DEV Community: Ajay Balamurugadas

A definitive guide to being a Star Employee

Ajay Balamurugadas — Thu, 06 Oct 2022 10:51:32 +0000

Have you ever wondered why some employees get promoted quicker than others or even are favorites of everyone in the organization?

Here are some common traits of such employees — let us call them The Star Employees. Every team is mostly made up of a few star employees, a strong core of good ones, and a few almost on the verge of being fired. Irrespective of the kind of work or tasks being done, if you want to transition to The Star Employees category, here are a few tips.

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Communication

We are aware that more than 60% of our communication is showcased by our body language itself. Look at yourself in the mirror and see how you feel. Does that person radiate enthusiasm and energy? A good posture, smile, and being present can push your body language score by a lot. As we have to communicate with multiple stakeholders every day, it is very important to sharpen our communication skills — both written and verbal.

Be the person who is ready with the answers to the Next Logical Question and take the Next Logical Action. You would not only save a lot of to and fro but also increase your credibility and reputation within your teams for your preparation.

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Get better at listening before jumping with your answers. A good test to check if you are listening is to see if you are preparing your answer or not when the other person is speaking.

Proactiveness

No manager has enough time to spoon-feed every employee. It will be great if employees take initiative and proactively take the next steps. We have seen many employees wait for instructions even though they are aware of what to do. It could be because of the culture, their character, or past experiences. Every star employee demonstrates the quality of proactiveness quite often.

You get noticed easily. It is no guarantee that you will not make any mistakes. At the same time, that is how you will learn — by doing. The only ones who don’t make a mistake are the ones who don’t do anything.

Keep your senses open. Grab any opportunity that arises out of day-to-day conversations. Volunteer. Assist someone who has been given the responsibility. Sometimes, you will not get the credit immediately but it will pay off one day. Keep doing the good work.

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Learner

Everyone loves a learner. In today’s world, the one who doesn’t learn becomes obsolete quickly. There are unlimited resources to learn any topic today. Organizations also encourage office-hours learning. Before diving into learning, make an audit of what you know, what is required and what you want to learn. Find something that lies within your interest levels and also aligns with the organization’s needs. After learning, share the learning with others in the form of a session, article or how to guide.

It is no secret that all star employees are lifelong learners and they view learning as an investment. Isn’t the investment on self the best investment?

Ownership

Everyone is short on time. Every manager would love to have employees whom they don’t need to follow up. Follow these three simple tips to make everyone like you:

a. Stick to deadlines

b.Communicate often

c. Take next logical actions

As you ascend the career ladder, your ownership quality plays a very important role. People either trust and give you more opportunities or isolate you and give you redundant tasks based on this one quality — ownership.

Problem solver

How irritated would you be if every time your team came rushing to you with problems they faced. Don’t take me wrong — there is nothing wrong in managers and leaders solving problems and helping the teams solve the problems. People don’t like it when you don’t put in any effort and rush to others at the first sight of a problem. Learn problem solving skills. Understand what is expected and what is reality. Be smart enough to differentiate between what is under your control and what is not. Learn to recognize the emotions of people and their intentions. Communicate well and half of the problems would disappear. Accept that problems are never ending.

Aptitude vs Attitude

Have you heard of the quotation — Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude. — Zig Ziglar. You may be a rockstar but if you are also a jerk, no one will like to work with you. There are many instances when rockstar jerks have spoiled the whole culture and work environment. They have done more damage than good. So, have a professional, collaborative attitude. Never burn bridges and keep your personal interests out of a professional environment.

Resourcefulness

The star employees are always on the lookout for fieldstones to assist them in their day-to-day work. They are aware of multiple contexts, well-read, have connections and continuously maintain the reputation of go-to person for any question. Even if they are not aware, they are resourceful enough to find out the answers quickly.

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Innovative

Innovation is not something that should always disrupt things. In simple terms, if any change can help you save time, reduce effort, add value to existing methods, that is innovation in day-to-day work. Star employees are always asking the following questions to everything they do:

– Is there a better way to do this?
– How would X (role model) do this?
– Is this even necessary?
– Can this be avoided?
– How best to document this process so that others don’t struggle as well?

Whichever role you are, whatever tasks you do, you can be the best version of yourself by focusing on these simple yet effective guidewords:

Communicate well
Be proactive
Learn everyday
Own it as if your life depended on it
Solve problems
Have a good attitude
Be resourceful
Be innovative

All the best for the Star Employee award!

Exploring Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE)

Ajay Balamurugadas — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 12:16:28 +0000

The effort to get to 90 from 60 marks is relatively easier than going from 90 to 100. As we pursue excellence, the bar for quality rises. Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) is not a new concept but widely misunderstood. Some think of it as a one stop solution to every testing problem, some associate TCoE with just the governance measures. Sometimes, only innovation is associated with TCoE. Today, let us explore the Testing Center of Excellence and its operations.

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What is Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE)

It is an independent body that has the capability and bandwidth to guide, assist, and govern the entire testing practice within the organization. It provides leadership, templates, training, research, guidance, innovation across the testing projects. It is made up of a core team with varied skill sets whose responsibilities include researching on upcoming trends, comparing tools and processes, creating utilities, creating and maintaining frameworks for projects, reviewing project artifacts for adherence to quality measures.

Why do organizations need a Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE)

With organizations delivering more and more projects, there are high chances of inefficiencies creeping in. Everyone uses their own customized templates, each project running its own processes, missing collaboration between teams and creation of more silos. As everyone gets busy in their day to day releases, the organizations miss chances to get ahead of their competition through innovation and good practices.

A Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) ensures that all projects get started on the right note, follow the governance measures to avoid getting into trouble later, share resources and practices across teams, learn from each other, adopt the innovative and scalable tactics to outsmart the competition and be the market leader. One of the other key focus areas of a TCoE would be to eliminate waste and build a strong future on the foundations of innovation. A TCoE would start providing ROI quickly if persisted through the initial few weeks.

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When should organizations plan on a TCoE

As every organization is unique, there is no one time for organizations to start thinking about establishing a TCoE. If your fundamentals are shaky, you need to fix that first. TCoE plays a major role when you want to take that big leap towards the next stage of growth. If your day to day activities are under control, running on auto-pilot mode, are not causing any major issues and you are not looking at growth in the near future, do not think about a TCoE.

For organizations that have reached a stable phase and need to leapfrog their competition, align the loose ends across teams, establishing a TCoE will ensure that the resources are utilized in an optimal manner. It would bring in predictability, efficiency, control, foundation for growth and consistency across the different teams.

Who will be part of the TCoE

The core team should consist of people with the following skills:

Strong testing skills
Keen interest in upcoming trends
Ability to learn quickly
Compare and contrast tools and approaches
Ability to present a coherent story
Audit processes, review artifacts and suggest remedial measures

The team can be anywhere between 3–10 members depending on the organization size and field of play. There have been TCoE with more than 100 members too. It all depends on the maturity of the organization, teams, skill sets and their journey so far.

What should be the reporting structure of a TCoE

Many organizations make the mistake of having the TCoE and delivery teams report to the same manager. As and when the pressure on the delivery teams increases, the TCoE teams are diluted and diverted to manage delivery. In an ideal state, the TCoE should be independent and equally accountable for the key objectives agreed upon. Under no circumstances should the TCoE take over delivery unless it is part of an exercise to understand the on ground reality. Both TCoE and delivery team heads should be independent and report to one common person.

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How to operationalize a TCoE

A TCoE should collaborate with multiple teams and stakeholders and have both short term and long term goals. Right from discussing with the sales teams to be aware of the upcoming opportunities, be in touch with the hiring teams to establish the pipeline, working with the delivery teams to understand the project deliverables and processes, collaborating with the marketing team to publish case studies, artifacts, setting targets for the innovation teams to be on top of trends, the scope of a TCoE is spread both wide and deep.

After establishing a TCoE, ensure to monitor the progress and track against the objectives at regular intervals. It might appear to be an overhead initially and it would be tempting to dismantle at the first signs of fires in delivery. DO NOT DO THAT. A well established, maintained TCoE will help prevent further fires in delivery. It will ensure that the entire cycle of sales, hiring, delivery, marketing runs smoothly and on auto-pilot within a few months of operation.