Switching to continuous deployment isn’t that difficult. The only necessary step is to deploy every successful build to production instead of the QA/test environment. But can you be sure that all successful builds will be good enough to be deployed to production? Will they cause failures and user dissatisfaction if you deliver a broken app multiple times per day?

Ensuring quality is the trickiest part of continuous deployment, which is different from continuous delivery when all successful builds are automatically deployed to production. With continuous delivery, you can deploy all successful builds to production.

However, to do that, you have to wait for the end of the day or work sprint, run manual or automated regression testing, UAT, performance testing, and other types of tests to ensure a decent application quality before deploying to production.

The bottom line is – it’s usually not the technology or lack of infrastructure that stops us from deploying all builds to production. It’s the testing part that is lacking. Can I trust my automated tests to catch all issues without someone running all manual regression or doing exploratory testing? That’s the question that buries the hope of deploying new features to production multiple times per day.

Some teams manage to go over this blocker, but how? What do they do different? Even though some well-known companies like Google, NASA, or Amazon manage to roll out multiple application deployments daily, it’s not the size of a company that matters. As long as you have the right mindset and great risk management, you can get amazing results. So, let’s go over some of the main points.

You will not be able to catch all the possible bugs in the application, and it is OK

Test engineers are usually perfectionists (I speak from my experience), that’s why it’s difficult for them to take a risk of issues possibly reaching end users. This approach has a hefty price tag and impacts the speed of delivery, but it’s acceptable if you deliver only once or twice per month.

The correct approach would be automating critical paths in application both from a business perspective and application reliability. Everything else can go to production without thorough testing because with continuous deployment, you can fix issues within hours or minutes.

For example, if item sorting and filtering stops working in production, users might complain, but the development team could fix this issue quickly. Would it impact business? Probably not. Would you lose a customer? Probably not.

These are the risks that should be OK to take if you can quickly fix issues in production. Of course, it all depends on the context – if you’re providing document storing services for legal investigations, it would be a good idea to have an automated test for sorting and filtering.

UI E2E tests are not the only reliable source for automated testing

This is by far the biggest and most expensive mistake in automation I usually see. Even though they imitate user behaviour, they shouldn’t be used to test everything. If you want to make sure that price calculations work correctly (it applies to taxes, discounts, shipping, etc.), you don’t need to be logged in to the system, you don’t need to have a browser, a valid user, add items to the cart, and go through all the stages of purchase to reach the last one with final prices.

This can be tested in the backend – somewhere in the code there is a part that is responsible for calculating price, and it can be covered with unit or integration tests to run through hundreds of test cases in a matter of seconds.

You should have at least one happy path of purchase scenario in UI E2E tests covered, but any more would spend 95% of the time just repeating the same tests and would end up wasting valuable time.

Testing must adapt to the new paradigm shifts in application development and support accelerating delivery. The current approach isn’t perfect, and frankly speaking, never was. But we should still rethink our approach to managing risks by including new possibilities and looking at the big picture.

Everything from speed to business, quality, and business needs must work together to move a product forward. If these elements work separately, caring only for their individual gains, other related areas will be negatively affected.

When you are looking to either fill an open vacancy or grow one of your teams with additional helping hands, choosing the right candidate comes with a bunch of questions even before the process begins. How do we fit a new candidate into our existing structure? Is there a particular type of personality that would either be fit or unfit for the team? Are there any other potential risks that we would have to address beforehand? 

And these questions, in part, will and need to be answered during the interview process. However, job interviews might not get to the depth required to truly get to know a would-be colleague, which is at Voltas IT, we partnered with Tripod to use their tests to find out as much as we can about a candidate. While I have heard some skepticism about whether these tests entail a risk that a candidate would eventually say no due to the lengthy employment process, considering the scorching hot market for employees, especially software developers, you have to consider what risks these tests outweigh. 

Tailored personality tests 

Before I get into the risk and benefit equation of having these tests, it would be beneficial to understand what are they. Tripod, a company based in Tallinn, Estonia, has been creating professional psychological tests that are standardized and have been widely used throughout the Baltic States. 

The goal, and in turn benefit, can be summarized that you can objectively evaluate an applicant, assess the potential risks associated with their personality type, and most importantly, find out the best way how to integrate the person into your organization. The integration is relevant throughout the onboarding process as well as once the newly-employed colleague is ready to fully take on his responsibilities. Currently, the Talent Acquisition team uses the personality inventory test and the general mental ability test. 

We have considered the risks associated with providing such tests to candidates. As mentioned previously, with some positions being harder to fill, it could deter a candidate from finalizing his application process with other companies having a much “easier” employment process. As we use two tests (or one of them – depending on the role), the key thing is to communicate to the potential candidate why we are doing so. After all, the three-month trial period is not only a way for a company to test their newest employee but also for the person to feel out how they get on with their new colleagues. 

The personality inventory test, which is based on five personality traits, evaluates: 

• Emotional stability 
• Extraversion 

• Agreeableness 
• Conscientiousness 
• Openness to experiences 

Meanwhile, the general mental ability test looks at: 

• Verbal ability 

• Arithmetical ability 
• Spatial ability 

Thus, we have two tools to evaluate a candidate: the regular job interview and a post-test talk, whereupon we discuss the results of the personality inventory. Sometimes we might even touch upon specific questions or situations to find out more about their previous experience when presented with such circumstances. 

Finding the right piece of the puzzle 

While by no means the tests, paired with an interview, are bulletproof, they do serve as something of a cheat code when choosing the right candidate out of many for the position. 

A great example would be if you are looking for a team leader – the Tripod-built test will help to determine whether the applicant would be able to lead a group of individuals by looking at their leadership qualities, the ability to take initiative, agreeableness, emotional stability, and the ability to emphasize with others while working with a team. Even if the potential colleague is not applying to a leadership position, we can ask ourselves and with the help of the test answer the question of how they would take up criticism. If a person is as not emotionally stable, we can guess that they would be more sensitive to a comment about their work. As such, our current colleagues consciously know that they should find the right way to communicate their feedback to achieve the desired change in behavior. Being a company that encourages an open dialogue between colleagues daily, feedback is the foundation of that culture – you can read more about that in my colleague Rūta’s article here  – and knowing how to give it, as well as receive it, is crucial to continue fostering that culture. 

The general mental ability test, on the other hand, while it depends on the role and the expectations we have for a certain role, in general, the conclusions can be made about a potential colleague’s speed or precision. The results provide insight into a person’s creativity and ability to think about the big picture and to do so fast, or it can say that while the person will not provide a solution to a problem instantaneously, they will be very careful and will pay a lot of attention to the small details and quality. In turn, it is easier to facilitate the right working environment for someone new to the company. 

Feedback is not the only example, as there are plenty of cases where the results of either the tests can come in handy. If someone is less extroverted according to the personal inventory test, and a team is tasked to come up with an idea on how to solve an issue or develop something, it might be much easier for such a person to prepare beforehand or express their solutions in writing. We can also notify them in advance about the problem we are looking at and what we expect of them so that they can come in and be confident about their solutions, as they might be more inclined to express their ideas if they are not put up on the spot. 

There are plenty of examples I could point out where the test benefits our working process, as there are many different personalities that we deal with daily. As a result, the personality inventory, as much as it can be perceived negatively by potential candidates at first, given the chance, many of them see it as an interesting and beneficial experience. Not all of us can evaluate ourselves objectively and tests such as these can help us do so, even if it takes time to complete. 

Nevertheless, these two are not the only solutions we have utilized over the years. Additionally, we have used the DISC profile assessment, which figures out whether a person is dominant, inducive, submissive, or compliant. By clearing up a person’s and our whole team’s personal styles and behavioral choices, it becomes the continuation of the Personal inventory test. It is much easier to have a full picture of a person’s character by using both, enabling them to showcase the best results possible. 

Our efforts, we believe, have proved fruitful, as we were awarded as the company that creates “The most supportive emotional environment” in 2021 by the National Awards of Responsible Business (NAVA). 

We have all read the headlines talking about the Great Resignation, which reached its peak in mid-to-late 2021, as the global economy began to improve following the pandemic-induced downturn. Once businesses started to rehire or expand their companies, job openings were everywhere, and companies began to compete against each other to hire employees. 

Employee benefits, which were already becoming the most popular way of attracting and employing talents, now posed a question – what else can we do to remain an attractive employer? Just adding benefits is easier said than done, as not everything will bring value not to only current colleagues but also to potential ones. 

Asking for feedback 

Naturally, the question then is how do you find out what will be perceived as valuable by your colleagues or candidates? 

The most recent example at Voltas IT would be private health insurance. The idea and the desire to have an additional insurance plan were expressed by our colleagues and then established shortly after. While many companies in Lithuania chose to have private health insurance, we had to make sure that it would actually be beneficial to have it instead of following a country-wide trend. Even then, market research, in this case, was important. It also could be useful when we are looking to introduce new benefits by looking at how well-received they were elsewhere. 

We have to remember that, despite our unique product in Lithuania, we are still competing for various specialists with other technology and service companies locally. If our and competitors’ products are equally attractive, benefits can bring that competitive advantage. Remote work is also becoming more and more important. Some businesses, however, are operating under the so-called hybrid work model where employees still have to show up at the office in some capacity. At Voltas IT, we provide freedom for our employees, allowing them to work from anywhere in the world, as long as they can ensure an effective working environment for themselves with a stable internet connection. 

So, even if the benefits are similar, there are ways an employer can be more attractive by making them better. 

Workplace culture 

All of the benefits mentioned above, including private health insurance, flexible working hours and locations, as well as self-learning days and sick days are benefits that, while improving the well-being of the employees, might not tip the scale in our favor. A healthy and vibrant office culture, learning, and career opportunities are the crucial foundations to attracting and keeping talents in the long run. 

The office culture is not reserved for snacks in the fridge, fruit days, Friday team lunches, or breakfast Thursday, it is also expressed by the feeling that you can be open and honest with your colleagues. One of the main benefits that we see working at Voltas IT is that we strive to have a culture of 360 feedback, where everybody can provide constructive feedback to each other to collectively improve. That culture includes team leaders, managers, and fellow juniors, mid-levels, or seniors. We not only want to encourage openness but also constructive feedback, which has been covered in detail by my colleague Rūta in her article here. 

Continuous learning is also a key part of the company’s culture. That is why we have an office library, filled with books that have been requested by our colleagues to deepen their technical skills, as well as the Voltas IT Academy. The latter enables employees to polish their skills and qualifications in our internal training academy. At the moment, we have 3 different training programs that were built with some of the best training providers in Lithuania. This is undoubtedly another crucial benefit that showcases that we invest in our colleagues’ long-term future, which is important when you are looking to hire younger talent. 

A healthy culture in the working place is much more than that, though. Building a team involves more effort, which can involve activities outside of the office. That way, people can feel united in an organization, which is why we have two annual mini-festivals in the winter and summer, quarterly team buildings in different departments, the already-mentioned team lunches on Friday, and internal anniversary celebrations. 

Generational differences 

Times have changed and as they have changed, the expectations have shifted. While previously things like stability, career possibilities, and other things we now take for granted were seen as a must, priorities are now different, as the latest generations enter the workforce. 

For example, TalentLMS and BambooHR surveyed over 1,200 19-to-25-year-old Gen Z respondents. The survey showcased that 82% of Gen Zers wanted mental health days, while 73% noted that a great company to work for is described as a place where you can freely express yourself. Generational differences, namely between Zers and Millennials were highlighted by Deloitte’s survey, which pointed out that 32% of young adolescents chose to work for their current employer due to a good work/life balance, while the number was 39% for Millennials. Deloitte‘s study was done amidst the mentioned Great Resignation, which had many employers questioning what they can offer to their personnel for them to stay. At the same time, generational similarities were showcased by the fact that 46% of Gen Zers and 45% of Millennials stated that they felt burned out from their jobs, stating that was the reason why they have or are planning to quit. 

In 2018, the picture was different, as Millennials pointed out three reasons why they would leave their jobs, including a search for a new role, better benefits, and dissatisfaction with their career paths. But mental health-related benefits were not at the top of the list, as additional paid time off, the ability to work from home, and financial incentives like savings programs were highlighted as the main benefits they were looking for. 

To summarize, having benefits in today’s competitive employment market is, undoubtedly, important. While getting a doughnut will probably make me and my colleagues feel better, it does not mean that snacks should be considered a tool to elevate the employee experience or create a healthy working environment. At the end of the day, you need to know what contributes to the wellness of your employees the most, allowing you to remain an attractive employer, as the needs and desires continuously change. 

And did I mention our office at the heart of Kaunas? 

We can all universally agree that feedback culture is important to a company’s development, as giving and listening to the observations made by your colleagues will allow you to keep moving forward individually and as an organization. But one comment can be incomparable to another and can even be damaging to the person who received it. In the worst-case scenario, it can even negatively influence the professional relationship between two or more people, and even the whole atmosphere in the company.

So, it is important to properly give and receive feedback, making sure that the observations you share with someone are constructive and can help a person grow and improve.

Being constructive

While being constructive is one of the most important things about feedback, we also have to ask ourselves and try to answer two things: what intention and the goal of feedback when sharing our thoughts about someone else‘s work or behavior.

At a basic level, employee feedback is a real-time dialogue in which a person reacts to another coworker’s performance. It is information that you pass on about someone’s professional behavior, with the goal for the behavior to change. In both ways, the goal is to achieve greater results.

Usually, we think that feedback is that we must give it out whenever someone is underperforming. However, we also have to remember that to truly support each other, we also must push our colleagues forward with positive feedback, reaffirming that they are on the correct path. As a result, people then realize which skills they can continue perfecting. It also allows them to know that they and their efforts are valued by the company.

There are three types of comments that you can provide to someone else. One is positive/affirming, which is used to motivate and point out an individual’s strengths, while the other is constructive/educational, helping others to improve and see what kind of effect their behavior has on others. The third type is negative/critical – typically it becomes overcritical and can become a tool to belittle the recipient.

Overcoming the fear of giving feedback

Being overly afraid of demotivating someone is just one of the reasons we avoid giving feedback, as there are other reasons as well. Sometimes we are also afraid of the reaction we will receive, and it could be that we lack time. Other reasons include the inability to provide feedback constructively, or when we assume some things as understandable to everybody. Differences in age, experience, and the position you hold in the organization can also negatively affect your desire to give out feedback – even your current environment can have an impact.

But overcoming your fears of sharing your comments about your colleague’s work will not be an easy process. With theory and practice, though, it will become easier. The foundation of it is knowing the attributes of constructive feedback:

• Recurring
• Collaborative
• Specific
• Consistent
• A dialogue
• Thought out
• Appropriate amount
• Nonjudgmental
• Easy to understand

Once you know the basic traits of constructive feedback, you can move on to the 12-step process:

1. Think about the facts and examples
2. Choose the location and the time
3. Formulate and communicate your goal
4. Provide your comments/feedback
5. Make sure that your feedback was understood correctly
6. Listen to the other part
7. Find the solution together
8. Receive an agreement on the next steps
9. Write down the notes and agreements from the meeting
10. Express gratitude
11. Plan a follow-up meeting
12. Evaluate not only the results but the effort too

One of the key takeaways is that constructive feedback is never a one-way street. It is an open and honest dialogue. You should also share your insight as soon as you can following action, and never berate someone’s personality. Rather, focus on their actions and with the best intentions in mind, without using absolute terms such as “always” or “never” and not making up your conclusions without fully hearing out the other side. The environment is also important, as the best practice is to do it privately and without any distractions around you.

A two-sided matter

Since feedback should be mutual, allowing everyone that is involved to improve and correct their behavior, not only is listening important but also the ability to receive and ask for your colleague’s insight.

If giving feedback has a foundation, so has receiving it, consisting of:

• Listen thoroughly
• Avoid quick and thoughtless answers – write your notes
• Do not take it personally
• Ask clarifying questions
• Share your thoughts
• If needed, ask for additional time to think about it
• Agree on action items and how you will measure progress
• Be thankful
• Follow the progress

Ask yourself whenever someone is looking to correct your behavior – do you see the comments as a threat or as an opportunity to improve as a professional? While the question should be theoretical, we are all human beings with emotions. Much like any other emotions that have associated stages, receiving feedback typically results in someone going through these stages: shock, anger, resistance, and acceptance. With that knowledge in mind, you might not be as discouraged to provide feedback, and when you are receiving it, be more mindful of your own emotions and remain calmer, as well as more open to change.

Then you will be more encouraged to ask for feedback. Asking for it also has to be structural, meaning you must have a goal and know the right people from whom you would receive insight about your professional behavior, as well as questions that would make the discussion productive. Writing down the feedback and reflecting upon it is also a habit you should look to have because it will help you to strengthen the impact of the feedback that was given to you.

Whether you are giving or receiving feedback, it is important to remember what is the goal of having a dialogue with your team leader or colleague – to achieve greater results individually and throughout the company.

After the practical leadership training course a couple of weeks ago, one of the most distinct memories was following a day full of learning and analysis about leadership was that my inner engine kicked into a higher gear. I just wanted to use the knowledge I have gained throughout the three days and use the theoretical and practical information right here and right now.

But the question is how do I, as a team leader, restart my colleagues’ engines daily and when delegating tasks? After all, you can assign a project inefficiently and potentially waste your and an employee’s time is not something that will result in positive feedback when you look back on a project retrospectively.

Individual traits 

While all of us could name excellent leaders, which are used as examples when discussing the ways to manage your teams, defining their traits is not that easy. Still, we have to find which character traits allowed them to be in the position they are currently in. We also must be self-aware and know our strengths and weaknesses as a leader and an individual. We should also know how to lead our teams that consist of individuals with different professional needs to make sure their motivation stays high.

The training course started with us exploring the most important attributes of a leader and a head of a department. Knowing yourself and where you shine is crucial and laying out your strong spots, as well as places to improve or  pay more attention to. However, when you are leading a team, you also have to know the individuals that you work with and their strengths and weaknesses. You also have to know how can you enable them to reach their full potential now and in the long-term future.

Identifying those traits is just the first step, as you have to manage your team and their expectations. There are many questions you can ask here: do you have to micromanage them? Do you just sit back, provide feedback, and make sure to manage the relationships? Or do you play a supporting role and push them in the right direction when needed?

Delegating tasks 

All of those questions are important, especially when you are looking to assign something to your colleague. You must do so with consistency and efficiency in mind. It is very important to have a clear timeline of deadlines and tasks that someone has to complete. It is much easier to plan your and their time, resulting in a satisfying working environment for everyone.

It was also valuable to enforce knowledge about the Square principle, which asks the four essential questions: why? what? when? and how? Using the principle, it is much easier to not only prepare for any questions that someone might have following an announcement or a change within a team but also when you are assigning tasks. That is because everything is laid out clearly and leaves little room for interpretation, which, as a result, means you work more efficiently. You avoid miscommunication-led mishaps that can result in a frustrating working environment.

You have to set up, plan, and make up a positive atmosphere when you are providing feedback, particularly when you are setting up a 1-on-1 talk, or a yearly retrospective. While we have been applying these methods for some time now, it was still nice to come back and make sure we have not missed anything.

Nevertheless, whether you are the head of a department, leader, or specialist, continuous learning is something all of us have to value, as we strive for improvement from our colleagues and ourselves daily. When your values match with those of the organization you work with you can continue training both internally, namely at the Voltas IT Academy and external courses as well.

Whatever phrase you use to describe the current state of affairs globally, the world has been going through a lot lately. We have lived through the new normal, the new reality, the uncertainty, the unfamiliarity of the situation, for the past two and a half years and it has not been a pleasant time for anybody, as society came apart, standing on two separate sides of a fault.

Information became one of the best-selling items, next to disinfectant and face masks, as empathy was very quickly thrown out the window once the fake news circus kicked its performance into overdrive. And then, as seemingly the world finally crossed the line between a pandemic and an endemic, a small man with a fragile ego decided to start a war by invading Ukraine. That has only brought even more destruction, suffering, and a flood of information to everyone’s minds, bringing even more uncertainty and anxiety into the mix.

And while it might seem uncompassionate, discussing the state of communication is perhaps more important than ever, as with the amount of information that is present on our screens, we can fall into the trap of despair with no way out. At the same time, we, the people who work with communication and churn out that information towards those who consume it have the power in our hands to at least soften the tension somewhat and ease the anxiety and hopelessness that has lingered in the air.

Together with other communication professionals, I had the opportunity to hear and process the thoughts and ideas that were shared at the latest iteration of the PR Impact Awards, which centered around the topic of “Communication in the New Reality: empathy, values, lies”.

No soldier

One of the first few things that came to my mind upon reflecting on the event is that soldiers are trained to operate within the limits of literal and non-literal coercion, as well as uncertainty. But as we look back throughout the past few years those two went on a world tour, holding hands firmly, and having a major impact everywhere.

Yet the majority of people are not trained soldiers, and many have struggled to deal with the continuous uneasiness among each other, even if we have lived under the conditions of the new normal, as much as the term has been overused, for quite a while. Adapting and cruising along, rather than choosing between fight or flight, has resulted in the fact that I, personally, have even forgotten what is it like to live under truly normal conditions.

Much like my colleague Justas reflected on how to stay motivated during more difficult and stressful times (an article that you can read here), perhaps it is a great time to also reflect upon the world that we have lived in and have gotten used to living in and how has that affected us. That was only affirmed by the analysis of the trends and topics that are presented in the media in the Baltics by Mediaskopas – and I am more than certain that there are very few differences between the number of headlines discussing COVID, the war in Ukraine, and the economic uncertainty in the global media and outlets who are based in our little three-nation region.

Empathy is the keyword

While the presentations and panel discussions focused on the many facets of today’s media and communication, empathy was the term that struck a chord with me.

Being empathic as an individual and an organization is a core value, and being empathetic to others, as corny as it sounds, is the foundation of being truthful. Lies are aplenty in today’s world, especially as information has become another weapon used to not directly inflict damage but to convince you of something that might not even have a margin of truth to it.

However, as we reflect upon the timeline of the past few years, we might showcase empathy towards others, often forgetting that we should also be more understanding towards ourselves. Not scrutinizing our bottoms too much if we had a bad day at the office, especially during a time when an imaginary Mr. Morale has seemingly left the room of the world, and allowing ourselves to be a professional human, rather than a human professional.

Still, participating in the PR Impact Awards event was a great opportunity to gain insight into the creativity and thinking that goes into making an impact with communication, which can be a crucial key for all of us.

May 26, 2022, was a fairly special day for Voltas IT and myself, as we organized our first event together with the Agile Lietuva community named “Agile, Manifestos, and Chickens: exploring philosophical questions”. The event itself, while focusing on the Agile way of software development, was about exploring the philosophical questions related to it, including the uncertainty that surrounds us in our daily working and regular lives.

As we attempted to link the old as time question of why did the chicken cross the road to the principles of Agile, Kęstutis Mikelėnas (Agile Coach, CID Lietuva) looked at the fundamentals of the methodology, and how to make sure your colleagues still have a smile on their faces as they work in sprints.

Exploring the Agile Manifesto

I took it upon myself to go on an endeavor of answering one of the hottest questions in the software development world, namely what it takes to truly be Agile. While, spoiler alert, there is no right or wrong answer to the question. But you can definitely find your answer by following fundamental Agile principles. Especially as you are dealing with uncertainty.

Uncertainty is one of the most common factors that can weigh us down during various situations and can stop us from being flexible while working or looking for a solution related to our daily routine. After all, the second principle of the Agile Manifesto encourages to welcome changing requirements, even those that come late in the development process, especially if they can improve the end user’s experience.

De Facto for uncertainty is that it is always present, no matter whether you are dealing with the most complex question of how to make a certain feature work or whether the salad that you bought for lunch will have a piece of bread included. Thus, you should not be afraid of uncertainty and when the time comes, you have to react.

Another crucial part of the Manifesto is that teamwork makes the dream work, in other words, I like to quote from Alexander Dumas’s book, The Three Musketeers “All for one and one for all, united we stand divided we fall.” In practical terms, this means that if one of your teammates is having a bad time, the whole team does so as well. This goes the other direction also, if one team member is having a great time, all of you are going to have a great time. Teamwork, especially if a business continues to grow, is always a key factor for progress.

Another question that we explored throughout the event – what is our goal? Speaking strictly of the software development side of things, the goal is to create value and to ensure customer satisfaction when they are using our product.

Every team within a business has to create value and be mindful of the customer experience whenever they make decisions. Yet in software development, the balance between technical excellence, which is also known as ensuring quality, and business requirements, a.k.a. time, is delicate and has been challenged constantly, by either side of the equation. Managers need faster delivery times, but developers want to focus on delivering quality and not quantity. Still, finding the right balance is crucial, as a house (a company) is not habitable without electricity (revenue).

And that is achievable within the Agile methodology. Agile Manifesto was written over 20 years ago, but there is a lot of detail written in it which you can narrow down to four values, excluding the principles:

“Individuals and interactions over Processes and Tools

Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation

Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation

Responding to Change over Following a Plan

While there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. “

In my experience, even if the Manifesto is two decades old, it still passes the test of time, staying relevant to this day, and dare I say, it will continue to hold its value as the basis of software development for years to come. Even if the work at your organization is based on a framework, such as Scrum, Kanban, or Extreme Programming (XP), neither of them are silver bullets that will help you solve potential organizational issues. But you have to experiment and find the right solution for your company and for the people that work there, enabling them to progress and develop the product at the same time.

Just like with the question of what does it take to be Agile, there is no correct answer, when you ask yourself the following questions: will Scrum enable my colleagues to be the best version of themselves? Or will Kanban propel our work to unprecedented levels of productivity? By only asking yourself what you want to achieve with said framework and experimentation, you will find out what is right to achieve the best results.

In turn, this will allow you to easier balance the scales of Quality and Time, to achieve the maximum value and customer satisfaction as such:

These are just a few examples that could help you achieve more solid stability in the never-ending balancing game of Quality and Time.

So, why did the Chicken cross the road? What does it truly mean to be Agile?

Each team and organization requires a different approach to the balancing game, meaning that there is no correct answer – by dealing with uncertainty head-on and experimenting with what works for you, you will find the answer that fits your case.

Every morning, all professionals have a few tasks waiting for them in the morning as soon as they turn on their work computers. Developers, no matter their focus area, are no exception to the rule. Their code has to be reviewed, written, tested, and then shipped to our customers for them to be able to continue using our application with new features and usability improvements.

Still, facing what seems like a mountain of tasks in the morning can be quite daunting, especially if the list keeps piling on throughout the day or the week. On one hand, it can be motivating as you can feel as if you are trusted by your team leaders, and that belief helps your confidence in yourself, yet on the other, it can become quite overwhelming. Or in other words – that there is no end and that the view of the larger picture fades with all of the small details that overwhelm it.

A moment of reflection

Participating in a recent Voltas IT Academy seminar with my developer colleagues from Voltas IT , one of the things we have learned is that it is always important to look back before taking a step forward. Meaning that if you still have a huge list of tasks to complete, it can be very helpful to look back at the stuff that you have done over the past days, weeks, or even months, to remind yourself that there is progress that has been made and that you, as an individual, and as a company, are moving forward.

The mountain metaphor is fitting – as you are climbing the mountain, you still see a peak that is far away yet rarely do we turn back to reflect upon the progress we have made so far, as it helps to not become too overwhelmed with the tasks we have in front of us.

One practical example is that in parallel to developing new features for users, we are also actively cleaning up and improving the code quality so it becomes easier to integrate new features in the future. However, when you have thousands upon thousands of lines of code, the task could look like an infinite one if you truly have to refactor the foundation of your code. At the same time, if you can turn around and appreciate and learn from your progress, that task becomes much easier mentally, as you know that you have truly moved forward in this case.

Small parts make up a large engine

Another way of reducing the potential overload on the mind is to chop up a large task into smaller parts. As simple as it sounds, being able to mark off a small task of a huge feature, for example, is much easier than doing a lot of work without any check box to mark your progress concretely.

One of the by-products of dividing up a task into smaller ‘jobs’ is that you can maintain a consistent pace of work, and through that consistency improve your speed and skill in little increments. It is much more beneficial to do so rather than, much like the tasks themselves, be like a rollercoaster that goes up and down in the amount of time you take to complete a task and how you evolve as a developer or a professional of any other field. Having an outlook on a day that is filled with small yet easily completable tasks is much easier to get through mentally compared to a huge task that would take you a week to complete.

It might sound trivial but this is what keeps you motivated. If you are working on a huge project you might have a very productive day yet if you unconsciously struggle to find progress in your work, as you did not cross a finish line, you might become less productive and not as motivated to continue climbing the mountain.

Thus, it is important you have a stable foundation for your improvement, as well as motivation to work daily.

On the last Friday of April 2022, the Voltas IT team celebrated the first anniversary of the company’s identity communication project – Voltas IT Atom. This project unifies everything who we are, what we are doing daily, and where do we want to be in the future.

It was a challenge to prepare an engaging and inclusive identity project and we took it together with a team of Designers, Organizational Development, and HR representatives.

Firstly, the Atom project – the 3D animation based video – was presented to all employees during a company event. The video introduced our product, team, community, vision, mission, and values and the basis of our daily working lives. Regular communication continued on our social media and internal communication channels, emphasizing the fundamentals of the company’s identity via Atom-themed visuals and describing every piece of it in detail.

And lastly, on the one-year anniversary of the Atom project, a special event was organized – symbolically named Atomic Friday. It was themed around the Atom, and everything related to the day had hints of the project’s visual cues and an activity that was all about working together as a team. Everyone at the company received their prizes: Atom-branded hoodies, T-shirts, stickers, and pins.

As Chief Commercial and Organization Development Officer Vilma Launikonienė said: “Being innovators we chose to present our identity in a more engaging way with 3D animations. We hope we have also created a tradition at the company, as the Atomic Friday is scheduled to become an event that would repeat annually, engaging our colleagues and us having another celebration to anticipate each year.”

With the help of the internal communication, visuals around the office, and annual celebration, our vision, mission, and values will continue to be the basis of every decision when working with OBDeleven, the smart diagnostic device developed by Voltas IT.

You can find out more about the Voltas IT Atom project here.

While many companies began dabbing their toes and experimenting with remote work over the past couple of years, the pandemic was a catalyst that undoubtedly changed the rules. The balance has continued to shift between working from home and the office, a major trend globally, as workers have enjoyed working from the comfort of their own homes. Another trend that has been majorly on the rise is sustainability, in its broadest definition, including sustainable growth of businesses with a major accent on the well-being of a company’s employees.

Undoubtedly, there is no other topic that is as difficult to discuss as an employee’s salary, as emotions and tensions tend to sway towards the negative side whenever the thought of discussing it pops into the head. Organizations can create strategies on how to manage their human resources, describe processes on how employees can make strides in their careers, and yet still, salary discussions could remain a taboo topic that is largely avoided throughout the year.

Still, as believers in sustainable growth, we looked for ways to ensure that no stone was not left unturned, and naturally, a transparent salary policy was a project spearheaded by the company’s management and the Human Resources (HR) team, which did the market research to find out the averages for equivalent roles at other IT companies throughout Lithuania.

The policy is not as simple as defining a range or a certain salary that is assigned to a position. It is a complex maze of principles, rules, and agreements that have to be completed and defined if the process must be standardized in a company. One of the first steps was to clearly define what roles are present at the company and their responsibilities at Voltas IT, the complexity of said roles, and what kind of added value do they bring to the company.

As a result, Voltas IT now has clearly defined salary ranges for certain seniority levels and what kind of skills an employee must have to be defined as either a junior, a mid-level, or a senior specialist. Our job, whether it would be the C-Level executives or HR managers, is to ensure that these definitions, salary ranges, and competencies are communicated honestly, clearly, and without any bumps in the road.

At the same time, we are looking to proactively engage our colleagues, look at their current skill set and what can we, as a company, do to make them move to a higher seniority level by enabling them to work on their professional and personal skills, and subsequently, be eligible for a higher salary range.

Every role and seniority level’s salary range are available to all our employees, as we believe that it is just an additional motivation for every employee to grow and try to master their work – after all, if the goal is clearly defined and communicated transparently, it is much easier to understand what you need to do to move forward in your career at Voltas IT.