gniquyij.github.io
Plasticine, plugin, transformer
What shall I do as an individual within a company?
This is a question I’ve asked myself for several times in the past 6 years. It’s interesting for me to see changes to my answers. The changes are not tiny since I’ve noticed them. Write it down so I could reference it in the future.
Plasticine
A putty-like modelling material [1]
I was aware that I should find something I would like to do meanwhile someone would pay me to do in my senior year of university. After trials with internships, volunteers, etc, I found I did not hate to interact with products - loving to see how people react to a product then come up with a way to make the thing better to use based on the reactions. I got a conclusion that maybe I could be a User Experience Designer or Product Manager - a role requiring insights on the consumer meanwhile I could create something based on my insights.
Guess what?
I became an Account Manager for a B2B [2] product. ‘I can’t find a position closer than this to the consumer, can I? Why not do that?’ I thought.
I tried to set up connections between the industry and the academia cause I found that might help my clients to better understand the product.
Since the software quality was a big impediment to me - facing tons of issues reported by my clients everyday meanwhile engineers kept asking me details of the issues, I started to cover product testing before release.
Like plasticine - fill in the missing I could find.
So, how’s it going?
As an individual, my expectation was:
- I have ability, time and am allowed to do a thing. I make it then get a fair reward.
But in practice,
- no or lack of ability
- no or lack of time
- no or lack of permission
- no or lack of reward
- …(interactions)
Plugin
A software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program [3]
I realized I could not do everything so I tried to focus. I called this Plugin stage:
- Do my job, really well.
I decided to be a tester - the first tester in the company, requiring me to set up everything from scratch. I started to think about what a good tester should be like. Here’re the things I find most companies expect a Quality Assurance (hereinafter referred to as ‘QA’) to be in charge of also what I’ve been doing:
- test case
- manual test
- User Interface (hereinafter referred to as ‘UI’) automation test
- API [4] automation test
- performance test
Nothing is as it seems - being a plugin taught me this. I’ve never thought about that many things a QA should be able to do - looking back at what I did when I was an Account Manager, once there’s an issue, I just clicked clicked clicked on the page then wrote down what I found in the UI, how could engineers take the issue forward with little information provided by me?
Transformer
Living, human-like robots with the unique ability to turn into vehicles or beasts [5]
You think I would be okay to deal with my job? Pity not. I’ve been still struggling.
Below are screenshots of my daily. Once an issue, I need to:
- reproduce it
- locate the cause
- resolve it
- make sure the issue has been resolved
- let users know the product works again
To be a qualified QA, at least in a startup, I think it’s not enough that you have QA knowledge. Let’s take a look at my daily again:
- ‘reproduce the issue’ - a QA skill
- ‘locate the cause’ - QA + Developer
- ‘resolve it’ - a Developer skill
- ‘make sure the issue has been resolved’ - QA + DevOps
- ‘let users know the product works again’ - communication skill
You might ask why a QA should cover other roles’ work. Try to think from the company’s perspective, there should be someone to resolve the issue, right? It doesn’t matter who you are.
See, Plugin is not the end. A better individual is the one who:
- is professional enough
- can fit into the environment
I call it Transformer stage - plugin like a plasticine - an expert who can handle what the environment requires. Some companies hire some experts but there’re not many improvements in practice. I think environment fit missing might be one of the reasons.
Summary
| An individual who knows | Plasticine | Plugin | Transformer |
|---|---|---|---|
| What to do | √ | √ | √ |
| How/When/Where/Who | x | √ | √ |
| Why | x | x | √ |
Next
Is this all? Maybe not.
Instead of resolving the issue, is there any way to solve the problem?
I am inspired by people around me. Sometimes they use some genius (abnormal but workable) ways to solve some problems. Not only they know what/how/when/where/who/why, they redefine what to do, which could be, including a tool to unite the pieces.
How could I step out of the frame (past) like this? I do not know. Hope I could share with you related experience some day.
This is a trial. I’ve never written about such a topic in English before. I wish by using a language I am not familiar with (simple words only) I could make myself clearer. All I said here is based on what I learnt in the past 6 years - just my thoughts. It would be great if they are useful to you in some way - but everyone’s different, I do not expect anything.
If any comments/questions/inputs, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Thank you for reading.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticine
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business-to-business
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_(computing)
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_programming_interface
[5] https://transformers.hasbro.com/en-us
