Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers

WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM

Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for

testers

Carol DekkersQuality Plus Technologies, Inc.

[email protected]

Florida, USA


Quality expertsYesterday & today…

• Philip Crosby• W. Edwards Deming• Armand Feigenbaum• Kaoru Ishikawa• Joseph Juran• Robert Pirsig• Walter Shewhart• Genichi Taguchi• Lean six sigma• Others…


But, today is a whole new world...

Leadership & collaboration are key


Soft skills “trump” hard skills

Medicare Consumer Focus Groups (Readers Digest

Feb 2007):

“While 39% of hospital patients listed

doctor communication skills as a top concern,

just 7% citedpain management.”


How can QA professionals survive?


• Ethics

• Written & verbal skills*Written & verbal skills*

• Pressure,stress & time mgmt

• Change-readiness

• Public speaking

• Planning & organization

• Problem-solving

• Tact & diplomacy

• Critical thinking*Critical thinking*

• Team building• Self-awareness• Leadership• Flexibility• Creativity• Perseverance• Interpersonal Interpersonal

(empathy, EI)*(empathy, EI)*• Active listening

Today’s specialA soft skills Toolkit !


Research…J&J survey: Best performers

High self-awareness, self-management, social skills, & organizational savvy

HR managers: 93% say technical skills easier to teach than soft skills

HR executives:50% say entry workers lack writing skills; 27% cited deficiencies in critical thinking

NY Times:“It appears young employees are writing company e-

mails as if they were texting cell phone messages with their thumbs”

Source: http://www.bettersoftskills.com/research.htm


Remember…“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

“A fool with a tool is still a fool.”

Starter Toolkit


Interpersonal (EI, empathy)

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

YOU

CO

-WO

RK

ERS


Written & verbal communication


email charterwww.emailcharter.org

1. Respect recipients' time 2. Short or slow is not rude 3. Celebrate clarity 4. Quash open-ended questions 5. Slash surplus cc's 6. Tighten the thread 7. Attack attachments 8. Give these gifts: EOM NNTR 9. Cut content less responses 10. Disconnect!


Critical Thinking


You + Soft skills = Win / Win / Win

“Quality starts between the ears”Claus E. Heinrich, SAP AG

2007 SAP Global Quality Day

Quality is not accidental… quality is emotional

Leadership & collaborationare critical


10 / 20 / 30 One idea Learning styles Tufte’s big Ideas/ 5 Grand Principles Tools (+ / - ) Pre-test Live

Blog: ABZ’s of Communication http://MusingsAboutSoftwareDevelopment.wordpress.com

Documents

Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers