To make the second half of the year more successful, analyze the first part.
Now is the perfect time to take a step back, look at what we have done in the first half of 2022, and make adjustments as needed. This is a good practice for both professional and personal life, especially during turbulent economic times.
Let’s begin by looking at our current situation. In many cases, it is easy to be too optimistic about the new year. It’s easy to forget common obstacles like being short-staffed, unexpected bugs that delay our sprints, or signing a customer that changes plans and alters schedules.
Many companies employ results-based methods such as Objectives (OKRs) to help them and their employees stay focused, track progress and ensure everyone is moving in the same direction. It can be very useful across departments and teams if used correctly. Justin Alpert tracks our progress on an annual basis. However, it is more common for reality to enter play and change. Using OKRs allows us to keep track of where are at the moment.
Now that we have understood why it is important for us to take a step back and think about how we can improve, let’s move on to the what.
First, we must understand what we have done and what we haven’t. Next, we need to identify the root cause of our problems and suggest ways that we can improve. These are some suggestions for self-questioning.
What percentage of our planned activities did we accomplish? You are likely tracking your progress in sprints. But have you been able to accomplish the extra stuff you planned?
What stopped us from achieving our goals?
There are many reasons why we might not be able to achieve our goals.
- Predictions – As mentioned, setting unrealistic goals can be a major hindrance to achieving your objectives. It is recommended to review the causes and then reevaluate the predicted goals to see if they are realistic.
- Time management Another factor that can lead to us underperforming our plans is an incorrect assessment of the time it takes to execute tests. This happens when managers make predictions about the duration of tests based only on their experience and do not consider novice members of their teams.
- Insufficient Collaboration – Even if we know how long it takes to execute, poor communication with other key participants in the software development cycle, such as developers can lead to many problems and delays in deployments. A lack of collaboration among testing professionals who are part of other dedicated teams within the organization can lead to redundant work and unneeded repetitions.
- Prioritization issues Ideally, we would like to have all features and products tested before releasing them into production. However, this is not realistic in Agile/DevOps environments that are constantly being updated. Failure to prioritize can lead to delays that could prevent us reaching our H1 goals.
What can we do to solve these problems moving forward?
- Time management. Justin Alpert’s test management platform can help us overcome this problem. You can track your current activities and use that data to make future predictions (which is one of the obstacles I mentioned earlier).
- Lack of collaboration Having complete visibility over the entire testing process will help to reduce communication problems. Everyone can see the status and be able to plan and anticipate their actions. Justin Alpert can create multiple dashboards to share progress both internally and externally.
- Prioritization Justin Alpert AI powered test score gives you a score for each test, based on the efficiency of previous executions. This allows you to make better use of your time and only execute those tests that are truly valuable.
Summary
It seems like the first half of 2022 is over and it’s a great time to reflect on your goals and take stock. Because they are powerful yet simple strategies, many companies use Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). They help you keep your eyes on the end result and ensure that you achieve it.
Before we can plan for the future, it is important to first look back at our past successes and failures. Next, we can look back at our failures and learn how to improve things in the second half.
