I’ve come across these scenarios pretty consistently when speaking with software development and testing leaders over the past six months:

“We significantly reduced our contractor staff since COVID hit and our biggest gap today is software testing.” Software Testing CoE Lead – Large Technology Infrastructure Company

“Our software testing contractors which were onsite resources are finding it difficult to do their jobs because they don’t have the access to resources required to execute tests.” Testing Group Leader – US Based Insurance Provider

“Our manual testing really slowed down the release process within the US domestic operation because the testing resources were sent home due to COVID. We have been told that these resources might not be coming back.” Testing Manager – US Based Bank

The feeling is daunting and I’m sure that the combination of feeling locked down at home and under-resourced at work compounds the impact on the team. You end up feeling helpless.

So, What Now?

These steps need to happen immediately:

1) Publish a plan. Provide a plan on what can be accomplished with the available resources driven by business risk. Don’t make this plan punitive – make it realistic based on business priorities. To be pointed here – no whining.

2) Identify the gaps. There is no doubt that certain tasks will have to be dropped. Take a hard look at what you were doing in the past and try to eliminate the non-value-added activities – this is a good time for a healthy reset of less productive activities.

3) Prioritize the gaps. Make sure you provide the rationale for tasks that will be cut or diminished and the relative impact on the business. You might be shocked at what you formally considered ‘critical.’

4) Understand the value-stream. This is a good time to recalibrate and value-stream mapping is a good way to start. At this time, it does not need to be comprehensive it just needs to be declarative enough to assist you to reset priorities. By the way, value-stream management is going to be the next ‘thing” in the evolution of DevOps. Get your feet wet now.

5) Muda. Look at waste in your process. Don’t stop at dependencies. Prioritize your findings. These are areas you need to attack first.

6) Attack. Look at where you have the most to gain and create the plan to optimize.

Are you thinking, “I just told you that I’ve lost my resources and we are behind on our current tasks, how am I going to do this too?”

I feel your pain. But if you are looking for the chance to accelerate beyond your current role or to demonstrate that you are a candidate for future leadership roles – Voila!

P.S. Thank you to a trusted resource who encouraged this article.

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COVID Sent Software Testers Home – What Now?