Welcome to Software Testing Unleashed, the podcast for testers developers and software makers who live quality as an attitude. Get fresh ideas and sharp insights to grow your mindset To learn new methods And to drive real change in how we build software Better software and better teams For a better world. Hi I'm Richie, Software Quality Coach keynote speaker and author. My guest today is Clara Ramos Gonzalez.
We met the first time in person at The Istanbul Testing Conference and I'm very happy that she's now on the show here! Clara is a senior QA manager with a lot of experience guiding companies through digital transformation, She is certified manager who runs workshops for IT leaders & teams And speaks at conferences as an ambassador to some of the strongest brands in industry. What makes her unique is how she blends quality assurance with mindfulness.
She's also a yoga teacher and Dedicated mediator bringing balance and calm into the tech world. in this episode We talked about self-care, and well being at work. Why his communication failure still the number one reason for project breakdowns? And How can breathing change that? How can one minute of mindful pause?
at the start We explored Clara's practical techniques from coffee talks without work topics to the one word intentions in daily stand-ups and how these small rituals help teams stay healthy, connected and productive. You'll hear why caring for yourself is not a luxury but foundation of quality work... ...and you have some practical tips! And now enjoy this episode! It's great to be here, it is such an honor being invited for your very famous podcast. Oh thank you so much!
But the pleasure is on my side. we met in person at the Istanbul testing conference and but you were there with me up front a long time. I am now happy that because you're known from in the community, your keynotes and work. So I think it's great that now with this audience here on YouTube and Apple and Spotify there are cool channels out there!
Because we have a very interesting topic which is so underrated when dealing our projects... ...I would frame it as self-care how to deal with pressure and all the stress stuff. And so, usually when I talk to tech people they say you know we have to go through this... This is hard work! We have to do it together! Yeah but we can't deal anyway! But that's not a solution isn'it?
No no exactly For me, it was a surprise when I started joining the work community that healthcare is underrated because and or underestimated. Because It's most important thing right? How can you be productive if we are not feeling well? Or how...how Can You Be A Good Worker A Good Employee And A Productive Engage Employee If you don't feel listened..if you Don't Feel good ..if you don´t feel like your life It's important. Okay, yeah I get work is important but we are living it like i'm leaving.
why am working? so it will be good to be considered a living creature that needs healthcare and need A lot of tools To be able to take care of myself And the people around me right? Yeah, I think they're such an important thing because We are dealing with work time as the half of our day, or maybe more than that. And we have to be in a good state for this and a good mood... ...for working productive and efficient. so I wonder why it's not that popular? No!
In my life i've always heard even from parents you know That they don't mix your personal feelings with the work life that you don't mix personal lives but for me, it's already mixed up. It is ME on my personal life working! You know I can not just split it out. so we need to start thinking about work in a complete holistic internal way because we are integral people. We cannot be split out and having different personalities, have different faces.
that takes a lot of energy to be sustained you know? And if... ...we can share with the audience these numbers according to Mackenzie Garner in lots of different consultancy agencies that drives the statistics on our field. for ten years in a row communication has been chosen like the first cost of workplace failure.
We don't feel here, we cannot communicate with them feeling comfortable speaking about what is going on if we think The project it's not good or If you have a suggestion people are afraid to speak because they're not even considered People sometimes. Eighty percent of IT employees reported stress and fatigue for the past seven years. Being able to work while you are under stress, anxiety or fatigue is very hard. it consumes all your energy.
so when you're done working Repair and reclaim your energy in your personal time because you don't have the energy to go outside into different things, to chill. To regain your energy and connect with family nature. so we need start thinking about how can work coexist with our personal well-being, you know? I think it's so normal to think that we have just one life and not the work body or private bodies. So all of them are the same. It is also the same for cooking. when i got out from work!
How can we be taught... Detach that it's different thing and you don't show your personal personality in the work... No, no. And it would not work really because when we there is an Apple TV. Is this serious? It's called severance. where they split up them They are mine to personality one work personality and one private person. When you go through the door There a different personality, but they have huge of other problems then. so its wood board Not be your solution. to split it up anyway.
these different phases of yourself because you created it and you need to sustain those. And to enrich them, Because you go changing! You learn new things at work or get a new role... ...and come up with new faces like masks. That's a lot of energy. I will recommend everybody just leave that outside and start thinking about yourselves in one holistic way And coming to work, trying to enjoy the work and talking with your peers.
Connecting with everybody because we have this like engage in a company. I prefer to connect. Connected with companies or their peers but if it's different you can be engaged then connected You know? But when we go through our daily work Agile, huddles and all the stuff we do. How can we do that in real life? So it's nice to say you should talk as a tester or connect with other people but how can we evolve this and build a frame so they work for them in good way?
It has been a challenge For me personally. when I started deciding, i was going to show with one face and establish connections With my team. And then a different challenge When trying to introduce these new frameworks and methodologies. It has been fun right? Especially we have been doing this for few years With a very, very demanding project. we have been launching a fintech project in sixteen different countries. more than forty people. A lot of stakeholders budget cuts... Of course!
Different things and We make it with any not even one absence. nobody got sick Nobody felt under water. Nobody was overwhelmed. I had sometimes when some people on my team told me i'm overwhelmed Jump right and let's see what meeting can we cut on, What Can We Do? But I think the complete framework is very important. We build the foundations by having coffee talks once a week And not mention work during those half an hour which was thirty minutes. The mandatory thing wasn't mentioned in Work.
That was very important for us to connect with each other To get to know one another. We have some small details like birthdays, different important things from our team that we celebrate and those are personal things because we want to get engaged in person. And the teams provide this information themselves To me on an email. I know everybody knows they want to show us Some detail about their personal life even if it's your kids graduation or something That you want everyone?
Because You're so proud! We do that with a very well-designed digital newsletter, something like this. It was pretty fun and the most important thing I would say we have is our daily stand up approach. in our daily meeting... ...we start with deep breathings just three deep breaths. it takes one minute And then we pick one word That will drive the intention of the complete meeting And it's very fun, for the daily we have different intentions. It could be communication or trust.
It can also be unblocking and fun! We take turns to say one word but for retrospective... kindness, or I don't know patient stuff like that. We do this for every meeting. we drive scrum ceremonies so we do it forever meeting and for the spring planning is most of the time efficiently or something like that you know? It's hard to sustain a very good sprint planning in a short time but its very fun! And of course i would like you try our daily approach today. yeah...we will.
I would like you to do it with me, just we can have the daily approach that I engage in my team. This is something that we do every day. so before we start a meeting We will have three deep breaths where our arms up and then down When you inhale go up and exhale down Three times And also share one intention word for today's podcast.
And I hope this work spread out to our community and our listeners so they can have it also, whenever the day listens to the podcast, podcasts So that we could have an intention of driving their days with them. But what do you think? That is great! We will do it. If it was my daily, I would say welcome! Welcome Tim. Welcome Richie. Today we are going to start with our daily breathing So you can close your eyes so that you can have the open as you wish.
Let's breathe in and breathe out by your mouth. Breathe In And breathe Out One more time. Breathe in and out Now. let us share Our Daily Word our daily intention for today that we will have in mind the complete day. My intention is inspiration. Inspiration, I love it! So let's all be inspired by how the day comes out. so this is what we do... We breathe and you have to breathe through your belly fully completely. This is a Pranayama technique from yoga that helps you energize the body.
So it's for getting energy, for being chill but energized. You know not relaxed or something like chill but energizing. It's very good technique And we also have different one when we want to release stress. Let me know what did you think? Yeah, when I did it was very relaxing for me and i feel down calm-down be more in my middle and yeah more settled down. And uh...I think its a good start to meeting or stand up. Yes exactly because we are used to short breathing.
just superficial breathing that doesn't go into the belly does not oxygenate your body, you know? The breathing drives the oxygen to your body and then you feel like energized and relaxed. And this is very important. we forgot how to breathe. That's weird, because we need to breathe. We are freedors so...we cannot forget how to breathe properly! But how can be implemented in a new team?
So when I think about some teams that i have and come there now will try something new take three deep breaths will stare at me and run away, climb under the table or hide behind a curtain that I don't see. How can i motivate them? And inspire them to use it...to try it out! We lead by example Richie so you have to overcome the shyness of presenting this team. It also increases your communication skills. We always lead by examples.
We are QA managers, we're seniors and we need to drive everything. for example You have to be the change you want in this world like Mahatma Gandhi said And these words are beautiful because it impacts everywhere. It does not leave workplace out, workplace included. So if people don't want to be chilled to be communicative, to drive importance of the healthcare. We need to advocate for that.
so in my case it was just overcoming the shyness of presenting this on my team and also being very decided with it. So there's no one daily meeting. we don't do this No matter how busy are we or in a rush. We do this, it's just one minute and we need to have a minute for ourselves. It is something that needs to be done And my team does not collaborate as much in the beginning with one word intention but now they love us before every meeting.
There are only one more breathing technique I want you share. It's also pranayama technique, which is the name of breathing exercises or techniques from yoga. I'm a yoga teacher so...I know what i am talking about. and this pranajama it called sitali-pranayamma And its used to download the heat on your body. So when you are in stress sometimes there is pressure. And also it's used for fever, you know when people have fever or they are in a heat thing Or something like that.
They do this breathing exercise Oxygenate the body and download your pressure Your blood pressure. You have to breathe through your mouth doing a small circle You will notice all of air seems cold It needs to be low and you exhale by your nose. And the air will feel warm. if you have time to notice, The air that you're breathing feels cold really cold. Yeah That's true! When you exhale with your nose it is warmer.
In this way people in India or all these yogis used to chill and calm their body and also connect again. So we use this one. when I noticed someone is overwhelmed After a hard meeting or something like that, we take just three breathings and let's do it one more time. You feel completely your belly And you exhale by your nose. Just doing five to seven breathing of this will completely change the way you're feeling.
If you are feeling some blood pressure Or some fever or something That your body is already manifesting about our stress Our anxiety. There are lots different things experience at work. So this is what we do in my team. for me, it's very good. I love and i have to say again that we haven't had a sick leave over two years. That's amazing! Yeah so small steps but important too. take care of ourselves.
It's such great methods to get calm, relax and relieve stress which is there everyday in our work. And it has some other repercussions that you may notice along the day like when you do this consciously on purpose a few times. then your body will start breathing more deeply Just because so. you will notice that your breathing from your belly and You didn't used to Because we have this short reading. That we do all the time.
So whenever you do alone breathing like with conscious and for purpose then Your body will continue doing it along today. It would remember, you know We have these cell memory automatic way of doing things, because our mind works like that. So it will remember you. Yeah yeah It's so great to bring into our technical team stuff with all the pressure and business objectives we have to deal With And all this struggle To take care Of The Team in This Way I can...
Sensors, Seek Leave, High Rotation stressed. burnout is what caused the most to the IT industry. It's something that we need to take care of and if there isn't a reason for taking this because it's not enough, We can think about the money repercussion anyway. It repercuses everywhere! It costs a lot but it cost a fortune. I think Garner said one point three trillion dollars just today. United States the burnout and the high rotation. And things related to stress, you know that's crazy.
so we have plenty of reasons To take care of well-being in the office like it same office called the park outside holidays wherever You need to take care yourself And we, as team leaders need to take care of our students. Yeah that's so true and I like the idea there are such tiny steps you can do every day. We don't have become a yoga teacher or deep meditation retreat but they're small steps with their breath and communicating with others at coffee break not talking about projects.
So it is more step together better environment for people If I can leave you with four takeaways from this, it will be the coffee talks. Don't underestimate that importance. to have a cup of coffee and talk about anything besides anything! And if your shy or you don't have a built relation yet start speaking from something that you have read, whatever thing can speak about and it will be recorded with your team. Second is feedback. We receive feedback in our one-to-one meetings.
we cannot reply to feedback for at least a day. so if I give you feedback You cannot tell anything, even the reasons you think that... No. Even if I'm wrong or no- The only thing we can say is thank you? ...I will reflect about it. We cannot say anything else and my team gives me feedback also but we have to bite our tongues increases our way of working and flexibility, acceptance to feedback decreases the resistance.
It was a game changer for retrospectives one-to-one meetings about new roles on teams. so it's great. The third one will be the daily meeting, breathing and intention. The one word intention is great because we all get to remember. sometimes some of our team members start putting it on the chat or in the Slack chat with a group that we have And they put their intentions for today as this one if you missed the meeting. We have this award for today. They are remembered!
Sometimes troubles or difficulties Arise in the hours of working and you will be surprised that The many times is related to one are one word intention And they remember it. They put a remember, and then this day when we're like communication Remember today's about communication. where? Okay Yes sure and stuff like that. so its gets really fun. How many did you with the coffee talks? The retrospective feedback, the feedback reflection. The breathing technique and one word intention.
And the fourth one will be Try to be a holistic person. try not to sustain this life about having your work personality and your personal personality in your life personality and trying Not to sustain that or increase these beliefs. So, just try to be yourself and enjoy your work. There is not said in nowhere that we cannot enjoy our work or have fun with our co-workers. This means you can't be friends friends with your co-worker. Of course you can do that, yes!
Yeah great Clara thank even a little bit better and healthier, with the better mood. So I think there is lot in there we can transform into our daily work. We will put your contact details on show notes. so if anyone has another idea or want to ask something. i'm sure that you'll be glad to answer those questions too. Of course my LinkedIn doors are always open for the QA community.
I'm very, very engaged and i love to speak with any QA members or newcomers anybody that is contributing into our industry a quality assurance industry That we love so much. Yeah! That's great. Thank you very much Clara And have a good week. See You soon!