Company Overview:- AE

Arts Electronic Inc. is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. AE develops,
publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers,
cellular handsets and the Internet. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982, the company is a
pioneer of the early games industry.

AE Mobile, a division of AE, is the largest independent mobile game developer and publisher in the
world. They have offices in Los Angeles, Montreal, London, Tokyo, Hyderabad, Honolulu, Bucharest and
São Paulo.

Studio Overview:- AE Hyderabad

AE Mobile has one of its studios in Hyderabad, India. AE Hyderabad has several departments like
Development Finance, Human Resource, Production, Quality Assurance, Engineering, Game Studio,
Pogo, CTG, Flight which support worldwide operations. AE Hyderabad has employee strength of around
700 employees and Quality Assurance (QA) department having 400 employees forms the major chunk of
the work force. QA is the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project,
service or facility to maximize the probability that minimum standards of quality are being attained by
the production process. QA checks for the quality of the mobile Applications/ Games and report related
bugs for different mobile vendors based on different operating systems. Manual testing is the most
preferred method of checking the quality of the Mobile games. Manual testing is the process of
manually testing Mobile games for defects. It requires a tester to play the role of an end user, and use
most of all features of the application to ensure correct behavior. To ensure completeness of testing,
the tester often follows a written test plan that leads them through a set of important test cases. For
this profile the preferred skill set required are good spoken and written communication skills, Ability to
work on different web based tools to submit games to different channels and Ability towork on mobiles
to check proper functionality of the game. For such kind of profile college fresher’s with good and
average technical skills were the most suitable candidates. AE Hyderabad became operational in
December 2007 and needed workforce which it was able to get in midst of Global recession.

The purpose of setting up studio in India was to outsource low technical jobs and reduce operational
cost. As the QA tester profile required least technical skills, experience and responsibilities so the pay
scale of a fresher tester was least in comparison to fresher’s joining any other department which
required more technical skills with in AE. In fact the pay scale was even less in comparison to the
compensation offered by major Indian IT companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro etc. Initially AE was able to
attract fresh college graduates due to global recession, less availability of jobs and it was able to
leverage on the job profile which was to play games and test them.
Problem 1:-

After one year of operation AE Hyderabad became the major hub of Mobile QA testing within AE and
there was increase in the workforce of AE Hyderabad QA department where as QA workforce in other
worldwide studios was reduced. So now AE Hyderabad was assigned work from across the globe, such
as Asia Pacific, European, North American. As these regions operate at different time zone in
comparison to India, so there was need to have proper coordination with these studios irrespective of
the time difference. Also more testers were recruited for the future projects but there was space and
infrastructure constraints. Also number of computers was also less.

Solution

For better coordination, QA workforce was divided and allocated different working hours. Total 3 shifts
were introduced.

 6am to 3pm: - QA shift was dedicated to Asia pacific region.

 10am to 7pm:- QA shift was dedicated to India
 3pm to 12am: - QA shift was dedicated to European and North American region.

These shifts helped proper distribution and coordination of human resources and assets such as
computers. Computers and seats used by tester from 6am to 3pm shift were again assigned to testers
from 3pm to 12 am shift. This way technical assets and office space were shared. Also as the team
working in a shift were responsible for a region, so this increased their accountability for the projects for
the assigned region. As a result of introduction of shift there was a radical increase in the efficiency and
the no of games being tested by QA department and Hyderabad QA received worldwide appreciation for
amazing results.

Present Situation

At present there are plans to dedicated AE Hyderabad QA department for sophisticated smart phones
testing and applications. Smart phones are expected to make huge success in future. Also QA testers are
being trained on several upcoming technologies in field of Mobile Application like Winc, Android, Iphone
OS, Symbian etc and has become the major hub of QA for AE worldwide.

Appraisal Process

AE has an annual appraisal process in which review of the employee performance of the last year is
done and proper feedback is given. According to the rating given by the supervisor and the number of
years of work experience, employees are given salary hike and promotion. For annual appraisal process
AE makes use of several internal AE IT tools such as AE game plan, Hades, Time Sheet. As appraisal is an
annual process supervisors make use of these tools extensively to keep a track of an employee
performance apart from their own personal observation. These tools have a significant role in appraisal
process as supervisor may tend to forget activities that have been carried put in the past year. These
tools and their functionality are mentioned below

AE game plan: - Primary tool for the appraisal process. Initially in the beginning of the annual year,
employees are supposed to set their target and goals in AE game plan for the coming year and their plan
of action to achieve their goals. AE game plan has features were employee can update their status of
their goals such as Complete, Incomplete, On track. AE game plan also provides feature where employee
can raise request for feedback from other supervisor of other departments with whom employee has
worked. Usually employee set their objectives in the month of April and they have to make sure their
goals are in sync with organization and team’s objective. Through AE game plan any employee can see
any other employee goals and objectives including CEOs. In the next year during end of February
employee are asked to mention their achievement and how they contributed to the organization and
final status of their goals and objectives. Once employee has written down achievements then they get
locked and are forwarded to supervisor for review. Keeping in mind the employees achievements,
supervisor observation and with the help of reports generated from other tools supervisor gives rating
to employee which are as follows

 SAT- Significantly Above target

 AT- Above Target
 OT- On target
 BT- Below target
 SBT- Significantly below target

Then these ratings are forwarded to the manager and appraisal interview of employee happens with
Manager and supervisor. In this meeting the salary hike, promotion if any and rating given to the
employee are disclosed. If employee is not satisfied with any of the results then he/she has the chance
to put his/her point forward which is then discussed with in the meeting. If the employee is able to
justify that rating is not in sync with performance then revised rating and salary hike is given to
employee else no changes are done in the result of appraisal system. This whole process takes around 2
months and the change in the salary happens in the month of June. Also during the review period
employee can always monitor its current appraisal process status in AE game plan.

Hades: - This tool keeps a track of number and types of games an employee has worked on and number
bugs faced in a particular mobile handset. This tools contains the complete information about the
assigned work to an employee.

Time Sheet: - This tool is to be used by employee daily. Employees are supposed to enter their summary
of daily activities in this tool and the time allocated to each activity.
Problem 2

From the past two year the QA tester complained about the inappropriate rating given by the
supervisors. Majority of the QA tester complained that they deserved at least AT (Above Target) rating
or promotion instead of OT (On Target) rating which was given to majority of QA employee. So from
year 2009 AE QA department experienced very high attrition rate close to 40-45%. In few cases
employee left the organization just a few days before the salary appraisal was about to happen. This was
unusual as most employees always preferred to wait till salary appraisal before moving to other
organization. This will help them to negotiate for higher salary in other organization. But in AE, QA
testers didn’t expect a significant salary hike and accepted job offers from other organizations. This
showed that QA testers didn’t find appraisal process reliable. There was requirement of immediate
action to be taken to retain the QA tester workforce.

Solution

During the exit interview of the QA tester who were leaving the organization, feedback process was
conducted through which HRs came to know that QA tester were unhappy with the appraisal system as
the ratings were not up to the expectations. So to check the attrition rate management decided to dig
into the issue. So the HRs conducted one to one sessions with the existing AE QA testers and asked their
feedback about the appraisal process. As the more QA testers were interviewed management figured
out some strange facts which are mentioned below

 Most of the AE QA testers were unaware of the kind of performance expected by organization
at a specific rating
1. OT (On Target):- Means continuously meeting target and some time exceeding expectations
2. AT (Above Target):- Means always exceeding expectations
3. SAT (Significantly above Target):- Means brought about some radical changes which
improved the functioning of the organization.
 Most of the QA testers used to set their objectives in AE game plan without the guidance of
supervisor so their goals were never aligned to organization goals. Also testers after setting their
objectives in the beginning never used to update the status of their objectives for rest of the
period.
 QA tester never asked for the feedback from their supervisor after completion of any project.
Nor they showed any interest in inquiring about what was expected from them to achieve
excellence.
 QA tester never used to update their Time sheet so their supervisor was not able to keep a track
of their daily activities.
 QA testers were not aware of the importance of Hades and Time Sheet in appraisal process.
They all were under the impression that AE game plan is only required for appraisal process. So
they never cared to update their completed games and mobile handsets on these tools. As
mentioned before AE has an annual appraisal process so during the time of appraisal supervisors
 use to generate the reports form Hades and time sheets and use to consider those reports while
giving ratings.
 There was no quarterly or semi annually feedback given by supervisors to QA testers about
their performance.
 There was no proper training being given by the IT support department for AE game plan.
 QA testers were not aware of unique feature of AE game plan- Additional Feedback form (AFP)
Feedback from employees of other department.
 QA testers were not aware that if the ratings or salary hike are not up to expectations then they
can always discuss the matter with the managers and if management is satisfied then new rating
and salary hike will be given in few days. QA testers use to accept the rating and salary hike
without raising their concerns

To address all these issues following steps were being taken by the management.

 Proper training programs were conducted where full description of the unique features of all
the performance and appraisal related tool was provided. Also few hands on sessions were also
conducted.
 During these training programs demo season were conducted were QA testers were shown how
the supervisor use to make use of reports from all the Performance and appraisal tools and they
were instructed to use these tools effectively and on a daily basis.
 QA tester employees were advised to ask for feedback from managers after completion of every
project and ask what was expected out of them. This will help them to understand that where
they stand and areas of improvement for them and a chance to bring about a positive change in
themselves. With the continuous feedback throughout the year, employees will be having an
idea of kind of rating they will be given in appraisal process. This will prepare them mentally and
will avoid any shocks from them.
 During the training programs employees were given detailed information about the meaning of
each performance rating.
 Several Personality Development Programs were conducted for testers so that QA testers get a
sense of belongingness with the organization.
 Supervisors were told to conduct regular feedback sessions for every employees
 QA testers were told to update the status of their objectives and goals in AE game plan at
regular interval. This will keep updated their supervisor about their achievements and the time
taken to accomplish them.

These are the steps taken by the management in current year during month of July to October and it is
expected that these results will fetch good results during the appraisal process in next year during
March and will keep a check on attrition rate.

Contact Person:-
Anshu Sanwaria
Email id- anshusanwaria@gmail.com