I’ve just finished my fourth week at Vend  and I’m loving it way more than I did when I finished my induction – which is very telling.

Is it because I work with great people?
No, but I like that too.

Is it because we have cake most Wednesdays to celebrate people’s birthdays?
No, but my tastebuds love it.

Is it because I get to be involved from the start and have direct impact on the outcome?
Bingo!

Over the past two years, I’ve been organising Testing meet-ups, reading blog posts & articles and receiving training. I heard people talk about working in Agile environments, others who were able to test in the way they believed and others who would involved in projects right from the start – and were able to have a direct impact on the outcome of that project.

Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed reading and hearing about people’s experiences because I got to learn from them. But honestly, I was yearning for this. And I was kinda jealous.

Until now.

I kept hearing people talk about the merits of delivering value fast, of being able to use mind-maps to guide their testing and how they were able to prevent a lot of trouble because they were involved from the start.

From an outsider’s perspective, I thought I ‘got’ it. I thought I understood these merits. But I didn’t. I remember listening to people talk with heaps of enthusiasm about their experiences and I was kind of confused as to why they were so darn enthusiastic.

I mean, yeah, what they did sounds great. But what’s with the excitement?

And now I’m one of those people.

From now on, you’ll hear me singing mind-maps praises; digging the fact that I’m involved with projects from the start and delivering value to retailers (like literally, after something has been coded and  I’ve tested it  and done a QA review – a few hours later we hear retailers singing our praises).

If anything I say here, rings true for you. I’d love to hear your experiences 🙂

Better yet, Vend is hiring: http://www.vendhq.com/careers