How do we find great testers after we have hired most of whom we know? Where are those great testers whom we don’t know yet? Can we really find them? Will they just show up? Are they available?

If we can’t find them, how can we create great testers in large numbers? How fast? How efficiently can we bring them into the real world? How can we facilitate great testing that is capable of changing the World?

Image Credits : Dreamworks Inc.

These were some questions we challenged ourselves at Moolya – long before we hit our 2nd year of operations.  We didn’t have answers but we had a hope.

The Domino Effect

We wondered if there is any Super Talented School of Testing that can provide us great testers on a need basis. To our dismay, we didn’t find any. This is when the idea struck – “Why not create a great school on our own that would feed the need for more great testers in Moolya?”

What about the Domino Effect? Why not create a few testers who in turn would go on to create a few more. In a few years, we would have created scores of testers who would be coaching/mentoring/training other testers and lay a strong foundation for furthering great testing. There was a Big Heady Audacious Goal in the making.

This is why Moolya Academy was born!

Moolya Academy

Moolya Academy is the Kung Fu School of Testing at Moolya. It is the Next Generation Test Lab for creating skilled software testers. At Academy, we practice the Art and Science of Software Testing. We spread Moolya Testing Mindset to all Moolyans who join us.

Image Credits : Dreamworks Inc.

Moolya Academy is creating world class testers by providing hands-on testing practice on real projects to new recruits (including experienced testers) before they get onto large projects.

If you step into Moolya, you’ll see Kung Fu Warriors practicing the Art of Software Testing every moment with a passion towards mastering it, all this by using their Brain and Testing Armory - Approaches – Context Driven, Exploratory, Mindset – Rapid Testing, Test Techniques – Heuristics, Oracles, Technologies – Tools/Add-ons. If it looks like what every services company does – we are extremely happy because we have been successful in making our success factors disguised to you.

Why the name Academy?

Plato founded a school called Academy in 387 BC in Athens where he taught Socratic Principles. Aristotle studied there for twenty years before he founded his own school, the Lyceum. Academy persisted as one of the highly respected schools for skepticism in that era and nurtured many philosophers who changed the world, for the better. Moolya is here to re-define the way testing is done, sooner! Academy suited apt.

Moolya Orientation

Testers inducted into Academy go through an Orientation Program introducing them to Moolya’s culture, values and ethics. This orientation includes talking about our garage days, current projects and clients, introduce them to Moolyans and have a fun team huddle – where they have to perform. We have some of the coolest dancers, school drop-outs, singers, musicians and snake wranglers as testers! It’s fun.

Moolya Testing Scrolls (a.k.a Coaching Style)

The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War consists of three main scrolls, titled “The Killing Sword,” “The Life Giving Sword,” and “No Sword.” These are Zen Buddhist terms adapted to both wartime and peacetime principles of the samurai. At Moolya, our coaching style is based around these Zen Buddhist principles.

Image Credits : Dreamworks Inc.

The Killing Sword

Young bees (yeah, busy bees) at Moolya need to be dusted off the dirt about Testing, Exploratory Testing, Requirements Testing, Bugs and whole bunch of other concepts taught by educational institutions and gory testing institutes. The killing sword represents the use of force to quell disorder and eliminate violence. At Moolya, I use the killing sword to ward off all the bad stuff filled in tester’s brains, drain it out completely and allow them to start afresh, on a blank slate. All over again.

The Life-Giving Sword

Most of the dirty stuff is gone. Brains are clean. And they are ready for the Life Giving sword. The life-giving sword represents the preparedness to perceive impending problems and forestall them. I introduce testers to a variety of testing problems and exercises and leave them in a state of oblivion. It’s like being in the middle Sahara desert. I let them work through their problems while continuing to confuse and challenge them at every state. I prepare them for the problems by giving an almost impossible problem to solve (at least impossible for them). I make them solve it with absolutely no help. Sometimes, I help them solve it with little help based on some questions they may ask. Sometimes, I hypnotize them to think I am right and they are wrong all the time, challenging their confidence. At the end of this, they would have learned to use the life giving sword – solve any problem that comes their way!

No Sword

How about fighting a battle without using a sword? No sword represents the capacity to make full use of the resources of the environment. In this phase, I coach my testers to use all the resources (Brain, oracles, heuristics, tools/add-ons etc) they have at their disposal and test better. I no longer use a sword. I just show up with a problem that they’ll own from that moment on. I just look at them solve the problem. No swords. Oh no, not anymore!

Blooding our Warriors – Moolya-fication

All fresh recruits in Moolya who are inducted into Academy and passed all the tests with flying colors will be blooded as Warriors and moved onto other projects. This is a test which will determine if a Moolyan has to get onto projects or get out of Moolya to find a better place that nurtures their real talent. This is a defining moment in any Moolyan’s life. Every Moolyan has to pass through the Moolya-fication phase.

How do people who join Moolya benefit from this?

They will learn about testing, technologies, languages, tools and add-ons with same vigor. They won’t carry the baggage of certifications, tools and fools who mistake tools for skills. They will be aware that Testing is a Mindset and a Skill set. They will be known for Critical Thinking, Questioning, Skepticism, and Investigative thinking and Challenging testing itself.

Learning is a Journey, not a destination

If you have not noticed how a dung beetle works, you must! No matter where you air-lift and drop it, the dung beetle would know where exactly it was going and where it wants to go. It would figure out exactly what the problem is in terms of where it is heading and how to deal with that problem.

Dung beetles are capable of determining their destination using cues like sunlight, thermal conditions on the ground and their own body temperature. All this put together, they know how to reach their destination no matter what or who gets in their way.

Moolya inspires passionate testers. Moolya loves testers with dreams. Moolya rejuvenates itself by hiring people who challenge Moolya. I believe that Academy is going to make Moolya all the more powerful with its magical Testing Scrolls!

DS and I were sitting in Starbucks, Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, Jakarta and were busy brushing our hands over our laptop keyboards typing one or the other useless things (which anybody does, sitting in an airport waiting for the flight). Let me correct that, I was on a laptop and he was in his Macbook and iPad. It does matter because DS doesn’t like it to be called a laptop.

I surprised him by writing till the previous sentence and announcing that he’d be interviewed by me. I am going to ask him tough questions, real tough questions and interested to see how he handles it. I would capture exactly the same way he said it and publish it in here before our flight takes off.

So, welcome to the interview, DS,

PS: Is your team the best mobile test team in the world? How do you know that? Are you willing to take upon a challenge from any part of the world?

DS: I don’t think they are the best yet. They are the youngest. My goal is to get them to make them the best AND the craziest mobile test team by end of this year. That said, I am willing to take up the challenge from any part of the world.

PS: Tell me some of your team’s accomplishments so far?

DS:  After we worked on Flyte e-books and Flipkart had a successful launch, Rahul Chari, Director – Digital said, “I want to bring Flyte Mp3 to the same quality of Flyte e-books and need Moolya’s help”

(DS paused and is thinking in here as he is questioning what accomplishment means) 

It is a young team and what they have done without having to supervise is commendable. So, that is an accomplishment in itself.

PS: What is your accomplishment over the last 6 months?

DS: Building a team with courage. They were working as individual in silos and it took a while to get them to think like a team and be like one. Now, everything they do they are doing it as a team. (PS comment: I remember the Gladiator fight when I heard that from DS where Maximus asks, “Anyone been in the army? Whatever comes out of these gates, if we stand together, we survive”)

PS: What have you failed to achieve that you wanted to?

DS: There is a stealth mode project that I was supposed to have made progress on but I haven’t. This is a failure. We need to do better on automation front. That is a failure. We should have been there completely by now.

PS: Were you aware of the risk of mentioning your failures publicly?

DS: Hmmm! Yeah!

PS: (asking questions, in not always easy, I was wondering what next to pose to DS) Can you take up the challenge of mind mapping in testing from anywhere in the world and have the confidence to turn out to be the best?

DS: YES (Read that in Font Size 100)

PS: What is integration of x /x+1 ?

DS: The same as integration of 2.

(I think that’s incorrect but I don’t know the integration of 2 either. Sorry to have asked this question to you DS)

PS: I will write the names of some of your team members and you have to tell one word that describes them the best. This is rapid fire. If you take more than 1 second to answer, I move to the next.

DS:

Abi: Curious

Arthy: Witty

DS: Ha ha ha ha ha

Sai: Talented

Nano: Smart

Anil: Sincere

Pranitha: Hard working

Megha: Smart & Strict

Vidisha: Silent, learner.

_end of interview_

Time to fly!

Fletcher Lynd Seagull signing off for the moment. Taking Dhanasekar Seagull along with me on the flight. We will land, and rest for a while before we fly again. As other birds see us fly, they may gather courage and understand that as birds they are meant to fly not be tied in cages because some birds aren’t meant to be caged their feathers are just too bright. (Thanks to Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Shawshank Redemption)

10:48 PM, Jakarta

The article on Why good employees leave or quit has been doing massive rounds in my friends circle through Facebook, Twitter & Linkedin. I search for it on the internet and there are thousands of articles that always point to one key thing  - good employees don’t leave the organization, they leave their boss or manager.

I disagree if good employees who care for the organization would just say, “I care a f**k about the organization now as I just hate this guy I am reporting with and want to go somewhere else“.

I was an employee too, of several organizations. I wasn’t all lucky to work with great managers all through my job hops for the awesome place. I never quit any job for money nor with a job in hand. I quit jobs hoping for a better environment that is conducive to creativity and change. I thought large companies like Motorola had it but I was wrong.

I have high ambitions. As simple as to change the way the world tests software. As simple as to help IT services companies re-think their business models and the value they add to their customers.

Whenever I found a great manager to work with – there were things that were not in his or her control that slowed me down from bringing change to the world. There were business people who saw great ideas but also saw when these ideas are implemented, their volume comes down and resisted change. I quit organizations even if there were great managers I worked with. I just felt sorry for the great manager in there and recognized that some organizations don’t even know why they are surviving or making profits. I strongly believe that even the greatest of managers in organizations that don’t empower them to change things would end up making the great managers, not so great over time.

I started this company 2 years, 2 months and 7 days ago. We were just 2 people in a garage and I knew everything happening in there. Even the lizards that dropped in to say Hi to the auto rickshaws that disturbed us from far. In an year, we were about 13 people. I stopped hearing the auto rickshaws but my focus was on listening to my people. I kinda knew the obstacles my people had in delivering great value and was committed to clear them off those obstacles. Today, we are 50 people and a re-org internally that has my core team reporting to me and I am only listening to my core team obstacles and helping them clear off. I don’t know all obstacles that people reporting to those who report to me have. I am no longer spotting a lizard and I almost forgot about the auto rickshaws till I wrote this paragraph. I am flooded with things that needs to be done to make this company more enjoyable to work with for my team.

By the virtue of being a co-founder, co-visionary behind the company and a leader with courage, I have the power to change anything in this organization. I have the power but it is not necessary that I have information that I can use to change things. The information that can influence a change is very critical and anybody in our company can have it. If I do not get to know, how would I be able to bring a change? So, if an employee is good (even in their own definition of good) and wants to leave my company because their reporting manager is not helping them spread their wings, I definitely want to know it. If they leave silently, they are actually killing my company. Killing the possibilities of the colleagues they care for. Killing our growth and the vision we have.

The worst to happen in life as a businessman is a customer or an employee walking away without telling why. The society sucks way too bad in making life tough for those who want to really share things. I worked for an Indian IT services company in 2004 that flaunts CMM certification and I quit in 3 months because the lead I was reporting to had no idea of professionalism. He loved treating people like a slave. I decided to not be treated that way and I quit. In the exit interview, I told the reason behind why I am quitting to the HR Manager. There was a follow up meeting with the Manager and the Lead who bullied me. They threatened they would tell wrong things about me and ensure I don’t get a job and would screw up my background reference checks. I never want a job that comes with their recommendation so I didn’t care for it anyway. I wanted to take this up to the CEO but alas, the CEO was the guy who brought in the manager from his ex-employer and the manager brought in the lead. I had the courage to speak to anyone and I had the courage to take all that and use it to add more firepower to my dreams.

However, the twist in the story was, months after I quit, my other colleague in that company also quit his job (without another job in hand, like me) because he could not tolerate the lead anymore. He was asked by the HR Manager “Why are you quitting?” and he didn’t say a word about the lead because he feared what happened to me would also happen to him. This was in 2004. As of today, this specific organization has not grown as it should have and it actually down sized plus there is no buzz surrounding it. It has not grown for so long that people hardly know it exists. It has lost its ability to attract great people and is downhill.

Such an awesome story but the story is not about the company. The story is about my colleague who quit without telling the reason. I wonder what is happening to him with his next employer. He is a skilled guy, dedicated, ethical, works hard, doesn’t gossip, shares his knowledge, and cares for the customer’s problem. So much that he can be called an employee every company would love to have. However, he wouldn’t say a word why he is leaving. If he worked in Moolya and he didn’t tell me why he quit, I am a guy boasting of the power I have, to change the world, but will have no information whatsoever to change his world.

If you are a good employee (and you know that) but your boss or manager is screwed up, please please tell it to people like me. Otherwise, you are sinking organizations that can potentially change the world. Once you indirectly are the reason to sink good companies, no matter what you do, you can’t be a good employee of any company. To be a good employee, speak out and don’t let companies who matter to the world, die.

After you speak out to people in power (or more power), if there is no change in the organization, your issue is not resolved, then quit. Run far away from it. Even if it is Moolya. If your vision is different than the company’s vision, then quit. Run far away from it. Even if it is Moolya.

Vipin co-founded the intra-company-weekend-testing style stuff called FNL which is Friday Night Lights where testers are given a mission and have limited time to work. Some assignments are paired and some times it is an individual task. Through this he has been driving great lessons. We are proud to have people like him and there are many more in making – which is why our hope to change the world has multiplied over the last year.

We have interviewed, mostly a text interview so far to all those who completed one year with us and decided to change the style a little bit and surprise him with questions but Vipin being the cool guy he is, look at how cool he handles it.

Vipin is the co-owner of Moolya. After you watch the video, you would discover that in his body language and the way he takes special care in interviewing testers and pick ones that Moolya will benefit to change the world. He works as a Lead Exploratory Tester. We promoted him and then asked, well, just out of curiosity, how many years have you been testing? He said 3. We didn’t know that. We don’t care a lot on how many years people are testing but what matters are the skills, professionalism and Moolya values that matter.

Vipin is a role model to many in Moolya and those who have him as role model will also grow up to become one. People like Vipin will do it and Moolya will facilitate. Vipin is a great example of using the platform we gave very well.  Join me in wishing Vipin the best for the coming year and maybe in 1 year from now, we will do interview using a 3 D Video iPad. We used the 2D iPad 2 this time.

On December 13, 2010, Moolya was incorporated. We had a garage setup from bootstrapping. When we started Moolya there were no such customers standing in queue to give us work but our capital was not money but the skills we had, the courage to pursue a dream, belief in building a team and the conviction we have on what we can accomplish as a team. What else can I say when I negotiated with HDFC Bank to reduce the deposit money to start a bank account in the name of a company? I finally got the minimum balance to maintain in office bank account to 10,000 Indian Rupees. That is – USD 185. The reason for me to negotiate it to 10,000 is because if it was any bigger money, it was a burden and there was nothing happening to suggest we can maintain 10,000 in the bank. That is how we started. In less than 2 years, we are aiming at getting close to a million USD dollars of revenue this financial year. You read that correct, 1 million US Dollars of revenue this financial year – FY12-13. We have in our sight, possibility to multiply this in FY 13-14.

The previous paragraph is just an indicator of our success so far because money is a by product of what we have done and what we will do. The success of Moolya is not about how rich the company has become in 2 years, of course it does matter but we could have made more money if we were willing to sacrifice our vision and the purpose of why we started this company. Of course, we are a business and we need to make a lot of money to operate and do things bigger but not at the cost of what got us here. It is money for growth and not growth for money, in simple terms. What got us here is our vision and our vision is strong and big enough that we don’t need to bother about money because the achieving the vision would bring us money.

Isn’t it fantastic, dear testers, a bunch of passionate testers from Bangalore who used to meet every weekend to discuss and practice testing just got together and said, “Let’s do it!” could actually get this far? It is. Moolya’s success so far should ideally have been a big reminder to large IT services companies in India to focus on better testing value but the good news is – they don’t see us as a threat yet because their vision and objectives  are probably different than our ours  and our vision is testing and providing value. We wish they change their vision to testing lest the people who could do that for them might be on their journey towards Moolya.

Ability to challenge and yet not be thrown out (or not bother)

We stand for good testing that is intellectual. We have politely disagreed with a large multi billion company on their approach to testing which we felt promotes lack of intellectualism whilst showing them what good testing could do to them. We were their 22nd vendor for testing and there are some very large, large and medium size IT services companies working with them but none so far have disagreed to their approach to testing. This is Moolya’s success. We challenged a bunch of giants on what they claim on their website as their expertise (testing) and yet not be thrown out because we did so. We are being admired!

Would that admiration mean more to business? Usually it does. If not, the (best) worst case, people admiring us join us, making our team more stronger than before Any which way, we win.

Ability to demonstrate expertise and help customers win

While this has happened, there are customers who want to let us do what we claim to be good at and what they get by doing so? Flipkart recently launched the Flyte ebook reader app. I met the Product Owner and Director of Engineering. They had to say that this was one of their smoothest release and they loved working with us. They have since renewed our contracts. Same  with our other customers, too. We have more in the kitty coming up. Choosing to work with customers who can let us do what we are good at will be more important to us. We will never work with any customer who says, “I got money so better listen to me”. Good testing is not about just listening to what the customer says, it is to offer information that can help them change what they want to say.

We are working with Cogknit, a startup for an year right now. They have great appreciation for what Moolya has done to them. They recently got their first big paying customer and they recognized and acknowledged our support to get there from bootstrapping. You could ask them if they would go to any other company for testing, no matter how much discounted price anyone can offer, they would not. Look at how confident we speak on behalf of our customers publicly.

We had a bunch of customer visits this year to our office. All of them got attracted to our energy, passion for testing, skills and leadership. Yes, we looked into their eyes when they said this.

Some customers don’t yet want the world to know we work for them. We appreciate that. We hope to come out of the dark in 2013 (Are you listening?)

Cruising through The James Bach Test

I have been a student of James Bach and Michael Bolton and I know how they would evaluate a test lab and its work. We had an opportunity to hire James Bach to Moolya and bring him over to India. James didn’t know how we were doing so he was wondering if we would be able to pay him. As a matter of fact, he was pleasantly surprised we did. We probably are the first Indian services company to directly hire him. The last time he was hired was by Hewlett Packard to go to teach at the company they had outsourced to.

He was here for about two weeks and visited Moolya and spent time with our testers. He had and has great appreciation for the work we do. I stayed out of the way to let testers in Moolya directly speak with James. Not to my surprise, they spoke and stood up to scrutiny. We showed James as much work we could show from most of our projects. He said he was blown away with what we are doing and the kind of testers we have.  Here is one particular test that I didn’t recognize was a test when it happened. We told him how many people we have let go off so far and he seemed to be like “Wow! That definitely tells me how serious Moolya is about the kind of testing you want to do for your customers”. Not just that, he looked into our work and got some of his colleagues curious about coming over to India or working with us. Here is a tweet from James you’d be interested to see (re-tweet) : I’d heard of Moolya. I helped inspire Moolya. But I actually saw Moolya today– It’s the gritty reboot of Indian software testing. Wow.

Our testers and our cult

We do let go off people from time to time. That’s a strong message internally to that working for Moolya means you are working towards becoming a leader, fundoo tester, those who would change the world and also earn a good living. I know the panic some people got when some of my previous employers let go off people. The question that everybody has in mind is, “Will I be next?”.

Despite we letting people go, there is no panic among people because they co-own the company. Mohan PSK, Santhosh Tuppad and I are founders of the company but however, those who own our company are our employees. Every person who attended Test-Ed conference must have seen it and also many of the participants acknowledged it. When the queue for lunch got large, our testers pitched in to serve food to participants, our testers made the bread and rotis people ate. Some of our testers weren’t there to listen to talks but had a different learning perhaps. Isn’t this awesome? We are creating a cult, oops, they are creating a cult without recognizing they are doing one. As founders, we just facilitate. They do all of it. Never give us the credit, although we steal it sometimes. Here is why we take some credit - We empower our co-owners with the power to choose whom to work with and whom to not.

We facilitate them to innovate, challenge them to keep themselves sharp and ahead of all testers, and help them build a vision. We maintain an eye to contact when we speak to them and they see this is no pep talk to keep them going. Transparency has been the key to help them build their side of the bridge of trust towards what we speak.

Moolya Academy

There aren’t a 100 great testers in India. Even if there are, they are hiding or not applying to work with us. We need hundreds of great testers for the future. Yes, we need our own (top of the mind names) Jonathan Kohl, Julian Harty, Rob Saborin, Elizabeth Hendrickson, Fiona Charles, Paul Carvalho, Huib Schoots, Ilari Henrik, Jari Laakso, Sebi, Shmuel Gershon, Issi Hassan Fuchs, Rikard Edgren, Henrik Anderson, Ben Kelly, Scott Barber, Matt Heusser, Adi Setiadi, Ola Hylten, Vipul Kocher, Rahul Verma, Ajoy Singha, Rosie Sherry, Rahul Gupta, Markus Gartner, Siggie, Anuj Magazine, Dhansekaren R, Nattu, Ramit Manohar …

We wish to to hire these people but even otherwise, it is important we create our own versions of these people’s mind with a Moolya slant to it. The Academy headed by Master Shifu Parimala would help in accomplishing the testers we want to create. Just as James said, “Moolya could have not had a better Master Shifu than Parimala for this goal”. Moolya Academy is the biggest thing to happen to Moolya in its 2nd year.

Why are we successful? The non obvious reasons

Obviously, we do good testing, we hire good testers, we have paying customers, we have repeat customers, we have a bunch of customers discussing on how they could work with us, we stand for good testing and a whole bunch of things. The non obvious reasons are what makes us or what could make us outliers in the services business. Let me just state one of them.

Support from the testing community. No other testing services company in the world has been supported as much as we are being supported by the testing community. We owe a lot to the community. The community markets for us, they do the pre-sales, they help us to challenge other competing bids, they give us projects, they care for our growth and more. This is why, Moolya does not have anyone yet in a role of marketing, pre-sales or sales. It is all what we do with the help of the community. I am sure it is quite surprising to some people that we got close to a million dollar revenues without actually hiring anybody to sell for us. This is history!

We came to existence to change the world of software testing, while others may have had narrower vision or their objective was to make money. This is a strong reason why the community backs us. This is why we think we will be largely successful and be unique.

Interesting milestone

There are plenty obvious milestones but there is one interesting milestone which I am not sure happened to other companies in India working on testing services. A company X wanting to outsource testing work invited bids and we were fortunate to be invited into it. (Hail the community). It so happened that all other bidders were large and medium IT services and testing services companies from India. We stood out as the top bid (nope, this was not about how cheap price we can quote). We were pitching a little higher than others perhaps and had the justification of why. So, the company finally decided to outsource to us.  This does not surprise us. However, this surprised the other competing company in India who setup a team to investigate what we really do

Here is the answer competitor: In the words of Po: There is no secret ingredient, it is just you! In the words of the Po of Moolya: There is no secret ingredient. We do testing the way it is supposed to be!

When she joined, we were busy with projects and wondering how to coach her. She took over her own learning and found a mentor – DS and started her journey from there. Once she picked up, which was real quick, she did so awesome that we provided her with freedom to operate and she acted very responsibly. Read from her own words, how her journey was.

PS:  Can you explain to the world on how were your interviewed or recruited into Moolya?

MM: This question takes me back to those days where I was a fresher badly hunting for a job. Needless to say how much desperate a fresher will be to get a job after graduating. Pradeep once said “The place where you live really matters a lot”. Well, he is very much right in this context. One day, one of my neighbors in the apartment where I’m currently residing spoke to me about Moolya!!:) Can you believe this! One meeting with a person who was a stranger to me then could help me get a job? Well, it happened in my case and this is unforgettable. The next point of contact for me was Pradeep and I had a telephonic conversation with him. I briefed him about my personal and professional details over the phone and the next step was face to face meeting. I never realized that I was going to be interviewed that day. Pradeep himself explained what Moolya is doing and how different Moolya is from other software companies. I felt it was the right place and the right choice to begin my career. The next step towards my interview was very different. As part of skill and communication assessment Pradeep asked me to explain “my approach towards learning new things with an example” and send it over the mail. I managed to answer his question to the best of my ability but he was not very much convinced in the first place. This made me shoot questions to him about what exactly he was looking for. With a chain of some 6 to 7 email conversations I could finally reach close to the answer he was anticipating. Next day I was personally called to office and handed over the offer letterJ. One meeting and a few emails could get me a job in Moolya. This is one of the coolest ways to hire anyone which can happen only in Moolya!

PS: You joined us as a fresher. What expectations did you have and how has the journey been so far?

MM: To be honest I joined with zero expectations. I’m very happy with the kind of work we are doing where talent and hard work has always been recognized and appreciated. It was a wonderful journey so far and I have enjoyed every moment and every event happening in Moolya.

PS: What are your accomplishments of the first year at work?

MM: My first accomplishment in Moolya is to get myself into Mobile Testing Lab. With the help of our Commander I’m now a part of Mobile Colosseum and known to be the first G(L)adiator of the Mobile testing lab. I joined here as a fresher and a few months later I was recognized as “Exploratory Software Tester” which happens to be the biggest accomplishment so far.

PS:  What has Moolya done to you in an year? What skills do you identify yourselves with?

• Moolya has given me a platform to present my talent and skill
• Moolya has given me an opportunity to explore my core area of interest and help me grow
• Moolya has appreciated my hard work and good work
• Moolya has given me a chance to meet our testing guru James Bach
• Moolya has given me a chance to work with talented testers like Sunil, Parimala, Santosh, Dhanasekar and Pradeep himself.
• Most importantly, Moolya has always approved my leaves

The second part of the question- The skills that I have picked up in one year,

1. Bug finding and reporting
2. Session Based Testing (Still need to graduate in this)
3. Mindmapping
4. Mobile testing
5. Ability to manage a team
6. Ability to plan and divide the work
7. Ability to handle time bound work with SBTM
8. Ability to manage the deliverables
9. Share good relationship with the team

PS: I can’t stop asking about our garage days. How was your experience?

MM:   Very interesting and fun days! I was probably the 9^th hire in Moolya with only 5 or 6 in our garage J and the rest in respective client location. It was indeed a very memorable experience in the old office. It was more like a browsing centre than a software testing company LOLJ with the loud music always playing and tea / coffee breaks in between. That music has always kept us lively and energetic throughout the day. I still remember some of the songs that were being played very frequently by Yagnesh. The whole system was in his control. Not to forget the loud rickshaw noise especially when Sunil would be on call with his client J. The most beautiful part of the old office was the evening walk to the nearby park and lunch at Adithya restaurant. Given a chance I’m always ready to go back to our garage where we enjoyed the most sitting next to each other and working.

PS:  Your husband is a software tester too. So, what kind of conversations have happened about testing at home?

MM:  Very difficult to answer! We were newly married then J so we could hardly spare time discussing about testing. But, ya! He has been mentoring me ever since I joined Moolya and even before that. It is he who always used to tell me about the beauty of software testing. With his 6 years of experience in software testing I have learnt a lot from him.  In the initial days he helped me find bugs and report them. Over the weekends we used to sit together with some xyz website and I asked him to test it while I used to observe him. This was one of the ways I learnt software testing. I still remember our discussions and conversations about software testing in a bus which was heading towards Ooty (Our second outing after wedding J).  Another way I could learn from him is by discussing about his past experiences as a fresher and now as a experienced tester. This is how I have learnt the basics of Software testing which has later helped me become Exploratory Software Tester

PS:  What are some of the nicest memories of your first year in Moolya?

MM:

• My first day at Moolya, December 12^th 2011
• My second day at Moolya, Outing to Guhantara and ofcourse the Goodies!!
• My first mobile project in Moolya
• Pooja at new office
• All b’day celebrations and events
• Announcement of NDTV J
• Appreciation for my work by DS was a pleasant surprise
• And of course, my first year completion in Moolya

PS:  You have worked on mobile projects in Moolya and have seen the growth of mobile testing business in Moolya. How have we grown?

MM:  It gives me an amazing feeling when I look at the accomplishments in Mobile projects. We have started from scratch and within 2 years we have reached to a level where we are able to serve the most demanding and highly potential client. With a lot of hard work, commitment and dedication we are able to achieve this and we will continue to do a lot more in the coming days. The very first mobile gadget that we bought was Samsung Galaxy Y J and today we have almost all the Android and Apple gadgets that are in market. During our initial days we were only two of us working and exploring the mobile app world but now we are as good as 14 testers who are known as gladiators! In the last two years we are able to make a lot of progress in Mobile testing space and we have grown to a good level in terms of resources and people.

PS:  You are someone whom I have personally seen take feedback and work on it. How do you do that?

MM:  Thank you very much for the compliments. I’m basically a result oriented person and always curious to know the outcome of my work and effort be it good or bad. I do this religiously because this is how I feel one can improvise on both weakness and strengths. Taking a negative feedback positively is the first step towards working on your improvement. You might then want to sit and realize different ways to do it and discuss your ideas with people whom you think can help you. Implement those set of ideas and see if there is a difference in the outcome, here self analysis is an important factor. Set a target and re-work on those areas that need improvement. This needs a self- driven and a self- motivated mind which constantly keeps you reminding of whether you are doing it right or not. Get back to the same person for the next round of feedback and I’m sure you would have already made some difference in the outcome J

PS:  Who are your favorite testers in Moolya and why?

MM:   My favorite testers in Moolya are Sunil, DS and ST. One common thing I like in them is the analytic and reporting skills. I just love reading bug reports by ST. DS on the other hand has a very quick thought process and problem solving ability and I have seen him coming up with his own creative ideas like mindmapping, brainstorming and bug battle kind of sessions as part of team building activity.  I’m impressed by the way Sunil handles and manages his team and the deliverables  Sunil has also been very helping and encouraging ever since I joined Moolya.

PS:  What goals do you have for your 2nd year at Moolya?

MM: Well, it is difficult for me to share it at this point of time as I’m on Sabbatical leave and eagerly waiting for my baby to arriveJ. Nevertheless, I would like to fill up the gaps that will help me still stay connected with people. Something that I have not been doing is “Blogging” and I know I have missed out sharing most of the things. So in my 2^nd year career I would like to start my blogging activity which will help me stay connected to the world and also enrich my skill set even being away from office. I would like to spend time in reading books on the mobile trend so that by the time I get back to work I’m still updated.

_end of interview_

Did you read that? She is the one with confidence and her confidence comes from the work she did and the fun she had while she did that. Moolya is so proud to have more people like Megha working with us. This is a company we are so proud of having built. Fortunately for us, the culture is taken care by our employees. We prefer to call them co-owners based on how they act in our office.

Megha, it was such a pleasure working with you. We look forward to welcoming you again after your maternity leave and with the lovely baby you are expecting soon. Best wishes and honored you made Moolya your own.  BTW, Megha did you know that you joined Moolya on Thalaivar Rajanikanth Birthday

A pic from our garage and the girl in Yellow top is Mampi

There are non peak times in projects and we all testers love it. However, here is Mampi Das, our workforce and office admin who has a job where there are no off peak times but more peak times. She has been instrumental in helping Moolya grow because she made Moolya her own. She has a Masters Degree in Business Administration and her college should be proud of what she is doing – business, administration.

She came through a referral of my student Sonia Bansal and she was quite energetic and bright when we interviewed her. When I spoke to her for the first time, I tried setting in right expectations on what to expect when she lands at our office for interview. I said, “There is no reception or receptionist to welcome you, get you seated and make you comfortable waiting. We are in a garage, probably small that you can see it entirely at one glance” and to which she replied, “I don’t mind how the place looks like”. She came in and proved herself wrong. She does mind how the place looks like and she did make the place very good to work.

She is very humble and respects all jobs. When there was a moment to do some cleaning for the office, she just took up a cloth and started cleaning whatever she could. I felt sorry to get people do it but then they loved doing it as they considered Moolya their second home. Don’t you laundry your clothes? Exactly like that.

She has this great ability to gel with people and make them very comfortable to speak to her. She has been a great listener too and hence she is able to pick things up. It is because of her dedicated we have been able to move forward in plenty of non testing areas. It is so important that we have someone like Mampi who facilitates us to do our jobs. For the usage of  a metaphor, she is our Keke. Who is Keke? Keke, is a super woman from one of our customers. Her role in the project is to facilitate people to be effective. Mampi does that, very well. My own worries on adminsitration have been taken and owned by her very well.

Here is what Mampi has to say

PS: Mampi, you were our first non testing hire. What were your impressions when you walked into our garage office and what made you excited about joining us?

MD: The day I got a call from you for interview, that was the first impression of Moolya. The way you explained me about Moolya was the best part. About office look, I don’t care about it. It’s true that I was confused when I was searching for old Moolya office but Thanks to Pari, She instructed me properly and after 10 mins I reached there. She told me to look straight “She was in orange color dress”, I saw her from half km distance. She went inside the office and I entered in that small lane. For few seconds, I was thinking in which office I have to go. Finally I saw Moolya board, entered in office. Then Pradeep and Pari welcomed me with a very cute smile.

The first day in Moolya office made me very happy. Every person is caring & gives lots of respect to each other. I can say that Moolya is the best place where I found mix of everything. Here, I would like to thanks to my friend Nibedita and Sonia who referred me to join Moolya.

PS: How difficult and different is Moolya compared to other companies you have worked or seen or heard?

MD: There is no doubt that Moolya is different from other companies as I have changed so many consultancies and company. I was famous for changing companies in my friend circle. They used to tease me I can’t stay in 1 company for more than 3 to 6 months. I can say it was not my fault, as it totally depends on luck and environment of the company. The main things I don’t like in other company are politics, misunderstanding, ego, etc.

Moolya is free from all these things and I wish Moolya will not be affected by any of these bad things.

PS: You were involved in conferences, events, workshops, interview drives and much more. Do you want to share some of your experience doing it all?

MD: That was awesome experience when I was doing all the events. May be it was my first live experience but the workshop arrangement was awesome. I remember when we were organizing all the materials for workshop; I can say our workshop stall was the best one. On the previous night of eSpark event, I was much tensed – what if I will forget something to carry, at the last moment we were making one poster for “drop your cards here” . Nice creativity by me, Sunil & Yagnesh.

I got chance to get involved in organizing events like “E-Sparks 2011″, attend testing conferences likes “Bug.De.Bug 2012″, & have conducted many interview drives for Moolya. As the first workforce admin of Moolya, I had to play lots of responsibilities & co-ordination to make this events & drives alive. I have learned tons of pointers & other minute details which assist in making the events alive & excited.

Apart from experience & learning, these events & drives have also given me many good memories of fun. Hmm, few bad ones too when some of the arrangements made went little bad

I don’t know what happens in other companies but being a part of Moolya, I have got exposure to various situations & how to handle them, all within the time span of 1 year

PS: What kind of pressure you have and continue to handle in Moolya? How do you handle it?

MD: After reading the above question, the first thing that popped up in my mind is the famous quote from the 3-idiots movie “Life is a pressure cooker”. If I will talk about pressure, I can say life is full of pressures. So, I don’t want to talk about it. But yes, one tip for tackling the situations would be “best remedy is just to forget everything & concentrate on your work and think how I can do it better.”

PS: You have cared a lot for Moolya. I am sure it is not because we pay you but has to be from heart. How did you fall in love with Moolya?

Everyone loves Moolya not only me. I believe that we Moolyavans are the best employee, as we respect it from our heart. I know you must be thinking why I am using “we” everywhere. The answer is “Moolya is not made of only one employee; It’s a pool of all kind of talented testers and non-testers”.

Love is natural it comes directly from heart and we don’t realize that we are in love. The same thing has happened with me here in Moolya and this is my short love story about Moolya. J

PS:  You work under very strict and stringent timelines. What keeps you motivated to keep hitting the target most of the times?

MD: Feedback is the main pointer which makes me hit my target & allowed me to get achievement most of the time. Moolya means “Value”, name itself motivates me that “if I have to be in Moolya, I should give more value here.”

PS:  Here is a space for you to write about specific people in Moolya and your funny / interesting experience working with them?

MD: Hurrah! Here I can say few interesting working experience with Moolya people.

• One day Pradeep told me to show him the “function” key in keyboard and I was so stupid that I didn’t know.
• We used to tease Yagnesh “Kitna khayega”.
• When we were shifting to new office Vipin was in his native, unfortunately the place Vipin has choose to sit he didn’t get it after coming back from his home
• Karaoke song event at Moolya which made 2 songs popular in Moolya. “O Mariya” song sung my Mohan Psk and “Adda” (Bengali Song) song sung by PS
• PS was trying to scare Sunil by showing the water bottle with open cap over his laptop. Accidently he did drop the water on his favourite Dell Laptop. :p

PS: What were some cool moments for you in Moolya?

MD: Moolya itself is cool. I don’t know about many cool moments but I would like to include the following few points in the “cool moments” categories:

• I badly miss my old moments of our old garage office. It’s very true that “Old is Gold”.
• Attending Bug.De.Bug Conference and organizing events like eSparks and many interview drives for Moolya.
• Organizing the Bug Bash for Moolyavans.
• Playing foosball in office.
• I was not aware about various documents required for the client interaction from the business perspective. But, as of today it’s a cool moment for me that I have learned so many things from business perspective.

PS: What would you like to do in your 2nd year at Moolya that you have not done in the 1st year?

Everyone does promise in a new year or for future. But, I believe in showing rather than saying that I will do this and that. May be I am wrong but I am like this only, who knows what is going to happen tomorrow.

I want to change few things in Moolya where I feel I should improve, like we can take new desktop for our employees rather than paying for rental desktops.

PS: What memories do you want to share about working with people in Moolya?

There are so many memories I had while working in Moolya. Some of them would be:

• Listening “Kolavari-D” song in old office.
• Going for work after lunch from Madras Central/Aditya.
• Having fun with Manju while walking from “Office-Aditya snacks-Bus Stop” while going home.
• Enjoying the bus ride with Moolyavan from Bangalore to Chennai in order to attend Bug.De.Bug conference.
• Madras central ka jala hua Aloo Paratha
• When Santhosh came to office he kept on telling me ideas on how to simplify the workforce admin activities.
• When I look at Pari from the work prospective, I always remember her checklist and the way she tries to manage the checklist.
• DS who is famous for MindMap. I remembered the day when he told me to prepare a Mindmap for preparing a Laptop checklist. Finally I have sent lower version of Mindmap and really saying it’s helped me a lot.

PS: You carry a beautiful smile throughout the day, throughout the year. How do you do that?

If I can make someone happy from my smile, I can do it every time.

PS: (For fun) Who is a good boss? Mohan PSK or Pradeep Soundararajan? (You can’t say “both” )

Very clever I was expecting this question. According to me, in Moolya there is no Boss. Everyone is co-owner of the company.

_end of interview_

Isn’t it awesome when someone says, “Everyone is a co-owner of the company”. It is so true. I realized that if employees are not co-owner, they start to expect someone (perhaps, the so called management) to solve their problems. Here in Moolya, people pick things up and solve it. That is why we believe we are an awesome company and who makes it awesome are people like Mampi.

Multunus, as you may already know through one of our previous blog post, is our ex-neighboring company.  They hosted a puzzle on their website for skilled programmers looking out for a job. They used this puzzle and the code people sent as a response to this puzzle to analyze how good the potential candidates were. What struck me at that moment is, if I am hiring non programmer testers, what would they do with such kind of puzzle.

Having my own experience of James Bach and Michael Bolton throwing such puzzles at me and asking me to reverse engineer or figure out the pattern and logic, I thought it is useful I ask my non-programmer testers to analyze the puzzle and see if they can crack it.

I chose Abhishek and Swathi, our relatively new hires and who joined us fresh out of college to deal with it. They had closely worked with me on a project and I believed in their skills. If I did not, they would have been off already. That’s the way it works in Moolya. So, completing one year is unlike completing one year in another company. It is an endorsement that someone has something special that can help us change the future of testing. It also becomes our responsibility to guide them and provide them with opportunities to shape themselves up.

Working on such puzzles during spare time at office hours helps in gaining new skills, learning how to discover information, learning how to investigate, be creative,  sharpening existing skills, practice writing experience reports…

Abhishek and Swathi did attack this task in confidence and kept on it well to make a breakthrough. I personally witnessed that they were dedicated and passionate about working on this puzzle. Before you go ahead and read their experience report and analysis, you should try your hands on the puzzle and see if you can crack it – here is the link. (As a side note, if you are a programmer looking for a job, try to write your own code and try your chance to be interviewed by Multunus folks. You can read some interesting stuff about their folks here )

Once you have tried your hands on the puzzle, cracked it or maybe given up being intimidated by it, you may want to read what our own Young turks did. Read Abhishek and Swathi’s experience report of cracking Multunus Twitter Puzzle.

To every person I have hired, I have told, “Your work should inspire the next batch of people joining Moolya” and this work from Abhishek and Swathi definitely is one good inspiration to the next batch of freshers we have hired and the future batches. Kudos to you both. Keep doing work that inspires us.

Many thanks to Multunus for allowing us to publish this report on our blog. Thanks to Akshay, Vaidy and Leena from Multunus for the support and appreciation they had for Abhishek and Swathi. I just hope they keep up the promise of sending T-shirts to those who cracked the puzzle and probably consider to give me one for this post

He almost got himself fired before he got himself hired . When speaking about salary, he mentioned, “The salary you are offering would be as much as my current my pocket money” and I was taken aback. I started to wonder if he is quite rich that no matter what we pay him, he would always feel it is small. While I tried to speak with him, I found a confidence and calmness in decision making.

I explained to him that we are a garage startup and he should not be expecting a hifi facility as what Infosys or Wipro would have. He said he was interested at joining us and I could not believe it. I thought let me put the test on him. I offered him the same salary as he thought would be the pocket expenses. I was wondering if this chap would run away after a month thinking there is way too much of work (and learning) to do to earn pocket money. I revised his pocket, later. Last year, we were paying him lesser than what a part timer would be paid in McDonalds. As a matter of fact, he brought in the comparison with McDonalds part time salary versus Moolya full time salary

The guy whom I thought would runaway has stayed on to be a Moolyavan that the entire Moolya celebrates today. Yagnesh brings in lots of positive energy into Moolya. He has made everyone smile and laugh out loud. He is not a jester but allows people to be a jester around him. If you crack a joke on him, he would laugh out loud as though you cracked a joke on somebody else. Speaking from experience, I have reminded him at times that the joke was about him and he would laugh for that as well.

So, this fella is more than what you would imagine him to be. He is a fast paced learner, an extrovert, a chocolate lover, an ethical thief (who steals chocolates and sweets), cooks only curry at home and depends on others to bring bread, someone whom you can go to for help, passionate tester, blogger, loves mentoring people, most patient listener, excellent communicator, a great friend and makes you feel comfortable around him.

This guy didn’t just stick to testing in Moolya. Being a startup, there is always work that is not testing as well, at times. Yagnesh volunteered for quite a number of things. We don’t have a purchase department so when we needed a Mac Mini for a project urgently and was not available in Bangalore, Yagnesh and Sunil went to Chennai to get one. Yagnesh also helped us a great deal in E-sparks conference stall setup, marketing and other stuff. While he did all this, he also picked up great stuff with testing and did not compromise one bit. I am amazed how he did this.

He has several nick names. Yash, Yagnesh, Yagnesh Bhai, Jignesh, Jiggy, Shah, Shahji, Yagnesh Harshadbhai,  and what not. He is responsible for a trend in Moolya to say, “Whaaaaaaaat Sirrrrrrrrrrrr?”. Only Moolyavans know what it means and why we all say it, almost every day, to each other. Whenever we say “Whaaaaaat Sirrrrrrrr?”, there is happiness and more people than the two in the conversation smiling. I consider him to be highly influential and can potentially grow to be an influential person in the testing community. He is pursuing his Masters in Computers while working in Moolya. He is also pursuing the Master of Pranks in Moolya and also helps in organizing birthday parties and out of office events. He organized our first company wide movie and bowling outing and he ended up making all of us miss the important 15 minutes of Ice Age 4. DS and I are pissed off with him for it . Speaking of movies, he is the one stop solution to all movies you may want to watch. He has a great collection of movies and loves to watch movies first day first show, no maybe the evening show.

Work wise, he works with Sunil and Vipin. More recently with Mani and Kushal. He self taught Selenium and Sahi. He does it good enough. To the extent that he was able to mentor a new joiner who then in turn did valuable things for another project we were working on. The project that Yash is working on right now started in November 2011 and the customer from United States is so happy with the work we as a company have produced so far that our contracts are extended till 2013. A great reason why it happened is also because of Yagnesh and the confidence he gave our customers about Moolya. He has delivered great value so far working on multiple sub projects for our customer and many a times individually handling things.

Yagnesh’s role in Moolya is more than just a tester on the project. I personally see him as someone who helps in retaining a fun culture within the company. He makes people speak to each other and spreads happiness. To such a great guy, there is one trouble he has in office – that’s me. Testers like Yagnesh can re-define the world. They need to be pushed at times, I play that role. To balance out things, Yash reaches out to Sunil, another cool guy of Moolya. I know you would be eagerly looking forward to hear what Yash has to say and here it goes:

PS: Yagnesh, describe to us how has the journey for you with Moolya has been so far?

So far I have seen many unusual things happening in Moolya. This is a place were crazy stuff happens, be it in work or fun. I have observed people getting crazy ideas & implementing the same & I like it J. I believe this is the most happening & lively place for passionate testers.

PS: When you joined us we were in a garage and what were your first impressions visiting the garage office? How much did you like working in a garage setup?

Hmm, I got a lot of help from Pari to find the office – Google Map, Descriptive directions of route in the welcome mail, Telephonic help. Even then I went to the wrong lane while finding the office J

The office is surrounded by different garages & as far as my memory goes, I felt little different while entering the office. But, the way Pari gave me the tour of Office, International coffee maker, Conference room was ZZZuper & I was happy with the kind of welcome I received.

I will always miss working in that garage office. Describing the International coffee maker, conference room to new joinees after me. Those late night work & songs with Sunil/Santhosh, the way we used to get mad by singing songs loudly once everyone left Our official lunch place Aditya. My 1-on-1 with PS at Tea stalls. Making arrangements for E-sparks conference, Interview drive in hotel. Buying Mac Mini from Chennai. The Guhantara resort trip & every other little bit moments of the garage… The list goes on…

We all call the old office as garage place in fun, but I will remember that as a place where seeds are sprouted for passionate testers to make a change in the world & is known as Moolya.

PS: Testing your memory: Do you still remember how your first day in Moolya was? If yes, tell us how did that day go?

Yes, my memory could be blurred but I do remember. My first task was to read Moolya website, reading blogs, & get familiar with the kind of work Moolavans does for adding value to customers. Apart from working a “little bit” on the first day I had a lot of fun moments & the credit for that goes to Pari as she has the power of making anyone comfortable in new environment. Sunil was a quite person when we met but as time passed we have a lot of fun memories. J

Moolya has its way of welcoming new joinees & that is wonderful. Got few goodies like Moolya Mug, T-shirt, Chocolates, & beautiful flower bouquet J Got a brand new Sony VAIO lappy for work. Morning session was full of fun & then a sweet Lunch treat from the company. I do remember what PS said to me & Manju at the EOD when we were working beyond 6 PM- “Its 6 PM!! you should go home & have fun instead of working on your first day” (Pardon me PS, for weak memory on not recalling exact words J )

PS: You joined us fresh out of college and today you are a role model for many freshers joining us, how did you do that?

Moolya has provided me a great platform for learning. I was always encouraged for learning new stuffs/technology from everyone. Pari & Sunil has supported me for presenting what I learn in front of everyone. Santhosh, Mr. Hacker of Moolya, has forced Me to cross my thinking limit for creating test ideas & of-course gave me a bad habit of writing Blog & Tweeting

I have always liked learning new technologies & observing the way Moolyavans work has aided me to great extents. I also have a side passion of teaching things to everyone which I inherited from my dear Mom & has helped me a lot while presenting sessions @Moolya.

PS: Tell us about your nice and not so nice experiences with people in Moolya.

I have a lot of nice experiences with Moolyavans, having fun with them, Karaoke events, organizing for team outings, workshops, bangalore testers monthly meets, late night works, night-out in office with friends, pizzas, ammi’s biryani, support from everyone to make me part of Moolya family. Oops!! how can I forget Nakshatra parties which could be replaced sometimes by Terrace parties

Now comes the turn for “not so nice” experience with Moolyavans. The 1-on-1 meetings with PS @Tea stalls are little awkward. I do have fun with him at such meetings but at the same time I always feel nervous for some reason. I have got some harsh words from him sometimes, but in the end if I think now it was always for my good & has made me push my limits. Well this is no more my secret now

Note from PS: Dude, lets meet in the tea stall and I want to talk to you about what should be publicly stated and what should not )

PS: If you were to describe the skills you picked in the last one year, what would it be?

Hmm, following would be the hi-lights of the skills I picked up in last one year:

• Technical:
  • Web testing
  • Web Services
  • Java Scripting, PHP
  • Browser Add-ons
  • Usability/Accessibility
  • Little bit of Security testing
  • Automation – Sahi, Selenium Web driver
  • Setting up/troubleshooting local environments using git
  • Little bit of Release engineering process

• Non-Technical:
  • Blogging, Tweeting
  • Polishing my presentation skills
  • Creating Test Plan, Ideas, Reporting
  • Observation skills
  • Interacting with clients
  • Asking questions
  • Little bit of Networking with people
  • Accepting critics as part of life when we put forward our ideas
  • Not much of reading books activities but I would like to mention that “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” is one of the best novel I read in my life.
  • Having Fun with work

PS: You set a trend in Moolya of saying “Whaaaaatt _Person_Name_”. How do you feel about it?

If something I do makes people happy & enjoy the moment then I feel great of having such feelings J

PS: Being critical, what do you think Moolya is doing to its employees to help them be successful?

There are countless efforts made by Moolya to help their employees(co-owners J ) become successful & few of them are:

• Learning environment
• Friendly work platform
• Encouraging & supporting to explore what we are interested in
• Networking with Testers around the world – Twitter, Facebook, Bangalore Testers Monthly Meet
• Blogging
• Pushing Moolyavans to new limits
• Bug Bashes, Testing challenges, Puzzles
• Supporting Moolyavans to attend Workshops, Conferences, Testing events like Zappers Meetup, Weekend Testing, Bug.De.Bug, E-Sparks, etc
• Testing Discussion/Debates
• Crafting test ideas, reporting
• Work packed with fun-tastic events

PS: You mentored a fresher and he did great on the project he worked. How did you feel when he got the appreciation? What kind of responsibility does that add to you?

When someone does even a small bit of good when I mentor them, that gives me a smile on my face. I feel like he will be able to pass on what I started & learned from my mentors or friends.

This also gives me the responsibility of my own continuous learning progress, so I can do better & better each time I mentor freshers. Freshers will always surpass their mentors in some way, these gives me challenge to keep up with them as well

PS: Tell us some funny moments at Moolya you remember over the last one year?

The top funny moments @Moolya I can think of now are:

• Trend created by Me of saying “Whaaat_Person_Name”
• “Little Bit” dialogue from Mampi
• Yet another famous dialogue from Kushal “Sab Apna Apna Karo” J
• Fun memories with Sunil of saying dialogue “Dard ko Samjho” – is a dialogue we picked up from movie “Rockstar”
• Having family moments when Pari gets sweets/cookies for everyone @Moolya
• Rocking with Santhosh
• Sometimes debating with Vipinbhai
• Biking with Abhi & searching for dinner at 3AM mid night
• Few moments when we used to make fun of “Steve Jobs” whenever we found any difficulties in operating Mac OS
• Taking “Group photos” everywhere
• Terrace Party
• Bug Bash followed by Karaoke songs event

And the list goes on……

PS: You started blogging after joining Moolya? Tell us how did you get into the trap of blogging and your journey ?

The culprit for trapping me into blogging is none other than Mr. Rockstar of Moolya, Santhosh Tuppad.

The first two comments for my first post comes from Dhanasekar & Santhosh at around 5:30 AM in the morning. Me being a lazy person to wake up early morning, I was kind of surprised that this Moolyavans are reading blogs at so early morning.

Blogging has improved my observation, writing skills. Helped me share my ideas & connecting with people. Blogging has given me recognition among few Testers. Although, I am not consistent in this activity as of now J I will try to do my best from today to share my experience with everyone.

PS: Whom do you want to thank and for what over the last one year journey?

My first Thanks will go to Sunil for being there with me in work & becoming my best enemy J And my second thanks goes to every Moolyavan for supporting & making a better part of me + having fun together as a family.

PS: What are your accomplishments over the last one year?

Few of my accomplishments would be:

• The short list of skills I picked as mentioned above
• Blogging & sharing my experience
• Mentored few Fresher’s
• Presenting talks/sessions within Moolya

PS: What is your advice to Moolya? What is your advice to those who recently joined or going to be joining?

“As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person” ~ Paul Shane Spear

If everyone of us are able to change the testing world of one person, & that person in turn changes the world for another, then there will be a ripple effect in the ocean of testers to make an impact by the way we test.

I would love it, if every new joinee reads the novel “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” in case he has not already come across this novel. I will also add the following quote from the same:

“”You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn’t flying a thousand miles an hour, or a million, or flying at the speed of light. Because any number is a limit, and perfection doesn’t have limits. Perfect speed, my son, is being there.””

PS: What do you want to achieve by your 2nd year completion?

• Getting a recognition from the good Testers world wide
• Would like to make effort to help college fresher’s understand the art of testing with a different approach from traditional University syllabus books
• Become another Mr. Hacker of Moolya
• Improve my mentoring skills
• Create a team for blended Automation testers in Moolya
• Organizing large-scale testing bug bashes/events, taking public seminars
•  Learning better testing – this is a life long journey for me J

_end of interview_

I would like to think that every company needs a Yagnesh. Am glad Moolya found one in the name of Yagnesh itself. It is people like Yagnesh who make me believe that Moolya is nurturing a greater leadership for its own future. I am confident that when Yagnesh grows up to my current age, he would be a much better leader than me and hence more useful to the community of software testing.

We love you Yagnesh. There can be more than one Mr Rockstar in every organization and you are definitely one of them. You have had a great start and I wish you a great time ahead.

Now, come, lets go to the tea stall, I want to discuss a few things with you.

I have the honor of interviewing people on their yearly milestones and publishing what they write without editing it. I help in bringing out some inspiring stories to the world through these interviews.

I have to start with a story, as old as 2008. During my consulting days in ETI, I happened to meet Panicker, a front office gentleman who was highly respected with ETI and QAI staff. His hospitality, courteousness, honesty, sincerity and humility touched my heart, likewise for others. In Subroto Bagchi’s way of expressing, he was a professional of new standard of excellence. However, he was not all that well off when it came to money and had to seek sponsorship for his daughter’s college education. I was one of the sponsor for his daughter’s college education. For the respect I had towards him, I did not even bother to check if he had a daughter. For the man he is, you would hardly want to do any background checks.

When Moolya happened, I forgot about Panicker until Manju arrived. I was briefed by Praven Joseph, who arranged the interviews for us that Manju was a candidate lined up for interview who happened to be Panicker’s daughter. If I made an emotional decision, I should have hired her but hiring decisions just can be only based on emotions. I knew that hiring Manju just because I respect her father would be an insult to the hard work she must have put in. So, I got our own DS to conduct her first round of interview and I guess I did not bias him with my respect for her father. Turned out that DS recommended Manju for the job and then I mixed my emotion. That’s the story of hiring Manju.

She works on a project called Nimit (from Cogknit – a startup) – an award winning e-learning platform. Working at a startup for a startup has to be a great challenge. There were and there are some high pressure moments in startups like Moolya and Cogknit. Manju handled all of them and has been able to add great value. She does have qualities that her father has and also beyond it. Manju smiles more often than her father does This is important for people around her as much as it is for her. She has been considered as the most approachable and friendly by her colleagues – both in Moolya and Cogknit.

I claim to have a high standard of work, skill and professionalism and care for my people as much as they should care for themselves. This also means, I offer my constructive criticism whilst acting as a mirror to what Moolyavans do. This is what I do with everybody in Moolya. Someone did this to me in life, I benefited a lot. Legacy has to be passed on, especially when it is good.

Manju has survived through it and is doing great. I must admit that if Cogknit has a lot of faith on Moolya, one of the top reasons for it is because of Manju. She is a gem, we found. She was also born out of one. In her own words:

How can I forget? Even now I make people feel jealous about me by telling my first day experience at MoolyaJ. Parimala Hariprasad, she made the day a most memorable one. I was totally in a different world from the time I entered our office. The bouquet, chocolates, Moolya T-shirt, Moolya cup,  “Lessons learned in Software testing”  book and a new laptop which already had my name as user account and the Team lunch, I was somewhere in the heaven throughout the day. Every moment that day was a memorable one.

PS: You joined us in our garage and now we are in a high tech setup, how has this transition been for you?

Moolya is growing! What else can make a Moolyavan happier than this? I am really happy that I joined during garage days and seeing Moolya’s growth one by one, I am proud to be a part of Moolya. At times I really miss our old office and the fun we had there.

PS: Has Moolya been able to deliver what you expected?

Moolya and Moolyavans are always beyond my expectations. Moolya delivered much more than what I expected in Moolya’s own way .

PS: How would you describe your learning experience in Moolya?

Can any other company provide a learning experience that Moolya has provided? I doubt that. Moolya is the best place for learning and the way Moolyavans encourage learning and help developing ourselves is simply awesome. Moolya gave me a confidence that I am capable of doing many things by myself. Moolya taught me how to explore and how to do things better. To name a few

• Sessions on different topics by Moolyavans
• Testing dose by DS
• Testing challenges

have made me much stronger in my knowledge, and helped me improve my testing skills and gain more confidence.

PS: What are your best moments so far with Moolya?

• First day, the most memorable one
• Evening walk with Sunil, Yagnesh and Mampi
• Lunch/Evening snacks at Aditya
• The first movie outing with Sunil, Yagnesh and Mampi, 7.30 show (The unforgettable day, I never enjoyed the film, from the time I entered  theater, only one thing was running in my mind  - whether I will get a bus to reach home as it was late. Thanks to Sunil for driving all the way from Jayadeva to KR Puram and dropping me  J, and the care and responsibility PS has)
• The daily testing challenges and daily sessions
• Moolya’s first anniversary celebration
• Our new office inauguration
• All team movie outing and bowling

And lot more

PS: You were testing an e-learning application that fetched the best e-learning product of the year award at an international conference, how did you feel about it?

I consider myself lucky to be a part of such an innovative product which fetched the best e-learning product of the year award at World Education Congress. The overall experience I am having in this project is really great. I have heard about the tensions between dev and test but here we are having a totally different experience. We are friends not enemies I have heard Moolyavans explaining the advantage of being a friend of developer and truly I am experiencing those advantages. I am very happy to work along with the Cogknit team.

I am waiting celebrate the release of our product.

PS: What good things do you notice about the people working with you? You can name them (even from Cogknit) and mention what is good about them

The best thing about the people I have worked along with is that they don’t have egos; they share the knowledge they have without any hesitation, eagerness to learn, they are caring, encourage people in doing things and lot more. I have noticed this in most of the people I worked with, from both Moolya and Cogknit. Love you all. You all have inspired me in many ways.

PS: In the project you were working, there were times where the pressure was too high, how did you handle them?

If I look back I wonder how I handled them, what I realize is that, those pressures made me stronger and gave me confidence that I can handle these situations.  Thanks to Moolyavans and team Cogknit for encouraging and giving me full support. I am really grateful to all of you.

I am also happy that you gave me a wonderful team now (Ashok, Mallikarjuna & Bhavanassss)

PS: Do you remember the Ruby days and the confusion that surrounded on what Ruby code you should be writing? What did you feel about us? Stupid?

Oh God, the Ruby days J. When I was asked to learn Ruby language without anybody guiding me I was shocked, I thought I can never write a script in Ruby, Moolya proved me wrong. I was able to write scripts and make them run and get output which I know was not enough.

Thanks to Santhosh for guiding me throughout and appreciating me for all the scripts that I sent him, that encouraged me to do more and more. Thanks even to Rema from Multunus for helping me out. I was disappointed when I had to stop my work incomplete, but I am sure I will restart the ruby learning and do things much better.

PS: Can you tell us about the work you did that made you feel great about yourselves?

• I was happy when I was able to learn ruby and felt great when I saw my scripts running
• I felt great when I was able to handle the pressures I had in my work
• Owning the test server and deployment  in the current project
• Being a part of implementing CD Pipeline

I also like to state that, discussions with PS always made me realize that those work were not great, I would have done it much better and faster. Thanks PS; you always correct me when I am in a wrong path

PS: Stealing a question from Huib Schoots: What is the most important skill for a software tester according to you?

A good tester should have many skills,

• Logical thinking
• Curiosity to learn
• Good communication (spoken & writing)
• Questioning skill , are some of those

PS: What is your plan for the next year? What do you want Manju 2.0 to do that Manju 1.0 did not?

The following are my plans for making Manju 2.0 much better than Manju 1.0,

• Start writing blogs
• Improving my testing skills
• Improving my leadership skills
• Taking many sessions for Moolyavans

PS: Who is your biggest influence in Moolya? Why?

Everyone at Moolya has influenced me in a way or the other. If I have to tell about the biggest influence it is Pradeep, Pari, DS, Santhosh and Sunil. I always bow my head in front of this people. Their dedication and passion towards testing and their dream of building up a great testing company and the name they gained in testing community, their blogging skills and the leadership quality. I am happy that I am working with this great people.

_end of interview_

The pattern I noticed in her response to all the questions I asked her was – she repeatedly owed her success to people around her. I wish, I was as humble as she was. Cogknit is our customer for the last 10 months. The founders of Cogknit says we are their permanent partner for testing. Imagine a girl as young as Manju helping us achieve this great milestone. She is the unsung hero of Moolya. My respect for the work you and your father do. Congratulations for the first year at Moolya, Manju. I know there is plenty more to come, for you and for Moolya.