Disclaimer: This thought process and its appearance in words is the outcome a recent experience at the work place where most of the team is new (including me) and the product quite old. Being an analyst carries the risk of being an easy scapegoat like it happens in most of the projects :) And I'm glad that the learning doesn't stop and I've something positive to pick up through all of this! It prompted some introspection and I'm glad that my work ethics, attitude and way of working hasn't been hampered through or because of the few years of experience I carry. Yay more for me. Moving on.. Trying to keep the post small and ranting to the minimum. No offense is intended to any party alive or dead. The content of this post is intended for learning and sharing purposes only.
Process, ownership and quality
The three old timers which get thrown around all the time in all organisations which have some ambition for growth. Problem is just throwing around the words isn't enough. Acting on those is required. However, there is a hope that talking about it might prompt action sometime. But what do we do where teams or individuals are not even considering to think about these pillars of growth and performance? Where adherence to process lacks we can try to imbibe the importance and have some kind of appreciation for process compliance. It is also a scapegoat at times but more often than not it is a driver for quality. Where a process lacks it is easy to play the blame game.
There might've been some processes at some point of time however right now there doesn't seem to be a semblance of those. The concept of decision makers is played around with and is easily usable as a target of being the scapegoat and blame game. This then brings me to the concept of ownership. When working with a product, if targeting for a quality product, the spirit of ownership is utmost important. I would go so far as to say that its more important than any skills. Skills can be learnt. If needed i can learn coding. But if a developer with the most superior coding skills lacks the spirit of ownership it is highly possible that the quality wouldn't match up to the expectations. Soft skills are what make all the difference. People with the right attitude would know that its a team that wins. Never individuals. In order to overcome our own shortcomings and issues blaming someone else is not just unprofessional but it is childish. So is the lack of understanding that communication is important in any kind of set up to ensure a quality product is delivered. Its better to leave our personal issues (perhaps inferiority complexes or egos along with over-smartness) out and not let them hamper our communication and output at work when dealing with the team. Eventually no matter how many blame games people play the ultimate quality of the product and what the customers say is what matters. For me, personally, everything else is just barking dogs. If anything registers for me is the opportunity to improve and learn. Music to the ears is a satisfied customer with no complaints and if to achieve that constant rework is required owing to lack of processes then so be it! Of course developing and adhering to the processes is of importance as stated earlier. But in case of critical deliveries, it should be possible to adopt whatever means are available! If product quality and improvement along with learning and taking the team together with oneself are the priorities then there would definitely be a much better outcome than what we get after harboring negativism about our own team members and playing the blame game. If you are getting paid to work better get that done!
To wrap it up, aside from my minor rant, processes and ownership would drive quality much better than skills alone could. :) views are welcome.
An excerpt on the "onsite- offshore" work set up- challenges and solution to follow! :)
