TL;DR
To steer your path towards passionate software tester, you need to do periodical 360-degree feedback. The post is based on a remarkable book written by Chad Fowler, The Passionate Programmer.
What is 360-degree feedback?
360-degree feedback (also known as multi-rater feedback, multi-source feedback, or multi-source assessment) is a process through which feedback from an employee’s subordinates, colleagues, and supervisor(s), as well as a self-evaluation by the employee themselves, are gathered [Wikipedia].
I have to be honest that I have never done 360-degree feedback on myself. To check my software testing skills, I do conferences, small projects, and these blog posts. This is on my to-do list.
Why should you do it? Without checking your current status of the path towards the passionate software tester, this journey could be easily put on hold. This creates a risk that waking call on this status could be harrowing (for example, you never did a mob testing session while everybody else had).
It is called a 360-degree review because you request a review from various sources that are to you, third party observers. Those could be:
- Your manager
- Your mentor
- Your trainee
- Your teammates
- Your customer.
First, you create a questionnaire that will evolve over time. Start with SurveyMonkey’s example. And then, hand over those questions to your third party. Answers on every question should be the rate in a range of values. For example:
How would you rate form 1 to 10 bug reports from Karlo?
After you are done, make a report based on answers, like a journal. Schedule a new review in your calendar (e.g., in six months), and repeat it. Use this journal to better steer your path towards the passionate software tester. Based on that journal you should create actionable items for areas that require improvement.
