CAT RSHB-Intech or “How to Train a Tester”

Hello everyone! My name is Marina Kapriz, I am the Deputy Head of the Quality Assurance and Software Change Release Unit at RSHB-Intech (a technological subsidiary of RSHB). Our Unit concentrates the main banking expertise on QA at Intech.

Three years ago we started KOT — founded the school “How to Train a Tester” to train personnel within the company, solve problems of training new test engineers, and improve the competencies of current employees. Over the course of several years, KOT has become an indispensable assistant in the formation of high-quality personnel and a well-coordinated community of testers within the company. In this article, I will tell you how the school appeared, how we developed it, and what we ended up with.

Where does the CAT begin?

The idea of ​​creating an online school came to me in 2020. The main goal was to teach practical skills of testing employees even with zero experience. At that time, the market offered too “theoretical” courses, after which it was impossible to include a candidate without experience in the production process. Retraining was required with the participation of a mentor, who was distracted from the production process for 70% of the working time.

It was at that time that Prime Minister Mishustin set the vector for digitalization, after which all IT specialists with work experience were “swept away” from the market. Decisive and rapid measures were required to fill the personnel deficit. Naturally, it would not be possible to quickly obtain additional resources for this activity. But how to justify them? No one had experience in obtaining resources to organize a school, and how to organize it in principle? Then these were continuous questions…

I started by defining the format, and chose online. Then, according to the classics: mission, goal, objectives. After I defined the audience, its needs and expectations, the process and necessary roles for implementation were identified. This is how the strategy was born, after which a plan appeared, but the issue of resources was still relevant. At that time, the Block consisted of about 150 people (now 300+), and I personally also conducted certifications of employees of the competence centers of our Block for the purpose of their development and growth. During the certification process, I not only confirmed competencies and the fulfillment of the individual development plan, but also assessed the extent to which the employee would want and be able to participate in the creation of the school.

Thus, potential participants of the KOT school were found, namely those who could successfully perform the roles of methodologists for creating materials, lecturers, who could tell interesting stories on camera, as well as an operator who could record video with subsequent editing. Surprisingly, such people were found in the Block. Here I would like to note, without exaggeration, that the employees of our Block are not only professionals in their field, but also very talented people with various hobbies. I admit, conducting certifications was a real pleasure, a solid charge of positivity. So, the team was assembled, it remained to inspire them, using material and non-material motivation. And it was successful.

I can say that for many testers with the Senior grade, participation in the creation and development of the KOT testing school served as excellent motivation, which had a positive effect on “retaining employees in the company” for this grade. Previously, this was a problem for us, but now it is not.

One of our staff members was so inspired that he took the lead in preparing the lecturers before creating the video modules, and to do this he took his own courses in diction and directing, from which he brought valuable knowledge to our lecturers.

Thus, a whole “plant” for creating courses for the school was created. That is, some employees played the role of methodologists – they created the course module material and developed test tests. Others, with the role of lecturer, after preliminary training, gave a lecture on camera. Then editing was carried out, after which the module was given for testing to employees of the grade for whom this course was aimed. And how could we do without it, we are testers, quality is important to us. After receiving comments, the modules were supplemented, all materials were edited. It was a very effective process without unnecessary theory, practitioners created modules for practitioners, an ideal transfer of competence.

Since we initially needed to fill the personnel gap, we focused on the most basic and important things, so that upon completion of the course we would get juniors who could join production with minimal distraction from mentors. We succeeded. At first, we had to work a lot, using our personal time, but this period did not last long, less than four months. The hardest thing was to stop our perfectionism and maximalism, inherent in the qualities of testers, which we successfully coped with.

Thus, based on the matrix of competence of the Block centers, the entire program of courses was formed. The formation of the COT courses was carried out by grades: “Junior”, “Middle”, “Senior”, “Manager”.

In addition, we have developed an entrance test, which can be used to select the most suitable candidates, i.e. a future tester must have logical thinking, be attentive to details, neat, tolerant, pedantic, consistent, sociable and persistent.

Of course, it couldn't have happened without the support of the HR service. For which they deserve special thanks for agreeing to take on additional work. RSHB-Intech has a friendly team, open to interaction. By the way, after a year and a half, HR created an offline school “Intech School”, which helps us develop soft skills in employees.

So, thanks to the enthusiasm of our employees, we continue to develop the KOT school.

Why CAT?

Over the years, the testing team developed its own jokes and memes, which it was decided to use when drawing the school logo. The central place among the memes and jokes was occupied by the cat Simon.

At that time, I was going to the award ceremony of RSHB-Intech from the Association of Russian Banks in the nomination “Import Substitution of Test Management System” together with Test IT. Many colleagues responded to my request to give me something corporate for going to the event, among the “corporate gifts” was a striped colored scarf. I took it with the words “It won't suit me, but I'll take it for the cat!” Only now I can imagine the amazement of my colleagues who agreed to help. I hope they will also read my article and see that I took the scarf not for my pet cat. Everything is to the point! Well, that same evening this scarf was copied to the cat on the logo. Now everything is great. Almost…

The next question is how to convey not only the concept of a tester's work through the picture “CAT”, but also reflect the essence of training? We decided to put an academic cap on the mascot. And to decipher the cat itself: How to Train a Tester. Everything went easily and naturally, I didn't even have to suffer much. Well, and then the motto is “We know – come!”

Now everything is logical and clear, we are testers, this is important to us! The image was very much on topic. So we essentially got our own brand and mascot.

I will tell you more about the further work on it in a separate article, since it has its own big story. In short, many cats appeared, each of which is tied to a certain employee, situation or event. All these sketches were copied from real colleagues who, without knowing it, were creating cats, in which all the variety of emotions were invested. Perhaps that is why our stickers with cats are popular at conferences. Many colleagues in the shop said: “What a living and real cat!”, “I recognize my colleague!”, “Guys, this is reality!”

Later, this was turned into sticker packs, merch, and various branded gifts for school students and to attract new people to the company.

Taking it to the next level

After completing the manual testing courses for all grades, we started creating courses for load and automated testing. We are currently training juniors in testing automation on the Java stack. Our plans include developing courses for Middle and Senior grades for these types of testing by 2026. We also created a “Manager” course for testing department managers, and for competence center managers, the course was supplemented with separate specific modules.

We have also launched new courses for training release managers and a quality assurance course to involve RSHB-Intech employees in QA processes.

Since the testing process is also present in other blocks whose work is focused on specific business domains, the KOT school actively interacts with the blocks and replenishes the courses with new modules. In addition to personal experience and market analysis results, the needs of managers are taken into account, surveys are conducted to form a task base.

The process of support, interaction, exchange of experience, which also replenishes the collection of modules, is organized through the community of testers and the community of managers. The communities are launched under the school brand, but this is also a separate story.

Final structure of the CAT

The learning process in general now looks like this.

From 8 to 12 employees are involved in the creation and development of the KOT at different periods and not “full time”.

Over the past year, there have been many people willing to study from related departments. Adaptation and training of employees is fast and high-quality due to the structure that has been established over many years. By the way, the story of a tester who moved from the bank's front office to testing thanks to KOT can be read at the link. And there are many such stories when KOT really helped “enter IT”.

Feedback on training courses has been collected from the first stream to the present day. More than 95% of engineers and heads of competence centers and areas have returned to us with positive feedback on training.

Results

The school reduces costs. There is no longer a need to organize external training for Junior and Middle level testers. The courses include modules specific to our processes (internal information systems and business processes that are not available on the external market). Specific skills and training objectives are prescribed, which helps to avoid unnecessary expenses on external training. We can evaluate the results of training at any time. The knowledge acquired by employees in external training is transmitted to others through the internal Community of testers Community of managers on a regular basis.

The school contributes to the development and maintenance of the technical brand of RSHB-Intech, increases the attractiveness of the company as an employer and reduces staff turnover in the company.

Let me sum up what we have achieved thanks to the school in terms of management tasks:

• To meet the company's needs for developing QA specialists at all levels.

• Involve company specialists in QA processes.

• Solve the problem of distracting mentors from the work process during the adaptation period of a new employee.

• Reduce the time required to recruit personnel in conditions of a shortage in the market.

• To improve the competencies and motivation of current employees of the Quality Unit and other departments.

• Independently develop grades in the Block and have a personnel reserve.

In simple terms, we have made it much easier for ourselves to find, adapt and train personnel, while introducing interesting activities that people want to engage in. Over the years, more than 500 employees have passed through the school, more than 200 training modules have been created, there are a lot of interesting stories about people entering IT from outside IT even at an age that would seem inappropriate for changing professions.

And the most important thing is that these are the courses that we do, the quality of which we are confident in, and we know every student of these courses in detail. This is very important, because when it comes to external training, as a rule, it is already a “pig in a poke”.

The KOT school is open to everyone. Want to become a tester? Write to Yana Akmeeva AkmeevYN@intech.rshb.ruand also subscribe to our VK group.