Start With Why

I started with why and then came the how. As I spent more time working with the QA teams, I noticed that the QA managers had practices that didn’t align with CICD or DevOps principles or practices. The belief was that CICD or DevOps were just developer toys to play with and they weren’t interested in the conversation. Also there was a lot of fear. If you’re familiar with the Westrum Culture model, I’d say this place was pathological.

How bad was the fear? Before I joined the QA team, I used to say hi to someone whenever we’d come into work, we’d have small chats in the elevator or while waiting for it. It turns out this person was on one of the QA teams so I figured I’d go talk to them. The minute I showed up at his desk, I wasn’t greeted with the usual “Hi” but rather “You can’t automate me out of my job”. It turns out after the 10+ years of working in that building, I had a reputation of automating things and I was very good at it. He had heard rumours that I was there to kill people’s jobs and that the robots would be taking over. The more folks I spoke to, the more of this I saw though to a lesser degree.

I wanted them to be intrinsically motivated so the first thing I would do is communicate the why they were doing this. I decided to explain what’s in it for we. That is, I wanted the testers to have better skills that would help them in their future and the company in meeting its goals. The testers could see on job sites that with these new skills they’d earn more money. However I could also see that they weren’t sure if by doing what I asked them to do they were being tricked into being automated out of their job. Naturally when there’s efficiency, you need fewer folks on the team. Regardless of whether I planned on replacing them all with robots, I asked, “Wouldn’t you be better off with these skills when you lose your job than without? So if the company pays me to train you, why not take advantage of it?”. If they couldn’t connect with the company purpose or see their impact on the customer, then as selfish as it may seem to some, I told them this will help them look out for themselves.