I thought I would share something I did recently regarding remote coaching/training. My inspiration for sharing comes from here and here
I have always enjoyed training new software testers. Lately it’s been more difficult for me to do since I’m in a different office from the bulk of the testers on my team. See my linked in profile for an explanation as to why I’m away.
Given that I’m away I started looking for ways to continue engaging with my team. One opportunity came from reading Cong Zhao’s daily updates.
About Cong: Cong joined us from Waterloo for his second summer work term. His first work term was with ACRP. They provide testing fixtures to Rim to test blackberry. You can find out more about him on linked in
About daily updates: I have everyone on my team send a little summary of the interesting things they learned that day. It’s meant to resemble newspaper headlines that catch your eye, make you want to read further and hopefully learn something of value to you.
Note: I’ve asked Cong for permission to share the process we went through.
Here is the initial correspondence I sent to Cong based on something I read in his daily update.
Cong,
Mike and Herb are out so I’m going to do some remote mentoring with you. I reviewed your list of bugs. You did a good job at re-running the original steps and documenting that in the bug. I want to challenge you to figure out what other areas of the product might have been affected by the changes you are testing.
I want you to ask yourself (and others) “What else could have been broken as a result of this fix?” “What areas of the code where changed and what other areas depend on/use this area” This will cause you to become familiar with the code and will probably require talking with the developer who fixed it.
Questions you should be able to answer for every bug
- What area of the code was changed?
- Why was it changed (explain why the change fixes the bug).
- What needs to be done to verify that the fix resolves the original problem.
- What needs to be tested to prove that the fix does not cause the product to break in some related but different area.
For some guidance on different approaches to thinking about the software check out these articles
Action items I expect you to complete by next Friday.
For Articles listed above
- Read these articles over the next week
- Write a summary of your learning from them
- Send summary to Mike, Herb and myself
Look for and document your exploration of bugs beyond the original description.
- Pick 5 issues that had code changes that you are assigned to close.
- Speak with the developer and get the questions from above answered. Document the answers in the bug when closing.
- Show evidence of the above to Mike, Herb and myself.
Given that Herb and Mike are out and I’m remote – you could also rely on Joseph for som
e guidance as well. Let me know if you have any questions or if you cannot complete this assignment by next Friday.
Thanks,
Adam
What I think I did well with this communication
- Explained to Cong what I was intending. I attempted to make Cong feel safe and that I wasn’t threatening or unhappy with his work. I am his boss’ boss afterall and I emailed him fairly out of the blue.
- Clearly set completion date
- Set out my expectations on how the end result of the work should be delivered
- Gave him some local options for getting help
What could have made this communication stronger
- I could have asked Cong to respond and either accept, reject or negotiate my request and give him a date to do this by
I’d love to hear any comments on this situation or thoughts/experiences you have with remote coaching/training