1. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Leading and Collaborating: Presenting a soft skills toolkit for testers Carol Dekkers Quality Plus Technologies, Inc. dekkers@qualityplustech.com Florida, USA

2. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Quality experts Yesterday & today… Philip Crosby W. Edwards Deming Armand Feigenbaum Kaoru Ishikawa Joseph Juran Robert Pirsig Walter Shewhart Genichi Taguchi Lean six sigma Others…

3. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM But, today is a whole new world... Leadership & collaboration are key

4. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Soft skills “trump” hard skills Medicare Consumer Focus Groups (Readers Digest Feb 2007): “While 39% of hospital patients listed doctor communication skills as a top concern, just 7% cited pain management.”

5. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM How can QA professionals survive?

6. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Ethics Written & verbal skills*Written & verbal skills* Pressure,stress & time mgmt Change-readiness Public speaking Planning & organization Problem-solving Tact & diplomacy Critical thinking*Critical thinking* Team building Self-awareness Leadership Flexibility Creativity Perseverance Interpersonal (empathy, EI)*Interpersonal (empathy, EI)* Active listening Today’s special A soft skills Toolkit !

7. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Research… J&J survey: Best performers High self-awareness, self-management, social skills, & organizational savvy HR managers: 93% say technical skills easier to teach than soft skills HR executives: 50% say entry workers lack writing skills; 27% cited deficiencies in critical thinking NY Times: “It appears young employees are writing company e-mails as if they were texting cell phone messages with their thumbs” Source: http://www.bettersoftskills.com/research.htmhttp://www.bettersoftskills.com/research.htm

8. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Remember… “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” “A fool with a tool is still a fool.” Interpersonal (EI, empathy) Written & verbal communication Critical thinking Starter Toolkit

9. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Interpersonal (EI, empathy) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs YOU CO-WORKERS

10. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Written & verbal communication Hear Touch See

11. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM email charter www.emailcharter.org www.emailcharter.org 1. Respect recipients' time 2. Short or slow is not rude 3. Celebrate clarity 4. Quash open-ended questions 5. Slash surplus cc's 6. Tighten the thread 7. Attack attachments 8. Give these gifts: EOM NNTR 9. Cut content less responses 10. Disconnect!

12. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM Critical Thinking

13. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM You + Soft skills = Win / Win / Win “Quality starts between the ears” Claus E. Heinrich, SAP AG 2007 SAP Global Quality Day Quality is not accidental… quality is emotional Leadership & collaboration are critical

14. WWW.QUALITYPLUSTECH.COM  10 / 20 / 30  One idea  Learning styles  Tufte’s big Ideas/ 5 Grand Principles  Tools (+ / - )  Pre-test  Live Thank You! Blog: ABZ’s of Communication http://MusingsAboutSoftwareDevelopment.wordpress.com