We decided to find out how the work of employees has changed after moving to the home office, and at the same time to introduce you to our IT experts - system analysts, business analysts, developers, testers.
From the interviews you will learn about their professional preferences and tools, as well as what literature they read, what gadgets they use, and what they think about building a career in the IT industry.
Our first interlocutor was Andrey Fetisov, head of the development department for interaction systems with partners (the team responsible for the service layer between the bank and the outside world in terms of car loans), in the past - a systems analyst and group leader. Andrey is a “serious” leader, but in his free time he still likes to play computer games or write music, among other things.
What do you do at Rusfinance Bank? What are you responsible for?
I am the head of the systems development department responsible for integrating with partners in the car loan process. We develop services for integrating our systems with the outside world, starting with forms for self-sending a questionnaire by a client through our or partner sites and ending with brokerage software, CRM systems of partners. And, in general, we are moving the process of applying for car loans further and further online.
Prior to that, he worked as a systems analyst, then as a group leader.
Please describe in one word / phrase (metaphor, epithet ...) your motto in your work.
If you hurry, you will make people laugh.
What gadgets (computers, tablets, smartphones) do you use at work / for personal use? Have they changed with the transition to "remote"?
Work laptop + home computer + smartphone + smart watch. Nothing has changed since leaving for the "remote location". I have a Huawei Honor 8 smartphone, historically I use Android.
What operating systems do you like to use outside of work? What OS would be interesting to get acquainted with for yourself? Why are they interesting?
I use Windows 10, I never planned to switch to * nix, because sometimes I play games, and in the days when I started (~ 20 years ago), there were a lot of compatibility problems, so I stayed on Windows. And although now the hobby has practically disappeared, since it has ceased to tighten and cling, inertia has been preserved.
From time to time we gather with friends for session games (analogs of board games like Armello or MOBA like Heroes of the Storm). Of the single-player games, Persona 5, Cuphead, Disco Elysium, and Horizon: Zero Dawn were the last to hook me.
In general, games are great to unload your head, sometimes they give you interesting acquaintances and even friendship. But now hobbies are more relevant to me, which also provide an opportunity to develop some skills, to learn something new, so for the last six months I have started writing electronic music.
In general, Windows is enough for me for home use.
I miss my usual Windows XP ...
Which task manager / task tracker do you use for work / for yourself? Why did you choose them?
I don't have a personal task manager as such, I write down my work in physical / electronic notebooks. Some of my non-work affairs are in Google Keep with separate notes with a list of planned actions.
In general, I prefer something retrogradely offline, not tied to an Internet connection. Unfortunately, although now it is far from the 2000s, when half of the services had an open outside admin panel with standard logins / passwords, and information security made a million steps forward, data leaks occur, including among large companies. I would not want this to happen to my personal notes (smiles) .
We use Jira in our workflow. Upon completion of the Discovery process (business analysis, study of the relevance and payback of a particular feature), the task is started in the Delivery backlog (system analysis, development, testing, implementation). We decompose the task into subtasks, take it to work, and include it in the required release. A typical task will have a movement between analyst, Oracle developer, Java developer, tester and application manager (a role that is also responsible for implementation).
In general, our approach is such that according to Jira it should be clear at what stage the task is, who is working on it, which components it affects, whether there are blockers and what should be done within the task. Sprint goals and task priorities are also set in Jira, that is, the developer, in theory, should be able to independently determine which feature he needs at the moment to make efforts to successfully complete the sprint.
I cannot say that we are 100% coping with this, but we are definitely moving in this direction. We have a very large team, and we are just learning how to work effectively together, so there is a huge amount of work to be done, including on the transparency of our processes.
We primarily use Confluence as a knowledge base. The licensing issue has not yet been finally resolved. Nevertheless, we really hope that we can collect all the knowledge scattered across instructions, letters, heads, and so on in a single easy-to-read and edit place. I am ambitious to become one of the founders of the knowledge management process in the company (smiles) . So far, we are not filling the base too actively, since not all team members can contribute.
What frameworks, languages, IDEs and other tools do you like to use the most? Why?
I do not develop myself, I work with the code mainly within the framework of reading, writing test scripts. For these small needs I use Pl / Sql developer.
We don't do modeling very often, but when the need arises, I use Visio and Visio-compatible applications (for example, draw.io).
What place does time management take in your life? What tools / techniques do you use to manage your time (if any)?
During his career, he made several approaches to the study and practical application of various methodologies. Honestly, in my opinion, for effective work time management, you need to have some of this time for planning every day (smiles) .
The manager's work schedule very rarely makes it possible to fully plan more than 3-4 hours a day. At the same time, of course, there is no question of them going in a row. Here, the autonomy of each employee is critically important: the more questions the team can pull on their own (it does not matter whether they connect to the solution of a critical bug with sales without waiting for a request from “above”, or independently find and read the documentation on the necessary administrative issue), the more time will be left for those tasks where my participation is really necessary.
In such a mode of operation, where many external factors regularly make adjustments to the plan, the most important thing is to set priorities as clearly as possible and get involved in the most burning issues, without turning into a so-called “seagull-manager”.
And in order to maximize the efficiency of work on a specific task, when there is finally time for it, it is best, in my opinion, to use the pomodorro method (set a timer of 15-25 minutes for a specific task and start it, it disciplines). And then it becomes psychologically more difficult to be distracted by new letters, messages in instant messengers - the clock is ticking.
Do you listen to something during work / between work (music, audiobooks, etc.)? Did you have such an opportunity / desire before switching to "remote"?
In the office (in open space), I constantly had to put music in the background so as not to be distracted and focus on work. On the "remote" - on the contrary: basically I use the opportunity to calmly concentrate in complete silence, I turn on music only for the mood, for creative tasks, like answering the questions of this interview (smiles) .
What kind of professional literature do you read? What can you recommend?
For analysts just starting their professional career, Wiegers' Software Requirements Development and Coburn's Modern Methods for Describing Functional Requirements for Systems will be useful.
For more advanced specialists, it is more useful, in my opinion, to subscribe to professional communities, to experts describing the cases they encounter. Everything here is individual, it is worth choosing according to your preferences and problems (and, importantly, the applied methodology).
Camille Fournier's book From Developer to Leader helped me understand a little better as an IT professional who moved to management.
What good professional habits help you with your work?
Always double-check any of your work (documentation, code) with an "clean" look after a pause.
There is nothing more offensive than solving a problem by 90%, providing for the correct operation of complex technical issues, and then getting caught in trifles or inattention. After completing a long work, there is a great temptation to put an end to it and say “I finished” and take the next interesting problem, but, no matter how hard and unpleasant it is to read what has been done, it is necessary.
Squeezing a task to the end is a very valuable skill that will work not only for quality, but also for your reputation (smiles).
What important advice have you ever received that you can pass on to aspiring professionals in your professional field?
If we take a systems analysis, I would formulate two:
1. Always try to learn a little more, both in the technical and "business" part.
This "erudition" will save you and your team a lot of time and resources in the future. The customer understands what he wants, but does not know how best to implement it. Although it can have its own vision, which cannot be discarded, just as it is impossible, without thinking it over, to be used as a guide to action.
The developer understands his system well, but does not always know the details of business processes. As an analyst, you must understand both one and the other at a sufficient level. What level of awareness is sufficient in your situation will become clear with experience.
2. Don't be afraid to ask stupid questions.
There is no place for pride at work. For 1 out of 10 * stupid questions, you will not get the answer that seems obvious.
* Statistics collected empirically
In general, important advice in my opinion:
1. Do not allow yourself to inertia to argue in order to defend your point of view, and not find the right answer. If you are persuaded in some matter, and you accept someone else's point of view, this does not mean that you “lost” or showed incompetence. It is better to have a reputation as a person who knows how to listen to someone else's opinion and admit that he is wrong (which means that his advice and opinion are really valuable) than always come out the winner of all disputes at any cost, so as not to "give up slack."
2. Advice that my managers gave me at the very beginning of my work at the RFB, when I was a specialist, not a manager. Then I did not listen to him, because he seemed inwardly unfaithful to me. I was only able to truly appreciate it at a distance. Although I respected and respect both of those who advised them beyond measure. And in general, I always tried to follow all their recommendations.
The most efficient work is carried out in the so-called "flow" state. But the more competencies you have, the more often you will receive requests from outside. If you respond to each of them in the moment, you will lose context so often that personal effectiveness can be forgotten.
Allow yourself to go offline and focus on your task. If something critical happens, they will definitely find you (smiles)... Give yourself some time (for example, from morning to lunch) in which you do not respond to external stimuli. Even for "short questions for a maximum of five minutes."
I think that every IT specialist will have a wagon and a small cart of situations in which you were told that "something is not working there", you rushed to read the logs, study the documentation and implementation, prepare test cases for reproduction, formulated the first clarifying questions, returned to the initiator, and heard "and it has already started working by itself."
Bugs are not the best example, of course, but, nevertheless, a considerable number of questions resolve on their own within an hour or two for one reason or another.
About self-isolation
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