A chameleon is a reptile that has the ability to change its color and its eyes.

According to Bates (2014): “It’s a common misconception that they do this to camouflage themselves against a background. In fact, chameleons mostly change color to regulate their temperatures or to signal their intentions to other chameleons.”

But, what is the connection between this reptile’s unique ability and a QA in an Agile environment?

In an agile work setting, change is a key concept. It’s important to know how to adapt and handle unexpected situations. The IT industry is highly unpredictable with constant changes and advancements. For example, we used to discuss microservices and big data, now we are already utilizing artificial intelligence in our work.

In this setting, the QA must possess the ability to be adaptable, perceptive of their surroundings, and capable of learning and adjusting as necessary. Each location or situation has unique characteristics and challenges, even if they seem similar. It is important to understand that each puzzle piece is unique and has its place in completing the puzzle. Even if a piece looks similar at first glance to the one you’re looking for, it may not fit properly. It needs to be the exact piece to work out correctly.

Each unique situation requires a specific approach or adapted strategy. Considering concepts such as BDD, TDD, shift-left, automation, data testing, test strategy, bug management, release, CI/CD, observability, non-functional testing, and metrics can be overwhelming and may not be necessary or applicable to a particular team or project at that time.

Despite the numerous responsibilities that require attention, I believe that there are three key areas that should never be overlooked:

• Requirement analysis: It is essential to identify any issues before the team starts development.
• During development: It is important to focus on automation, testing, and collaborating with developers
• After release: It is crucial to address incidents and bugs, follow up on dashboards and metrics as a tool for monitoring and analyzing the business impact and stability of the delivery.

Remember that metrics are a powerful tool, but they should never be the ultimate objective. Keep in mind that tracking your progress is essential, but it is the actions you take based on the metrics that truly make a difference.

But, where and how to start? What to prioritize? How do you turn these into concrete actions? How do you ensure this is the right direction?

🔑 Listening is key

Chameleons change the color of their body depending on the temperature of the environment where they are. When it’s cold, chameleons become dark to absorb heat, and when it’s hot, chameleons turn pale to reflect the sun’s heat. Translating this to the QA role by actively listening to team members, understanding their perspectives, and gaining insight into the real quality issues in your company.

• 1:1 With your team members (engineers/PM/Designers): Setting expectations and understanding what quality means to them and their concerns related to this topic.
• 1:1 with QAs if any: It’s beneficial to interact with other QAs in your company and valuable to gain insight into quality context from various QA perspectives.
• 1:1 with tech lead/ engineer manager / QA chapter lead: to have a more holistic view of expectations for this role and quality in the whole company. One question that can help you is: What are the incidents or critical bugs that happened in the company with serious consequences and what can we do to prevent them?

It is important to take into account the current status of your project, and even more importantly, the overall strategy of the company.

💭 Map your ideas

After gathering information and insights from various sources about quality, it’s essential to map out your own ideas as a QA professional.
To do this, you can brainstorm on paper or use collaborative tools such as Miro, Notion, or Trello to help you visualize your ideas.

It’s also important to consider the ideas shared by others during your listening activity; you may find allies who share similar ideas and a passion for quality. It’s amazing how much interest people have in quality, so let’s work together to achieve our goals!

🚀 Possible actions

It’s time to take action! Once you’ve had one-on-one meetings and brainstormed ideas, it’s important to work with your team or QA chapter to improve quality. One way to do this is by facilitating an activity like “Path to Nirvana”, where you identify must-haves and nice-to-haves. Be sure to have a parking lot for ideas that can be developed or implemented later.

Another approach is to list all the ideas and allow your team to select the most crucial ones. The next step is to set your ideas into motion by breaking them down into initiatives and prioritizing them wisely. I suggest creating a roadmap in Jira with all initiatives or a Notion page where all initiatives are listed for this purpose. Remember that prioritization is another key as if everything is a priority, then nothing is truly a priority.

📝 Collect Feedback

Viewing your team as an ally rather than an enemy that you must constantly fight is important. They may offer different perspectives that you have yet to consider. Avoid creating silos and instead strive to build connections with your team members.

To ensure that your actions are bringing value, it's important to gather both qualitative and quantitative feedback/metrics. Keep a constant dialogue with your team members/leaders to understand if your actions are effective and adjust accordingly if they aren't. Metrics such as critical bugs, number of incidents, response time during incidents, and the number of tickets returned to development can give you clarity on what is working and what to focus on next.

Responsibility for quality should not fall solely on one person. It’s essential to involve everyone, even if it’s just to listen, and approach it as a collective effort rather than an individual one. It’s important to be receptive to feedback and adjust your QA strategies based on the conversations you have. Don’t work in isolation — it can be a challenging road, but it’s better to tackle it together.

Transform and adapt to different perspectives, visions, strategies, and colors depending on your surroundings by sensing the temperature or intention like a Chameleon.