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. 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. Like, subscribe, and share. {{Chapters}} 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