Change: Add a little more

Recently on LinkedIn I shared a post that talked about Test exit Reports (or what I would call QE Summary reports). There were certainly mixed views on whether they add value, other approaches, all of which I can understand and identify with. However, in the situations where I have used these the visibility of QE work was high with stakeholders reading and paying attention.

Regardless of whether you agree or not, there is an important technique here around implementing change. To recognise what is there in its current state, appreciating it (whether you agree on it or not) and instead of trying to completely change what is done, ask to explore an idea to “add a little more”.

I have often observed Test reports that state pass/fail rates and number of test cases. My personal opinion is that they do not tell the testing story very well.

What I could have done in the situation is pushed my personal view point and told them to remove the number of test cases and pass/fail rates. In my experience this never works. You’ll most likely get resistance.

Instead, you can say that’s good, can we explore the idea of adding a little more? Even better would be to come up with ideas together on what information would be useful. An example is below:

• A summary of the results and what you did.
• A list of issues discovered.
• Observations and learning sections.

What have you learnt?

What has slowed you down?

What can we do to continuously improve?

• Conclusion — What are the next steps?

This serves as an example of how you can initiate change by “adding a little more”. Perhaps there’s a situation in the workplace where you can try this out?