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Cotopaxi Lyon

Embracing Intentionality: Rethinking Conventional Practices in Work

Fern fronds and broken concrete discs


LyonQA’s formation was based on creating intentional space in our work, space for questioning the why behind what we do.


Since our launch, we’ve made a deliberate effort to question the rationale behind our actions.


Are we pursuing certain tasks because they align with conventional business practices, or because they genuinely add value for us and our clients? Similarly, do our approaches to QA reflect established norms, or do they truly benefit the individuals involved in the process?


There have been times when we've found ourselves hours into meetings, feeling increasingly frustrated as we struggled to cleanly wrap up our topic.


The topic of company values was the most egregious of these scenarios. After an initial meeting that felt like it went in circles, we regrouped the following week, hoping that with time for reflection, there would be clarification of how we wanted to define values.


However, even after an hour into our second meeting on the topic, we were still stuck.


At that point, we stopped, stepped back, and asked, “Why is this so hard?” and “Is it hard because this isn’t actually right for us?”


Asking that question helped us realize that we were struggling not because we couldn’t define words that reflected our values, but because defining a list of values wasn’t the right fit for us. Granted, the meeting quickly turned into a learning session where TikTok helped us question the relevance of traditional company values. Give this a watch if you want to really feel old.


When we turn this lens of thinking on testing and software development, it has had us questioning what things we do because we’re "supposed to", not necessarily because they are still the right thing to do. A friend, an automation engineer, argues that sizing falls into this category.


Writing test plans for straightforward bug tickets feels like another.


Daily standups?


What else could fall into this category?

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