Tell Your Colleagues About Your Work
At the interview for my very first job at my hometown library, the librarian recounted my work as a volunteer. In addition to reshelving the returned books, I'd put the books that were already on the shelves back in order. She asked if I had anything else to share. "No," I said. I let the librarian speak for me. My work spoke for itself.
My job at the library took no coordination, little or no communication, and was quite boring. There was always someone else at the desk to talk to patrons and handle the actual "returning the books" part. I could just listen to my iPod and shelve the books. The disappearing books and neatness of the shelves were evidence of my work that anyone could notice and evaluate at a glance.
My work in software has been quite the opposite. It's been hard to evaluate by a person who doesn't know where (or how) to look. They might notice if I'd done my job very poorly or not at all. But the difference between a job very well done and a job just, well, done has been overwhelmingly large and invisible.
I spent most days in my career thus far as a tester on a development team with a daily standup. Standup was the place I could make at least a small part of my work visible. Contributions only became clear in bigger groups if someone else championed my testing work, or if the impact of my leadership was felt more widely.
Now, I'm serving several teams. I don't have a daily standup. I've been working remotely for two years. I could put in a lot of work in my current role that no one would ever see. It's felt strange to feel like everyone is wondering how I spent an hour, to being much less accountable for my time. I have the freedom to waste a lot of time on something that isn't important or doesn't matter to anyone else.
But that's not how I want to spend my time. I want to use my time and effort effectively. There's always more to do. I want to share with my colleagues what I've done and what I'm planning on picking up next, so they can tell me if my effort is duplicated, wasted, or in need of a course-correction.
Where, who, what, and how I tell them
I have invitations to each of the standups for the teams I support. I go once every couple weeks to keep an ear out for how I can help them. Sometimes that's the right time to share a bit of what I've been working on too, if it's just for them.
I've also held myself accountable in three other meetings that span across the department:
- There's a weekly meeting for the whole department. There I share highlights of general interest for less than five minutes and add linked details in the shared agenda.
- I do a similar thing for the bi-weekly sync of all the engineering leads, tailored to their interests.
In these quick updates, I share why I picked up the work, who it serves, and what problem it solves. I've seen so many sprint demos that share the "what" but not the "who" or the "why" that I try to include all three pieces in my stories.
- I host a meeting every few weeks with the engineering and product managers that's all about my work. They're the ones who need to see the outcomes and impact, so it's worth investing a bit of time to make sure I'm focusing on the right things for them.
In the meeting focused on my role, I let the conversation be freer. We dig into more of the why's and "is this valuable?"'s of what I'm up to.
I've also got a 1-on-1 with my manager. I've got 5-10 minutes every two weeks to share and get advice on particularly triumphant or hairy situations not fit for a wider audience. The rest of our half hour 1-on-1 is my boss responding to what I shared and sharing information with me from the wider company context.
Why I tell them
Why do I do all of this? Why do I invest so much time in talking about the work?
Because the work does not speak for itself. Testing is not like shelving books in a library. Being able to explain my work helps me collaborate. It makes it clear what kinds of problems they can come to be with, and ensures that I'm top-of-mind when such problems do arise.
Sharing what I'm working on builds trust. It's not arrogant, bragging, or self-indulgent. It's a neccesary part of making sure I'm doing the right thing, and getting credit for it.
Photo by Shiva Prasad Gaddameedi on Unsplash