January Apprentice of the Month - Maddie Duffy
We are happy to announce that the winner of LDN Apprentice of the Month is Maddie @ MRM McCann!
LDN Apprenticeships highlights a clear message of what makes an AWESOME Apprentice; they must show energy, enthusiasm, willingness to learn, ability to take feedback and propensity to take action (EEWAP).
Maddie was nominated by her Skills Coach – Kevin, and the brilliant feedback was provided by Maddie’s line-manager and QA Lead at MRM McCann – Hector Ortega.
You can read the full nomination below!
Energy
Madeleine came to MRM McCann to develop her knowledge and career mainly within the QA Department.
Since the beginning she has been a very solid, trustful and reliable member of my team! Maddie has spent parts of the week with the Development Team learning and putting into practice several subjects related to Dev.
Ever since day one she has demonstrated great learning of her roles and tasks; applying this knowledge on her position with good management, leadership and ownership skills.
Maddie is always happy and positive, demonstrating our Company Values, also known as the 5C’s (Collaborative, Commercial, Creative, Curious and Can Do); all attributes she excels within the QA Team with great care. Her communication is very open minded with everyone at all levels.
She knows the company policies and objectives well, and works hard to meet any deadlines, even if this involves working extended hours. Fast, accurate and to the point always being able to deliver well on time.
Enthusiasm
She is extremely proactive, curious and willing to learn and know more; the why and the how Agile Software Development is our strength at MRM and the importance of having a solid Quality Assurance Team to ensure the greatest level of quality of everything that is produced.
Maddie is always keen to help, even when there is a lot for her to complete. She never hesitates in taking tasks from other people in the team or finding a way to assist in other ways or advance on something else.
She will not stop until the acceptance criteria defined in the scope of the project is met. She will try all the possible ways and user journeys until the expected results are proven to be valid, that either being developing certain pieces of code or testing the outcome of the software produced. Her organisation, methodology, patience, hard work and care is something to be very proud!
Willingness To Learn
She has gained through the months a great knowledge about the clients and job and she does not hesitate in transferring this to anyone who approaches her. She is always keen and willing to help at any time anyone, and not just within her team but across every team and person within the company. A very professional, impressive time-keeping and quick learner.
She does not hesitate in asking members within her team or other teams as Dev, UX, Designers, Project and Account Management about anything she does not know or want to know more. The true fact is that she is never without anything to do at the times we are quiet at work, she instead spends her time learning new tools either taking the online courses or by shadowing other members of the team.
Ability To Take Feedback
Knowing how to listen, understand and process any feedback, whether positive, negative or neutral is one of the most important tasks on anyone’s career development, especially at the early stages taking experience from a first employee and the futures to come. Madeleine is no exception and I often refer her good understanding as a great example to other members of the team.
She follows on each question we at QA raise on a most perfect timely manner, having always a professional and to the point answer, and where appropriate, taking ahead any suggestions, queries, good or wrong ways into consideration either for use or future reference.
Propensity To Take Action
Due to the business nature, we are a fast-paced environment where not always the right, most appropriate and process-defined way is taken in order to complete certain projects.
We in the QA Department are at the very last stage of the Software Life Cycle Development, and that is a big responsibility what lies on our backs. We work following a very strict process, with lots of documentation and checklists, software tools and liaising non-stop with multiple departments. We work as individuals, in couples and a part of a wider team; Madeleine has exposure to all of these different possibilities, and learnt well about all the processes, security and checklists we must adhere in order to provide what we excel at; a great quality product. However, coming to that point is not always as straightforward as one may think.
Along the way, processes and checklists become merely communication over emails or in person, and information starts to be missing and/or incomplete in order to make our work. Chasing is super important, and requesting the right briefs and documents to be able to do the work mandatory, even when other teams try to push through the work to QA without the relevant documents.
Madeleine has learnt that saying no does not always mean a negative word, and so reporting situations which are not right. She does not stay quiet; she does not fear nor hesitate in having her voice when something is not right, and she is encouraged to do so; because she knows he tasks and role, and her attention to detail and work well done her greatest strengths.
Outstanding Achievements
Because of the nature of the program, Maddie has spent her time across different teams and departments to get a most wide knowledge on how the Agency works. Hence although hard to nail down to merely one example, it is worth to highlight the week she spent with the User Experience Team.
She had some induction sessions with our UX Department, who provided and shared an overview of what the UX team does and how involved they are at the different stages of the projects. Thereafter, as part of her exposure to UX, she was invited to come along with the UX Team to a Journey Mapping Workshop, get involved and understand how these are created.
Such workshop was structured by a presentation from the Lead Data Strategist and the UX Practice Lead, followed by a discussion into customer experience and how one should look at Journey Mapping in four easy steps: Deciding on the topic, collecting the data, defining the goal and express your idea (clarity over beauty, it is not all about the visual impact visual impact comes second).
She learnt from this that mapping as such, has different levels:
Relationship mapping. Maps the relationship between a person and a brand at different moments in time. This is one of the tools within MRM to help find individual truths, smooth the way and stir the soul. The map is only a starting point and is rarely the only tool used, but provides a broad view, which can be expanded upon to provide more detail
Experience mapping. Shows total customer engagement
Journey mapping. Shows a customer’s full path through a product or service
Touchpoint mapping. Provides a clear view of a customer’s interactions with a product or service.
The workshop concluded by an interaction in the real life. Split into teams, they were asked to go to different coffee shops around the local area, then came back to put in practice and create a map with all four elements: relationship, experience, journey and touchpoints.
The outcome was a success and interesting to see how other team members thought of issues others did not considered such as a lack of gluten free options in the shop or the music not fitting in with the theme of the shop.
Lastly after the workshop, the head of UX briefed Madeleine on a map that needed to be updated for one of Vauxhall microsites. She was asked to add any new paths that could be taken by customers across the website, any new touchpoints and the relationship with the site, in this case, when buying a car. Her valuable additions included stages in a person’s lifetime when to purchase a new car; for example, this could be retirement or when becoming a parent. Other tasks required adding any pain points that could occur during the use of the site and car purchase, as example, the customer may feel out of control after purchasing the car if they were not updated on the status of their delivery. The practise was a success, and it involved several iterations of updates until completion!