New QA Job? How We'd Decide Where To Start

A listener asks which domino to push first, and the chaps immediately disagree about where to start.

Shady has been a QA engineer for about five years and has recently joined a new organisation. Like most of us walking into somewhere new, he can see more things worth improving than he could ever get to at once, and no obvious order to do them in. So which one goes first? Vernon goes straight for wherever the pain is greatest. Richard says do it the other way round entirely, and has a spreadsheet ready to prove it. Between the two of them sits the part nobody warns you about when you take the job: the thing you were hired to fix is very often not the problem, your credibility to say so out loud has a half-life, and the clock started the moment you walked in. Also, a man who finds water leaks for a living turns out to be running a testing process most of us could learn something from.

00:00 - Intro
01:16 - Welcome: Energy levels and an idea for a future episode
03:07 - A question from the audience
03:51 - Shady’s question: Which QA domino do you push first?
04:48 - One line answers FTW!
06:04 - Rich maps the terrain
08:24 - Vern does the not so obvious obvious thing
10:12 - What’s the underlying problem?
12:19 - How to choose between a quick win and a long-term play?
13:55 - Instead of creating a master plan, do this instead.
15:47 - Work like a… Drug dealer?!
17:38 - Pickles
19:44 - Because reasons
21:05 - Rob Meaney thinks we have our priorities backwards
24:01 - The colleague who argued against more test coverage, and won
26:16 - Can you even prove the flaky automation is the problem?
28:54 - GitHub's availability has never been worse. Rich has a theory why
29:54 - Is Shady looking at a testing problem or a quality problem?
31:12 - What happens when you tell them their problem isn't the problem
32:50 - Education over illusion, and why "you're wrong" never lands
36:18 - Does it matter that you can't name the technique you just used?
37:24 - The page object question Rich asks, and the answer that ends the interview
41:12 - Jonesy, a gambling machine, and the certificate that taught him nothing
46:05 - The leak is never where the damage is
47:14 - The leak hunter who checks the water company's homework first
49:39 - Cars, doctors and solicitors are all playing 20 questions with you
52:19 - The videos where he gets it wrong, and why testers never post those
53:44 - Wrapping up, and a plea for more questions

That's the answer we gave Shady, and we're fully prepared to be told we got it wrong.

If you agree, let us know. If you disagree, let us know. If you violently agree or violently disagree, definitely let us know. Where would you start on day one in a new team, and what did it cost you when you started in the wrong place? Questions, comments and concerns are all welcome, and if you send us a question we will answer it on the show, same as we did for Shady.

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