Transforming Test Engineering in Rwanda with Greg Paskal

In a land of testers far and widely journey, seeking answers, seeking skills, seeking a better way. O the Test Illumination Testing Podcast. Guiding testers with our nation awesomeness. From ancient realms to modern days, they lead the way. Oh, the Tested Automation Testing Podcast.

Hey, what if I told you that software testing and automation are empowering a new generation of test engineers in Rwanda? Changing lives in ways you probably have never imagined. Well, today we'll be talking all about it with Greg Pascal. If you don't know, Greg has over 40 years of experience. He's a natural innovator. He is the forefront of pioneering new approaches in tests and automation. His passion lies in mentoring others and guiding them towards highly sustainable and maintainable manual and automated testing approaches. So Greg's innovation drives and leads a bunch of different things. He has the creation of mets, the Minimal Essential Test Strategy. He's a passionate learner. He enjoys sharing the writing in his YouTube channel craft of Testing and his book Test Automation in the Real World that we'll have all links for down below. You don't want to miss this episode. Check it out. Hey, Greg, welcome back to the Guild for the tenth time.

I can't believe it, Joe. Ten times. Wow.

Ten times. Yeah. You've been on the most. I'd like to have you at least once a year.

Yeah, it's been incredible. I can think back to some of our first talks and the things that I've grown through watching your show evolve over these years. It's been amazing.

Absolutely. And same seeing you evolve. I know you have a new gig now and a part of that new gig, I guess you went traveling to, I think Africa to do some training. So I'm just curious to get some insights around that. So I guess maybe we could kick off by just telling us a little bit about the initiative of training automation engineers in Rwanda.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, this company, Maraho Technology, I actually first learned about them a couple years ago. A good friend of mine. Most of you all know Randy Rice. He's a legend in the testing space and we get to work together. A number of years ago, Randy connected me with this company and I did some Mets training. For those of you that don't know about mets, it's basically a risk based testing approach and you could find more about it@metstesting.com but I taught these, these ladies in Rwanda who were learning the craft trade of test engineering in that. Who would have ever guessed a number of years later I'd be on an airplane with my wife flying to Central Africa to spend a Couple weeks now with my new employer, with Marajo, training these ladies in person, it was incredible.

Nice. So how much experience did the folks have that you were training some of them?

This was their very first technology gig. Now a number of the ladies I trained had just finished college and so they had some development background which I was really looking for for my very first cohort of students so that we didn't have to kind of lay the foundation of just, you know, basic development. And that turned out to be a home run and worked exceptionally well. So but for most of them, this was their very first technology gig. Occasionally you'd have one that had done some tech before, but that made it all that much more exciting.

So how do you approach then? You don't go straight to automation. What's your approach? You start with testing basics and then automation is just a small piece of that.

That's exactly right, Joe. I always tell folks that we are first test engineers and then we are automation engineers. This allows us to write good test automation and the same for my students. So we went over the basics of test engineering. We talked about test planning, we talked about basic writing of test cases. I always believe you automate based on a test case. So just randomly write automation. Then there's nothing to look back at and say, is this working the way we intended it? And so these ladies went through some of that. I actually got to do some training with them kind of like this. I mean, we did it in the morning. It's an eight hour time difference. So most mornings started at 5 and 6am in the morning here, Tennessee time and Nashville time with them roughly around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. But I don't mind, I'm an early bird anyway, so we, yeah, we covered the basics and it made such a difference when I got there. Some of the first things we had to wrestle with were, believe it or not, just consistency in our environment. So they had a variety of old PC laptops. Some of them were using, you know, various IDEs, Eclipse, whatever it might be. And that turned out to be actually some of the first things that really told me I needed to get on a plane and see these ladies in person. Because we had to kind of level set to make sure that the foundation they were building on was really solid. And man, what a difference it made.

Nice. So by all women. Is this an initiative that your company took? Is this a part of the company? Is this outsourcing?

This is very much part of the mission of the company which is really to combat poverty. That's Been a very big part of Rwanda. And as a lot of, you know, there's quite a history to this country. It had gone through an awful genocide 30 years ago, and it's affected the whole country. We were in the city of Kigali, which is the capital of Rwanda, and we got to go visit the. I think they call it the genocide museum. But they referred to things like what we saw in the Holocaust in the 40s and things like that. They attribute some of the things that this country went through very similar. So is an interesting country of history. They don't shy away from the fact that they've had this. This thing in their past. So in the city there, like the place where the president stays actually has remnants of this war, this thing that was fought there. And because they want to be reminded, like, we don't want to go back to that, and we want a different future for our country. So they have an enormous focus and investment on their people because other than Rwanda is sometimes known for its gorillas. It has this incredible gorilla sanctuary there that is known, but I don't know about a lot of natural resources. So they've talked a lot about letting their people be their resource. And I can see why, because they're incredible folks. I love spending time with them every day, even this morning. I speak with them every single day. And we work and we train together.

That's awesome. So does the country then invest in the people and their education? So were there any when you got there? You're surprised? Oh, wow. Everyone speaks English and they have these skills because the country is investing in these areas.

Yeah, I don't know all the answers to that. I can tell you that everybody spoke English. They speak French, of course. They speak their own native language. So most of them speak at least three languages, maybe four or five. It's really different. I mean, I know English and I might be able to squeeze out a few words in Spanish. That's about it. But I'm always amazed when I get to Europe or other countries. This is my first time on the African continent. But I found a very similar thing that it's just part of. Part of surviving is knowing at least English. But these ladies speak fluent French as well. And that comes from part of their, you know, their history being part of Belgium. So anyway, very, very, very interesting. But, yeah, they do believe in this idea of investing. And so I think they're very supportive of the fact that we're there trying to help train. In particular, the ladies, that's our company, primarily works with These women, this is oftentimes their very first job to equip them with a great career. So we're, we're really making a generational difference going forward. Most of these, these women, this technology trade they're learning, this craft of testing is going to make a difference for generations and generations to come. That's an incredibly rewarding thing to be a part of.

So what were the reactions after learning more about testing automation? Do people seem to enjoy it? Were you surprised by. They really taken to this? They really get it.

They love it. You know, I love the culture of Rwanda. Now, I would imagine this applies to many African nations, but you will find a cultural difference from the west in Rwanda. People are very grateful for your investment and you're pouring into them. It comes across constantly. So they're very intentional to tell you, thank you for coming and sharing with us. I'm learning. I want to learn as much as I can from you. And I think in some cases a lot of us can recognize this is something we maybe have lost in the West. It kind of becomes, well, I deserve this career or whatever. You won't find that at all. You won't find an entitlement sort of mentality at all. And it's, it's refreshing. It cracks me up. The ladies call me sir, and there's just this formal, you know, part of their culture, too, that goes back to some of their roots. I'm like, I'm just a tester, just like you, but I love to train and help people. So while I'm. I may know a little bit more at this point, I want you to see us as equals and that we're working together and learning. And it's Joe. Probably not a surprise, but I am a big advocate for teaching by example. And when I don't know something, I tell them, I'm like, look, let's try this. I'm not fully sure I know so. But I found that to be so effective in training, no matter who I'm working with. And these ladies responded very well to that.

So, Greg, I'm just curious to know what the classes were like. Maybe we go over a few classes because I guess it doesn't matter where you're training. These classes probably would help folks. So I think the first one you told me about in the pre show was something about T3 test engineering, rapid. What's that all about?

Yeah, well, actually that's the second class I taught. Let me tell you about the first one. And then I cover T3 because it's a very interesting follow up to it. Matter of fact, I teach T3 now first. Now knowing what I knew, but I began really teaching the ladies in Rwanda test automation. That was a great class because imagine your employer saying for the next three to four months all you're going to do is be learning about becoming a great automation engineer. That's what we get to do with these ladies. They don't work regular hours. This is what they do eight hours a day is they study engineering, they study the craft of software testing and then automation and development. So it's amazing. I have this time with them and I did the first cohort, if we could call it that, from December to around February or so we wrapped up. That was with four, four different ladies. I've actually included a picture of them and even their, their graduation, if we get a chance to put that in. So I think that'll be great. But what I learned through this process was that being a test engineer first, I really wanted to instill great test engineering skills. So I kind of went back and said, well, what would be foundational tests engineering skills? I would teach these, these ladies as well. Especially now that I had four graduated automation engineers. And Joe, no kidding, these are some of the best automation engineers I've trained. They're that good. And I think it's because they're that dedicated to really studying the craft of it and doing it well. We, you know, I'm always talking about locators and synchronization. We just hammer on those so they can do those almost in their sleep. They know those well. I always look at those as kind of the part of the secret sauce to great automation. So once we graduated that class, I started doing this T3 class and I had this thought, what would happen if we trained test engineers and coupled them along with automation engineers and created these little mini teams, a team of three. That's how I came up with the T3 idea and that's turned out to be a hit. Can I tell you, I've now finished two cohorts. I've trained 12 ladies in this process. About between that and the two automation cohorts, about half our company. Now I've done training for, including even some leadership training, the T3 concept. I could teach anywhere. It is a no brainer. Imagine a four week course. It's like the automation course. This is all they do for a month and they learn again the fundamentals of test engineering. These are people who did not go through the automation training. But as you know, many people get into the work of, of QA and, you know, testing kind of just, they get dropped in and they're like, we'll start clicking away and looking at stuff and figuring it out. And it's, there's more to that. You know, Randy and I, this is one of the things I love working with Randy Rice is we both have really deep roots in training and teaching. I'm a big ISTQB CTFL fan, although I study all kinds of testing methodologies out there. But being intentional, especially that first week teaching the fundamentals of test planning, for instance, or how to write a test case, you'd be surprised how many people have never learned those basics. Most of the time, you know, a test engineer hearing the idea of a test plan is, you know, they turn around and run away because they think, oh my gosh, I'm going to be writing a 50 page Word document. And we really tell them this is a really different approach. And so this is where Mets comes in and I begin to teach them the Mets concepts about identifying an application in the high level categories of IT and functions and then to break those down into tests that are prioritized from critical, high, medium and low. That's the basics of Mets. It's not that hard to learn. So they have that. They learn how to write test cases with granularity so that anybody could pick them up. And guess what? As soon as we're done with that, the automation engineer has everything they need to do their automation planning. So they work really well together. And in the course of this one month class, the first week is kind of, you know, more. I learn everything about testing. By the time we're done with it, you know, the engine's kind of moving forward. And by the time they've completed the fourth week, they've worked with three to four kind of fake companies. I become the Mr. Bob or whatever they call me Mr. Bob or whatever. They think of me as the client and I say, okay, hello. You know, Moraujo testers, it's good to have you work for us. I want you to see my new E Commerce solution. It's for sportswear and I kind of play that role. They ask me questions and they go off and they begin to build their methods, their test cases. And would you believe it, in most cases in a week, one week's time, I've never seen a product. They have usually a couple dozen test cases done and usually about a dozen automated test cases working in a week. Not only that, they're providing dashboarding. So I'm teaching Them how to communicate everything from how you, how you interact on camera, how you work with a microphone, and how to interact with a client that might be from the west or Europe or someplace like that. So they're prepared to do this well and it's as you can see, hopefully. It's a great joy of mine to watch them excel. By the end of this class, they've just been knocking it out of the park.

That's awesome. So I may miss it. Why three though? Is it, do they play different roles within the team or is it just three is better than one? And it seems a good mix of getting different points of views.

That's a really good question. It's two test engineers and an automation engineer. So each T3 team is made of three people. And I find that's about the right balance. Those test engineers can produce, they can get in and their role is, is really to evaluate the application, determine the areas that can be. They can write their manual test for, and then that automation engineer can come behind them. And it's, it's about the right ratio where they're writing test cases, the automation engineers fulfilling building those, those automated test cases. And by the end of the week they're in such a cycle, they've developed, like I said, dashboarding and reporting on that. And it seems to be the right momentum where they can continue to build what the test engineers complete. It allows the test engineers to take what's found in the automation and go back and do the additional investigation and writing up defects. So yeah, it seems to be the sweet spot, that ratio right there. And it's really, I think one of our best products is this T3 team because you can literally drop them into something they've never seen. And within a few weeks you're going to have probably some of the best deliverables the team has seen in testing and automation. Because these ladies have been trained. I kind of think of them like a SEAL team for testing. They get in there and they know how to get it done and they are serious about it. They're very driven to do it in excellence and I'm proud of them.

Nice. So I think those are two courses. What's the third one then you go to after you have this. It sounds like they have everything at this point. But what, what do you do after that?

There's another class I began to blend in here too, and I call it Technology for Test Engineers. I brought it in almost as an introduction to my next automation class. I realized that at some point I'm Going to get folks that are still either very novice to software development or whatever. So in this class we go over some fundamentals of software development. I actually have a two day course that Randy Rice had completed on Java development. So we use that in this class. It gives them some fundamentals about classes and methods and variables and the basic things that most people need to understand with development. But you know, since we were there I thought, why don't we talk about things like the web, why don't we dive in behind the scenes of some HTML and talk about what's going on, which we do. What's the purpose of CSS and JavaScript? What's a compiler do? How's the web work as far as DNS servers? So that's a short class, it's only a two week class and I can do that one while they're doing their day job. So we usually carve out an hour or two and then I get some time with them. As with most of the classes I teach, they almost always come away with some homework for that day or for that week to do and fulfill. So that's third class and then the very last class. Now I'm teaching, which is really more of, I call it an academy, but it's our leadership academy. I have a lot of leadership background, I've had it for a long time, actually continuing to learn and grow in that. And I don't say that because I want to wear a hat, look fancy schmancy. I say it because I feel like imparting and training folks and mentoring them in the craft of leadership is something that's very important. I have this saying, management does not equal leadership. And I really truly do believe just because you have the role of manager doesn't necessarily mean you're a leader or, you know, or a very good leader. And so these are skills when you, you model with folks and you help pour into them. So most days I'm meeting with a couple engineers that are now going through this training and teaching them how do you do project management? How do you become an advocate for the team that you're part of to remove the boundaries so they can stay focused like a T3 team on the work they need to do. And it's really enjoyable. Again, this is for most of these ladies, the first time they've ever done anything like this. And so I love it and it's really something I'm passionate about as well.

I love this course because when I think of a tester, I think of them as leaders a lot of times people go, I'm just a tester, but I think that when they're in a sprint team, they're the ones that actually have to encourage the team to try all different types of testing, even though they may not be doing it themselves. And really driving the initiative towards making sure everyone's thinking about quality.

So that's a good one.

I think that's a critical skill for sure.

Right? This is a really great point, Joe. You're right. This is part of what I train with these ladies. Not only that they have to deliver that news, but how to deliver it effectively. Which is why some of our very first days in class, or having them learn how to present over a video chat like this, how to utilize a microphone properly. You'd be surprised when sometimes I meet them, the first thing I could see is half their face, you know, and I'm like, okay, we gotta get you up. Because just naturally shy like a lot of people, but they're not that way usually by the time we're done. But isn't it interesting that if you are too passive in this role, you will. You can get into that place where you don't want to share the very things you have found. And they need to be able to share the good, the bad, and the ugly, if you will. Hopefully less ugly and more good. But nonetheless, if they can't share the risk that they've identified, then kind of their whole purpose of being there is really diminished at best. They're just running test cases. And there's so much more to the craft of quality and testing than just being someone who runs test cases. And my pitch in that is, if you're at a place that's all you do, you can do more. Okay, so look, maybe look for that, But I believe in that, and I train my engineers that they bring a lot more than just run test cases. They are assessors of risk.

So, Greg, after these core trainings, I know you're. You're one for continual education. What happens? Do they then get placed in a job? Do they work with you? Then you have other trainings throughout the year. What happens after this core set of training is done and they're ready to get at it?

At that point, they're assigned a client to work with, whether that client would like a T3 team to come in and help them. Again, we try to make that it's pretty affordable when you consider getting three engineers and we would allow them to, you know, see how effective these teams are and how well they work together. So, yeah, they'll be aligned up with a customer. In addition, I like to continue to meet with them. So I speak with most of the automation engineers, if not daily, every other day. I'm always continuing to pour new tips in. And I mean, I gotta say this too. I've been writing a brand new framework in Java since December. This is probably, I would say, easily the best automation framework I've ever written. It's all the best of the best of things I've built before and it's got some new things in it that are really, really cool. So as I continue to build out those pieces, I of course would say, okay, I've got Framework 305 available for you. Go ahead and upgrade your projects. So we meet sometimes together and that sort of space. But yeah, they're ready to meet with clients and work with them. They can also come along existing clients and maybe shore things up where we may have another test engineer that hasn't gone through this training yet. We can bring one of these T3 trained engineers in to help give them some insights around test planning or test case writing and even in automation.

So that framework, is it going to be open source? Is that just something internal?

I guess we'll have to see. I think the open source community would love this framework. I'm really proud of it and I have spent an enormous amount of time investing in it. But we'll have to see where that goes.

Nice. So if someone's listening, how can they get involved in this initiative? Is it just. It's not, it's a company, it's these folks work for your company. So I guess if someone wants to learn more, do they reach out to your company? Can they, Are there other folks in Rwanda that they could get in touch with to help them with testing as well?

Yeah, in order to learn more about, about the work we're doing in Rwanda, I mean, I would first point people to our website, which is Maraho Tech. T C H M E R A H O Maraho Tech. And then on that website you can also find a link to Dan. Dan is our CEO. This is a, you know, we're still a small company, so it's just a handful of us working with, you know, 30 some odd of these test engineers. But Dan at Maraho Tech will definitely get you more information about it. We've been creating some white papers and things to get out to the community, so probably not a surprise. Joe. I continue to write quite a bit and we're getting that information out even through Maraho. But yeah, I really love working for them. It's this great mix of something that's really affecting and impacting people's lives. It's also serving a customer with the very best that I can bring to the table. You know how passionate I am about testing. So imagine me getting a chance to pour that into dozens and dozens of people and then they come and bring that to the table as well. And they get to use this new framework I shared with you as well. And there we're surfacing some new metrics that I think would really blow some people away that are just not the kinds of things most engineers think about. And we now have insights into some of those things. And I've only got more to develop, so more is coming.

All right, well, we're going to have to have you on for the 11th time to go over that once you have everything codified. For sure.

Yeah, yeah.

All right, Greg, before we go, one piece of actual advice you can give to someone to help them with their automation testing efforts or maybe helping train people up for automation and the best way to find and contact you.

Yeah, well, let me go with the first part or the last part. The best way to get a hold of me is on LinkedIn. I've connected with thousands of you, so just look for Greg Pascal P A S K A L on LinkedIn. Of course you can find me on the web. Check out my YouTube channel at craftoftesting. Com. It'll take you right to my channel. My word of advice is this, that you are ultimately need to be responsible for your growth. Don't expect other people to come to you and try to force it on you. But take the ownership of it one little piece at a time and you will find that that will make all the difference and surround yourself around people like minded who are heading in the direction you want. I connect with many of you on LinkedIn who are looking for a little bit of advice or some guidance. I love doing that. I can't do that for a thousand people, but I can do that for a few people at a time. So I love it when you reach out and ask for that. In almost all cases, we'll try to reach out to you really quickly. So that's kind of my advice for now. And anyway, Joe, it's always great to be on your show and sharing with our community at large.

Thanks again for your automation awesomeness. The links to M dental value we covered in this episode head on over to testguild.com a508 and if the show has helped you in any way, why not rate it and review it in itunes? Reviews really help in the rankings of the show and I read each and every one of them. So that's it for this episode of the Test Guild Automation Podcast. I'm Joe. My mission is to help you succeed with creating end to end full stack automation awesomeness. As always, test everything and keep the good. Cheers. Hey, thanks again for listening. If you're not already part of our awesome community of 27,000 of the small, smartest testers, DevOps and automation professionals in the world, we'd love to have you join the fam@testguild.com and if you're in the DevOps automation software testing space or you're a test tool provider and want to offer real world value that can improve the skills or solve a problem for the guild community, I'd love to hear from you. Head on over to test guild.info and let's make it happen.