The Interview
-   DHL
-   toptable
-   ICAP
-   RollUp Media
-   BNY Mellon
-   TC Consulting
-   MarkitSERV
-   Pinesoft
-   IDBS
-   Vertex
-   LateRooms
-   Betfair  

_ We ‘bumped into each other’.  During my school years, I wanted to be a tree surgeon... when I was growing up my next door neighbor was a tree surgeon and it looked like a pretty solid career choice - you got to be outdoors and use chainsaws!  I secured a place at the local Agricultural College and in the six-month gap between school and college I got a job in the parts department of a motor vehicle company, picking parts off the shelves.  When some of the team were off sick, there was a need for someone to fill in, in the customer service department which I relished, and then similarly with the trade center, gaining stock control and sales experience. In those days, I earned £30 a week but the experience I gained was invaluable...needless to say I didn’t take that place in Agricultural College and I spent the next 12 years of my life in the motor industry, including being an assistant parts manager for Rolls Royce and Jaguar!
 
I joined ‘Glass’s Guide’ in 1990 initially because they needed someone who understood the motor trade, to help move their products from paper to electronic and essentially there was a lot of input involved in a data analyst type role.  As the initial project progressed, there was the need for data quality assurance, and then, when the system was ready, the data needed to be tested.  Both these roles were quite a natural progression and I am proud to say that I saw the system all the way from its paper-based stage, to the DOS start-up, then to the Windows-based system that we would recognize now. I contributed to the implementation of the support function - in technical support and field engineer roles, and once each product had stabilized, we focused on the re-engineering, development and testing of the other products. The eight years I had at Glass’s and the ‘grass roots up’ approach enabled me to become proficient in several disciplines and, despite the fact that I don’t have a degree, I seem to have done OK!  I finally sat the ISEB/ISTQB Foundation 13 years after my IT career started and it was the first time when I actually felt validated - not because I learnt things I didn’t know, but because I found out I was doing everything in accordance to the Foundation anyway!  I am pleased I took the more ‘natural route’ and going forward, it made me a lot more confident.

_ Not really - I try and spent a bit of time in the latter part of Friday, planning my next week and then spend the following Friday re-planning the plan that I didn’t get to complete!  This is a very dynamic role - it’s both proactive and reactive, the latter is especially so as we deliver high quality innovative products to market. A big part of my day is ensuring communication between the different departments and having an awareness of what everyone else is doing - I find that by treating the different areas of the business as ‘internal suppliers’ it breeds a different thought process within my team.  The market I work in is very highly regulated so when information is changed we often have to take a step back and reassess.  As you can imagine, this leads to a much less typical day and having to think on our feet a lot!

I try to maintain a very general structure of catching up with my test managers with regards to project scheduling and release, escalation, budgets and suppliers; then of course I work with other heads of departments with regards to resources and we decide together which projects are of critical importance.  I would say my role is about 70% strategic and 30% tactical.  I enjoy the autonomy of being the first ‘Director of Testing’ within IDBS; being able to carve my own role is very satisfying and allows me to increase my own value within the organization.

_ I would say this is twofold - firstly, the responsibility for process improvement and increased maturity of testing within a company, and secondly it would have to be increasing the capability and competency of people. The two are complementary. I have always been a big believer in retaining a strong knowledge pool and encouraging professional development; by looking after the staff you have with regards to their own learning and education.  Having been through the ‘IT system’ from the ground up, I am now in a position to identify ‘corporate pathways’ within a company to allow the capability of the people and the business to grow.  I am happy to take on that ‘mentor’ role, and I believe I know when a good time is to coach and when is the right time to mandate - I couldn’t say if I’m more of a manager or a leader; I think that’s for my team to decide. What makes my job enjoyable is having an extremely capable team around me – also a favourite thing of mine..!

_ Working in such an energetic and vibrant environment means that priorities continually need to be reassessed to ensure delivery of the greatest value to the business.  As market leaders, IDBS bring innovative products to the market - we are all driven to be dynamic yet controlled which can prove difficult when you are continually striving for pioneering product delivery.  My job is balanced between process improvement and project delivery so managing my time and my team’s time effectively and efficiently is a challenge - but a welcomed one!

_ Anyone who is considering a role in IT needs to understand the business and how the support of IT can add value.  The recognition that some roles are constantly changing; IT is definitely a field that doesn’t stand still, and the awareness of shifting trends is crucial.  You have to keep your own knowledge up to date as well as encouraging other people to be enthusiastic and develop their own skill.  There is a conception that IT is an unstable career choice because it is consistently changing - even if this can sometimes be true, if you are aware of shifting trends and you are always striving to expand and maintain your knowledge then shifting sideways into a different role can be an easy transition - especially if you understand the needs of the business as well.

As a rule of thumb I’ll always say ‘yes’ to big projects - my advice would be to ‘not be scared of the scary stuff’ and to challenge yourself to grow.  Upon reflecting on my career, I would say that I’ve become more comfortable within the harder projects which have enabled to me enhance my confidence.

_ After being at Glass’s for eight years and gaining a solid foundation in both the motor industry and in various IT disciplines; I fancied a change so I joined a company as a QA Co-ordinator dealing with the first generation of web-enabled financial market trading systems - which was basically front office software written for handheld devices alongside thick client software to enable derivatives trading, and STP.  I grew a testing team over 18-months and throughout that time the quality and reliability of the product set grew. From there I moved to BUPA as a Quality and Testing Consultant, where I oversaw the quality governance of large projects.  Following that, I became a test manager at a major retail shoe outlet; where I built a team of 15 from scratch that tested the software used end to end by the business, including hand held POS devices. For the six years before I joined IDBS (eight months ago) I took on various roles at Allianz Insurance, which not only developed my key skills and knowledge, but also my management and leadership skills.  I became more accountable, took on larger projects, implemented an offshore team and, on the whole, added value to a number of business divisions.  In my last role there as Testing Strategy Manager, not having the authority to implement change and purely taking on the role in an ‘advisory’ capacity wasn’t really for me in the end, which is why the role at IDBS is so perfect for me - I feel I am able to really make a difference.

_ Putting a bit of a spin on the traditional ‘best memory’, I’d like to say that my most valuable memories are the ones from previous organizations where projects have required troubleshooting. As a test practitioner you sometimes get called in to review a project when ‘there are problems in testing’. Analysis of why there are problems can often reveal failure in upstream processes and teams, and what testing is doing is indicating the overall health of the project. Being in a position of communicating the results of the causal analysis and providing recommendations to stakeholders has afforded the opportunity to understand software development lifecycles and quality management more holistically than if I had remained in a more formal functional test role.  I thrive on experiences where I can learn and develop by myself as well as part of a team - the bigger the battle the better the learning curve!  As a senior member of the team, there is often juggling between stakeholder management, priority calls and conversing between various levels of the team both above and below myself...there can be a lot of ‘fire fighting’!

Having said that, my best ‘real memory’ would have to be reflecting on the progress of testing at Allianz.  When I joined, testing wasn’t particularly recognized or valued (or even considered a ‘profession’ at all!) across all of IT or the business, but during my time there, the competency grew significantly. The successes of both the onshore and offshore teams were vast, and the capability and level of maturity was continuously improved. Largely to do with the input from both myself and my teams, there was a lot of repeatability, improved toolset utilization, metrication, and visibility of the value of testing. When I joined Allianz the company was at a CMMI level 3, but when I left it was certified at level 5. Testing contributed directly to that success and being part of the QA team that achieved level 5 is incredibly rewarding.

_ You have to be pragmatic.  Being able to work calmly under pressure is a skill that should be refined; whilst being able to juggle multiple streams of work and being able to jump into each at any given time.  You need a high degree of emotional intelligence, knowing where to draw the line between coaching, mentoring and leading while maintaining approachability and promoting the ethos of ‘one team’ with everyone having equal input.  I can’t have all the answers, so I’m pleased to be in an organization like IDBS where there is so much natural talent and specialist knowledge.

_ After recently reading a REC report on a very similar topic, it made me reflect on the various options graduates have.  The report noted that since 2006, there has been a 60% drop in people taking ICT as an A-Level!  I think there could potentially be some reluctance from graduates when they see a lot of IT jobs being moved offshore; I think that IT needs to be made more credible and it starts from both the industry, the education system and the recruitment agencies.  There should be the awareness of the various roles within IT; testing is only touched on in Computer Science degrees which are why a lot of people stumble upon it at a later date.  There is the definite need for adaptability; there are so many hybrid roles out there such as test and QA, or development and BA, to enable graduates to use and learn more than one skill!