May you live in interesting times
Well today was definitely interesting. I arrived at work to a message from my boss asking if I could join a meeting. He's remote and was having connectivity problems and there was too much visual going on for him to follow well over the phone. When I got into the meeting he dropped out.
So I was in a meeting with the execs from a new division of the company. The division is new because we just acquired their company. A morning and most of the early afternoon was spent helping them define their business objectives and doing business analysis and requirements for their web portal and consumer online presence.
Weird activities for a quality assurance specialist, eh?
Got a call from my boss during the meeting, asking me to call him back when I had a few minutes. Don't you hate messages like that? Ones that give you no clue why you're calling? I sure do.
So I called him and he explained that the very large project I am consulting on now was being reorganized. He was taking over management of the project himself. Problem being, he can't be on-site here to actually manage the project. So, could I help out by doing the business analysis and business requirements locally?
There's those words again. Business Analysis. Business Requirements. Not QA stuff. Program analysis and standards are QA things. But I love doing this stuff so I said of course I'd be happy to help. That's when he popped the question.
Would I consider leaving QA for a Project Management position? He wants me on the business side of the business, said I excelled there. Yes, QA is very important but he has a critical shortage on the BA side of his house. He reassured me that it wasn't a do or die thing. I was hired for QA, I am doing a fantastic job here, this job is secure if I want to stay in it. But, would I like to step to the next level under the executorium?
I said "Hell, yeah. What took you so long to offer it? I've been here waiting for five freaking months already! Hello?"
Well, maybe it was more along the lines of a gracious acceptance. The position switch will come about in the near future after we wrap me out of some QA projects.
Say hello to Jim Peacock, Project Manager elect.