“My role is checking this output.”)
2. A task associated with a contract.(“The testing role is unstaffed.”)
3. Some element in relation to other elements.(“What role does Slack play in your team?”)
Scope (what the role covers)
Responsibilities
What depends on it
What it depends on
Power (what the role influences)
Authority/Sponsorship
What roles control it
What roles it controls
Value (what the role does for people)
Specific problems solved
Necessity to organization
Desirability to others
Prestige for actor
Cost (what the role takes from people)
Cost of the actor, equipment, and materials
Cost to accommodate the role
Cost due to other roles becoming complacent
Requirements (what role/actor needs)
Environment & tools
Skills & knowledge
Motivation
Outside support
Openness (how actors relate to it)
Ownership & commitment
Casual shareability
Informality
Interruptability
Simplicity
Legibility
Presence (when & where it operates)
Persistence
Responsiveness
Disruptiveness
Commitment (acceptance of duty)
Investment of energy
Accountability
Competence (ability to perform)
Study and practice
Self-evaluation
Readiness (operational status)
Anticipating events
Adapting to new conditions
Maintaining efficiency
Troubleshooting
Coordination (relating to other roles)
Mission negotiation
Resource negotiation
Helping and accepting help
Respecting agreements
Failover strategy
Status reporting
Delivery
DimensionsOfRole
ExpectationsOf
Actors
Elements of Role
http://bit.ly/2c062wN
Introducing “Rolegrams”
Elements of Roles
Contract: an expectation to behave a certain way or perform some service
Person: capable of behaving certain ways and performing services
Task/Duty: some activity that solves a problem
Boundary object: an artifact serving as a medium of exchange between people or roles
Types of Contracts
Explicit Contract: an explicit agreement or formal protocol
Fuzzy Contract: an unspoken or vague agreement; informal protocol
Open Contract: an agreement involving actors who may come and go
Types of Tasks/Duties
Formal: a duty knowingly performed and acknowledged; a task performed in some systematic way
Fuzzy: duty not explicitly defined but also not optional; or a task that is performed, but not in a systematic way
Conditional or Optional: an explicitly defined task or duty that is not necessarily required
Actors and Roles
Actor: Person fulfilling contract
Roles(unstaffed)
Socially Competent Actor: Person who requires tacit knowledge/skill in order to perform well.
Mechanistic Actor: Person or machine who requires explicit knowledge/skill only in order to perform well.
Thinking with Rolegrams
When you see a triangle, think:- Who is doing this? Then where is the circle?- What other tasks need doing? Should there be more triangles?- Is this a duty? Then it needs a rectangle around it.- Is this reasonably formal or is it fuzzy? Is it optional?
When you see a circle, think:- Is there an agreement to do something? Then where is the rectangle and triangle?- Is this person also doing other things? Then where are those triangles?- Who SPECIFICALLY is this actor? Is it always the same person?- Does this actor need to be a human or can a tool do it?- How does this person get prepared or trained for this role?
When you see a square, think:- Is there an actor in this role? Then where is the circle?- Are there specific required tasks? Duties? Then where are the triangles?- Is this agreement formal or fuzzy? Open or closed?- What inputs or outputs are involved? Where are the hexagons?
When you see a hexagon, think:- What form does this object take? - Are there other boundary objects? Where are those hexagons?- Is this used internally to the role, externally, or both?- Does this mean different things to different roles?
Example #1
“I’ll test the latest bug fixes in this build.”
Tester
Agreement to test
Testing
new bug
reports
build
fixes
Example #2
“Download the new build and help us find a bug.”
Bug Bash Participation
Testing
new bug
reports
build
Roles as nets: heuristics for self-management
QUESTIONS?
Mr. Deep vs Mr. Wide
“I am a {specialist}, dammit” “I am a {generalist}, dammit”
Obsessed
Territorial
Narrow
Uncaring
That guy is… But I am…
Available
Collaborative
Versatile
Caring
Dedicated
Responsible
Skilled
Caring
I am…
Distracted
Unreliable
Incompetent
Uncaring
But That guy is…
Energy
Dependability
Skill
Attitude
Mr. Deep vs Mr. Wide
“I am a security tester” “I am a tester”
Energy
Dependability
Skill
Attitude
Obsessed
Territorial
Narrow
Uncaring
That guy is… But I am…
Available
Collaborative
Versatile
Caring
Dedicated
Responsible
Skilled
Caring
I am…
Distracted
Unreliable
Incompetent
Uncaring
But That guy is…
Why do some people think a role is a prison or a fortress?
This happens when role is defined as the only things you do and what no one else does.
HIGH SOCIAL DISTANCE
So, what if we eliminate roles?
You have probably experienced this.
I like to think of roles this way.
A role is like a villa. It is a semi-private space. Someone dwells in it. Someone is responsible. But visitors may come and help.
FLEXIBLE
SOCIAL DISTANCE
• Devs help testers.• Testers help devs.• But testers are
ACCOUNTABLE for test process.