Presentation is the retrospective on building a QA practice for almost 10 years from 1 to about 70 engineers, in 8 locations, 4 countries.

1. How to develop diverse team?
The retrospective

2. The retrospective
Intro
Most decisions are
made intentionally.
However, there are
moments which provoke
thoughts and
understanding why.

3. Intro01.
Recruitment02.
Dailychallenges
Reinventing LineManagement
Q&A
03
04
05
Intro

4. About me
Intro

5. Some numbers
Intro
• Built a QA team for 10 years
• From 1 to 70 engineers
• Has been building a cross-functional team for a 1.5 year
• a team of 50 engineers, including TPMs, BAs, devs, ...
• Interesting details
• More than 10 years as Manager
• 8 locations
• Poland, UK, India, Brasil
• Built a lot of blended teams with clients
• Experience with outsourcing and team scaling (up / down)

6. Recruitment
The fightbetweensamenessand contrariety

7. Between sameness and
contrariety
Recruitment
• I need help as the company grows
• Several interviews in a short time
• Still remember two of them which were totally
different

8. Do you know yourself?
Hire to extendyour skills,challenge ideas and let
them drive change.

9. Thinkingabout diversityat the beginningnot in the
course of the journey.

10. Fresh blood
Recruitment
It is always a challenge for a company which
• Has low rotation
• Is successful in skilling up interns
• Is mature and innovative (process, technology,
...)
• ...

11. Senior is a game changer who allowsus to make a
step forward.
It’s goodto gain someone like this once per year.

12. The return of prodigal son
Recruitment
• The loss of good engineers hurts
• But what should we do if they want to come
back?

13. Prodigalsons return having learntsomething which
can be beneficialto your organizationandknow
how to implement it.
And yes, they probably leave you again after a few years.

14. Daily challenges
Because we develop a teamthrough small,everyday
decisions

15. When there is no chemistry
Daily challenges
• Diversity causes lack of chemistry between
some team members
• Or personal conflicts arise

16. Team cooperationisfar more importantthanthe
chemistry withyour boss.
Beresonable, of course.

17. Choose your Deputy
Daily challenges
• Even a boss needs to go on holiday and log out
of the mailbox
• Good boss trains his successor
• Growing practice requires more and more work
• the limit was about 50 engineers

18. Head andDeputy shouldhave different drivers,
differentvisionand needs. Findwhere 'wants'cover
'don’ts'.
Two Zbyszeks aretoo much anddo not work well.

19. All roads lead to Rome
Daily challenges
• The company delivers a lot of projects and
recognizes a set of good practices
• The Head has a lot of exprience and delivers
several successful projects
• Each engineer, different experience, a different
approach

20. Your road is faster justfor you.
Work as a consultant,share your experience but at
the end allowpeople to choose their solution.
Make people responsible for their choices, not yours.

21. A startingpointbased ongood practicesand
empowerment to change is better than startingfrom
scratch.
Ask to share the reasons for the change as knowledge sharing practice

22. It’s about you not them
Daily challenges
• Variety of remote teams and reasons:
• New office, outsourcing, blended team with client
• Scaling possibilities, knowledge, time zones, ...
• How to setup cooperation properly?
• Routine to solve issues by inviting remote people to
our headquarters to work with the core team

23. Let your people feel the painof remote teams to
encourage to change/ solve the cooperationissue.
It’s crucial to build trust.

24. The dream job
Daily challenges
• T-Shape, whole-team approaches
• cause more generic/engineering approach from
people
• And require more flexibility from employees
• There are engineers who would like to be
narrow specialists

25. It’s importanttosay NO ifpeople's visionof them
does notmeet the companyneeds / ways of
working
Evenif it means they leavethe company

26. Empathy makes the change
Daily challenges
• Approach to Accessibility
• Pass the client's technical requirement / audit
• Does it mean that our solution really helps disabled
persons?
• Engineers show no clear interest to upskill in
this area

27. Create a placefor empathy andlet the team decide.
Meeting people with disabilities promotes understanding and is like a
wind ofchange

28. Are we ready for an
Asperger person?
Daily challenges
We had to answer a few questions
• Is there a place or enough tasks?
• Is our team prepared and ready?
• Do we have people with enough empathy?

29. It’s a team decisionas they need to face the issue
daily,not the manager’s who can only support.

30. I do notknowyour expectations.Communicate
them.
Mymain lessons learnt from the cooperation with an Asperger
person

31. Do not treat me differently,treat me equallyand
give honest feedback even if it is awkward
My main lessons learnt from the cooperation with an Asperger
person

32. Reinvent Line Management

33. Typical Line Management
issues
Reinvent Line Management
• Line Managers rarely work with mentees
• Employee assessment based on gathered feedback
as they do not work together
• Variety of LM who are rather subjective
• Head wasn’t able to challenge the assessment
• LM is not seen as Leader/Mentor anymore
• No continuous contact, small talk, ...

34. Career Paths as excell
checklist
Reinvent Line Management
• Switch from skills to behaviours wasn’t enough
• Diversity makes the excell rules stop working
• A lot of exceptions during the assessment process
• Career paths not up to date
• Change is constant (company and business)
• The yearly objectives as fiction

35. Choose your Leader
Reinvent Line Management
• Encourage to change Line Manager depending
on the employee's current needs
• We are all engineers – choose a leader that
helps you achieve your goals
• If a dev wants to be better in testing, let them choose
a tester
• Back to small talk, daily communication
• LM seen as a Leader / Mentor again

36. Visualisation is the key
Reinvent Line Management

37. Assesment rules
Reinvent Line Management
• All Leaders are involved
• Leaders have an impact on everyone during the
assessment
• challenge the position (positive and negative)
• Group of Leaders accept the visualisation as the
final result of the assesment process
• Leaders share position with their mentees
• It’s easy to talk on how to move based on examples

38. Thank you