08/14/2008    |    Devlog    |    Nutch    |    Discuss

I started as the Software Test Lead (STL) at Flying Lab Software on September 18th, 2007; an easy date to remember as it’s my sister’s birthday. That’s right, just four short months before our January 22nd launch, talk about diving in the deep end. Software testing, and the processes and procedures therein, is what I know. I can talk all day about the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), black box vs. white box, and agile vs. waterfall. In the past 15 years I’ve tested just about every type of software you can imagine, in many different industries. I did my best to hit the ground running, learning as much as I could about the people and the processes that make Flying Lab Software what it is. In fairly short order, and with the assistance of some great co-workers, I was able look at the testing processes in existence, and tweak them a bit to get them flowing smoother.

Before our initial launch we had one Senior Tester whose job it was to test every new piece of content and functionality, and then dole out to the rest of the testers those items that needed further investigation. After our initial launch we spread the front line testing out, so each team within FLS has one or more testers that support them directly. The benefits to this are to create subject matter experts (SMEs) within the Test Department as well as to create better communication and familiarity with the teams that we support; cooperation is the name of the game.

For Pirates of the Burning Sea, Flying Lab Software’s processes are milestone based. The milestones are about 4 weeks long and kick off with a milestone planning meeting where the leads from the various departments and the Producer get together and list out everything they would like to accomplish for the next milestone. This includes everything from new features and functionality to bug fixes and polishing. Sometimes we will focus on a specific piece of functionality and put most our efforts into that, such as the new Buccaneer Pirate class in milestone 5. Other times we will do more of a general polish and bug fix milestone, as we did for milestone 6. By the end of the milestone planning meeting every team knows their tasks for the next milestone and I go get a cup of coffee to figure out how my team is going to get it all tested in time.

Now fast forward to July 2nd, 2008; another easy date to remember as it’s my birthday (seeing a pattern here?). Misha, the best boss ever, told me that she was taking the available Producer position and would like me to consider taking over the Customer Service Department. Being a dedicated upward mobile employee I didn’t have to think about it for a second; who wouldn’t want to take their boss’ job after all? What this essentially means is that now that I am the Quality Assurance Manager I will continue to run the Test Department while adding the Customer Service Department to my list of responsibilities. These two teams are collectively referred to as TestCo in FLS vernacular.

Software Testing and Customer Service complement each other quite well; the more we test, and the more bugs we find/fix, the fewer customer tickets we will have to process. So now, once again, I am doing what I do best as a Lead/Manager; tweaking and improving existing processes to make them run smoother and become more fruitful. For the purposes of Customer Service I will begin by mirroring some of the tweaks I made in the Test Department. I will be focusing Customer Service Representatives on specific parts of the game to create subject matters experts who will work closely with the Tester who supports that team as well as the team itself.

Every customer ticket logged is read thoroughly, most of the time by more than one person, whether by one of our in game GMs, 3rd party CSRs, in house CSRs, me, or the full power of the FLS team that we call on from time to time for specific customer issues. While no one knows what the future of the Pirates of the Burning Sea holds in store, through the efforts of TestCo, in both Software Testing as well as Customer Service, we will continue to improve the user experience and bring excitement to all who sail the Burning Sea!

08/14/2008    |    Devlog    |    Nutch    |    Discuss