Welcome to Software Testing Unleashed. The podcast for testers, developers and test automation engineers And all the people in the software development process who want create great amazing quality software. My today's episode was recorded at Testvorus A Great testing conference In Poland! The days were full packed with great quality content. I had a great time discussing and chatting With Polish and international software community.
If you haven't been here should definitely go to one of the next Test Warriors conferences. You find a link in the show notes. My guest today is Natalia Romanska. She was once an accountant and now is a QA. She's big fan of the holistic approach in quality assurance, The one that begins with neatly designed processes and thoughtful planning. We talked about failures And what we can learn from them. Why lessons are much better than bigger failure? The reality is that Failures happen!
And will continue to do so. So stop blaming start learning. Now. enjoy episode. Hello Natalia! Great to have you on the show. Hello Richie, thank you so much for the invitation. Yes great, great to have your here. We are here at the Testvirus in Vishla. Is this pronounced? In Viswa! I have to learn the pronunciation. Great conference, i like the spirit here. it's so familiar people chatting and then high quality content. It is very nice to be here.
Yeah exactly, I totally agree That one of best when comes to vibe And whole networking stuff that happening all around This my second time a testvirus But I must say wish that I have like visited more often in the past. Yeah, for me it's a first time so i'm here. yeah all new year almost new visa and up front to the conference are at The Abstracts And I saw you abstract and its about learning from failures. I'm from Germany, German-speaking country and we don't like that failure stuff.
It's more perfectionist! Yeah it should be everything but i know We Should use the failures for learn. But That is a point to go into this topic. What Is It About? You know, I think we have a lot of successful stories. In the majority of conferences and histories... Even if i've submitted some in the past We usually tend or try to share what went well but not necessarily wrong.
But at same time those painful, the most painful stories sometimes are the most valuable when it comes to us as growing as a professional. So I just thought like okay let's try something different. for at those times those failures stuff that i wanted to share were like oh my god! It was really tons of facepalms and so on. but then i realized why not to share? Those are my failures, so it's better to turn and show what I have learned.
Plus i can just make a laugh little bit on myself maybe encourage others not be afraid of making mistakes or doing the failers because this is part our growth... Not only as professional but even live would say. obvious pattern. we should learn from our failures. But when you bring it in a concrete way, so if there's an example will share some of your learnings and from your failures with us here? If I understand correctly want me to show something like specific filers right?
um yeah Of course Like. i think that the one And the very first failure that I have done in my professional career was when i was working as an accountant. It was like already a couple years ago and, um...and I started helping person to one of my senior colleagues with them with grants. when you have those non-governmental organisations. Normally, I need to add a little context for this failure and normally we do the statement of month or yearly end procedures.
You collect documents, calculate taxes and everything goes. But when it comes to grants they are like going somehow in the parallel. so I had one non-NGO that i had to calculate granted they received but was not that experienced at the time? And after doing a final statement for year end closures and to submit the report of the grant, I realized that they made a mistake for seventy-k thousand zloty which was about more than four thousand euros just international audience.
And as first time ever I was like oh my god, i had no idea how the inflation works. I already was planning for many years to save money and return it back to my company at NGO. I've already picturized how badly our accountancy office can look in eyes of our clients because huge like it may affect your PR in terrible way.
But fortunately, the giver of the grant also made a mistake and actually that difference was about seventy K. so I was super lucky at the time but then realized For example, onboarding when you are a new joiner to the company or asking more even more and more questions especially when your starting with some new topics. Are super important. And after that really?
When it comes to calculating like payrolls and submitting those reports for the next six years I I haven't done anything wrong with that anymore, but i was super focused on the details just not to make the same mistake again. So yeah... That was first time ever the most painful ones Not necessarily in IT. In IT also had a couple of those. But each times something bad happened emotions to the one side, then let's figure out what I can grab from that and not make the same mistake in the future.
And...I think i can share also some pro tips. but most important message is every single failure or case is different. so you have a similar topic at once, then you can have some lessons learned based on that. But after all... You need to analyze what happened because those stuff that you've learnt may differ in every next case Because each time when a different person comes into account and sees it, they will release whatever the process is. But overall, yeah.
Emotions to the left... Don't forget about yourself and give yourselves some time for that. but there is always something you can grab from the future. I think it's often a point where we don't take our time to rethink what have been done. What did you say? To take out lessons learned as if they were something i could sit down write-down on my own ideas And reflect them. We often do not take their time. move on to the next thing.
Move onto the next because it requires being self-aware that we also could have done something wrong and I think, very human things don't want us to think about okay... It's easier if you say something went wrong with this process but not my fault. Something went wrong because another person didn't do what they were supposed. But I think it's not the case about blaming ourselves, but being as much objective as we can with those self-analysis processes.
It is tricky and that why i also want to share some stuff on this. stuff that are not comfortable for us, because it's like... It is not easy okay. I should have done this differently. but even to tell yourself? Yeah! Because we want always blame other people and they're easier. Because you need the responsibility of your actions as well fully aware of what went wrong. You still contributed to that process, okay? But your actions led those failures also matters here.
so it's worse... Take a deep breath and just, okay. Let's do it like one by one And ask those magic five wise why? It happened and treated like as if the case Case study. nothing to blame ourselves for that. interesting because we On this side, we don't want to think about that. What did wrong or something like that? We worry a lot of things which are totally out our control and there is big mind-fuck in thinking about worries. so it's an interesting combination for humans!
Tough combination to overcome, but I think that's also part of building self-awareness in general when you are growing. It means for me that you not only try to grab what went wrong and do like this feedback session with yourself, but also try to understand. What are those stuff? That You cannot control was actually something that you don't have power to change.
a And he need to be also aware that okay I learned is this and that but each time I have a new case in the company, there is a new process. There will always also be something that they cannot control. so... That's why every single case of failure is different because other humans may make their failures mistakes. being more open-minded and self aware… sort of coaching session maybe, but this is something that I truly believe and try to follow in every failure.
Even though sometimes i need a moment to absorb the emotions give myself some time to overcome even it's like crying or... It happened as well! And then try to okay for next..I will know this,this &that. Then we'll see what the future will bring for your cases. Do you have any tips on how to become more self-aware? Because when I go home and say, okay now i'm more self aware... ...I think nothing will happen!
I would start with trying to understand what's your personality type because I mean not like only those disk or yellow, red. Those basic division into four but for example you can take a sixteen personalities personal test. so that's what we learn and try to understand how this personality type do have like works in practice, and I would connect that with some additional activities.
From my experience i did for example those tests but also closely cooperated with managers throughout my professional careers. I always try to ask for feedback. What can do differently? Do they see that, for example in a good way? what i can improve ? What are your talents you can like? try with Gallup but think about the stuff that you're good at and develop yourself even more. if you are interested, or in those that don't feel comfortable with try to understand why.
Whether it's something I'm totally like bad at and nothing happened... Or maybe i was biased for a long time when it comes the automation test. I was working as a QA and it's like, oh hell...I won't be automating! And i'm so good at that but not even trying to start with that.
But I overcome this and would say.. I wouldn't be virtuoso in that but can still be decent professional that they handle process technical stuff etc. So first of all trying to understand myself using tooling that I have, but also use managers' skills and their help if you want to grow. There comes a quote in my mind – feedback is the breakfast for champions! So get feedback…. The more feedback you'll have it's better for you.
although even receiving feedback is something... tricky, I must say because we like to listen. good stuff but not necessarily those that we can improve. But i think it's the part of learning path as well... Learning how to receive feedback properly and this is our ongoing challenge. even when you have twenty years professional experience You may be biased by your experience.
So like staying open for feedback and hearing out what people want to say, this is something the most valuable for you as a person. And if you really want to compare yourself with someone don't do it with others. rather Do It With Yourself From The Past. That's always good advice too. Check what have you done and how are your today? That's why you can easily track the progress. So if feel not motivated enough to learn from those failures, You can spot.
okay I had this situation when i had like one two years three years of experience... ...I had another five but after ten years.. ..i had totally different situations But still see how my way of thinking has changed, and how my approach to some conflicts or situations have changed. So that's all part of building the self-awareness we've mentioned.". That was a great advice!
And also I think when you look at our environment with social media stuff... We tend to compare it with other people on LinkedIn who are so successful in their shiny lives. I think that's not a good comparison.
Yeah, because like this is something that it said out loud very often when it comes to looking at the social media That its always like piece of someone life Piece of someones career The way we build personal recognition plus personal branding which all important To build those connections. but it's easy to forget that, okay this is only like one tenth of someone's life or even less. And yeah... That really might be tricky especially in social media.
there are tons of successful stories most of the time but don't forget those people showing only bright shiny spots and have lots followers whatever. They also, I'm like one hundred percent sure that they also made a lot of failures or make them lots mistakes in their careers without them. there is also the quote...I have no idea who said it but it stands with me very closely.
if i had this experience now wrong decisions in the past, but without them I wouldn't have my experience that they have now. So it's like all depending on each other and i guess there is a quote that stands with me The most when it comes to learning. And okay It just social media. you still live Just virtual Yeah. You mentioned some tips to learn from our failures, do you have any other tips for us?
I guess trying to analyze the problem of emotions aside is a bit hard and easier when telling what would be good But I think that's the top one, like give yourself time to absorb. To make some grief or whatever... Feel those emotions but then try to analyze what happened without them involved as it should be easier at least to grab those learnings. if you struggle with that and i'd like to ask for My friends or my managers, I don't know supportive group if you have any.
Or If You Don't Have Any just to try and create some... You can always go them like vent moment. And then what we could do? They are more objective. they're not involved in such situation.. They Can Help Us with those analysis. So We Can Like Grab some learnings, but at the same time let's do not forget that it would always be a different case. I don't think they have much more tips on how to learn from this. We don't believe we have one universal pattern because every single case is different.
so just like trying to analyze them one by one each time. if you notice... issue with those other factors that fit. And I made the same mistake, then there is a signal. okay maybe... ...I should put more attention on that or try to different learnings but.. There's no golden advice. they would have simply like building awareness of ourselves try to analyze what happened without emotions involved in the moment you are doing that. But remember, every single case will be different anyway.
so yeah... That's three key points I would say but no universal pattern simply! Yeah it is all about self-awareness and reflect myself. Yeah, I think also that we talk a lot even in conferences or meetups.
In general on social media like our professional social medialot of communication those human factors and i think it's still important to highlight that uh... We should do that because they truly believe when you want to fully grow as the profession all we should combine both this soft and hard skills development. We can be super good at hard stuff, but struggle with softened ones on the other way around. for this holistic development we should take care of both.
even though it's not something pleasant, failures usually are connected like oh my god feeling Never, never again. But don't forget about them. they are a really good source of learning. simply and I just want to share the message that even though it's something uncomfortable or not nice It is good to remember you can always grab some things from what we have done.
Very useful and very important skill for the future when we look at all things that are dealing around with stuff on the world going on. So I think to be self-aware, learn how to develop ourselves... ...and get more resilient, take our failures into more progress in improvement of yourself is crucial for the futures. Definitely! Especially because profession, it's global I would say. Most of the cases work in international companies.
so apart from building self-awareness we should also remember about such stuff as cultural differences. what are they like community types that you're working with? What are their products specific whether its startup versus major company. So every single like part of the career, The more you know. The better for you. because where are becoming so again? building self-awareness is a clue. Great! Natalia thankyou very much for this insight.
I hope that motivates alot people here to Think about their failures to get more self-reflective, self aware. I hope so! To learn from that and not be too shy... ...to share it with friends…. So there were many valuable inputs now in this episode? three years ago or something like that. During my third ever speech, I almost fainted during on a stage and after that i was like oh my god! Im not gonna do it again but decided to analyze this failure. what went wrong?
and eating before speech or having some like snacks, or nuts really helped. But it actually blocked me for a while with some meeting call for papers. but somehow I'm standing here sharing this so that any failure can be something you learn from and overcome to grow. Thank You very much!