Spotty Alicorn is an unexpected name in the business world, R&D or Digital world.

Here is why we are special, not just by name…

This name came after a discussion with Kevin Gillespie from http://WWW.Strategicit.io who qualified me of a “purple polka dot unicorn” due to the rarity of the mix of my skills. Let me explain:

A lab start

I studied organic chemistry, obtaining my PhD at the Université de Limoges (France) for my research to synthesise new potentially active analogues of nucleosides including new di-nucleoside using metathesis reaction. I pursued research for another 4 years as a post-doctoral researcher at Queen’s University, Belfast (UK).

My knowledge of the lab and what scientists do, how they approach research, became very useful for the next part of my career where I join a software company specialised in software for pharmaceutical companies in particular for the R&D phase, as a tester.

Software testing

Despite not being trained initially software testing, I used scientific approaches to test software and apply similar rigour as I would have in the lab to analyse the functionality, document the “hypothesis”, methods and results, reporting on the observed results, describing problems/bugs in details with steps to reproduce them if needed.

I consolidated my experience and approach by taking courses and certifications in Software testing. My position evolved to a team of testers applying the same principles. My role enabled me to organise and prioritise the testing tasks in the team, reporting on progress and engaging with senior management, providing the information required for release decisions

Business Analysis and Product owner

Because of my knowledge of what scientists would do or how they would approach things in the lab, I was often explaining the context and lab workflows to the engineers. Despite being excellent with code, they needed understanding what they were developing was used for and their goal. That is how I helped creating a new business analysis function within the company that would sit between Engineering, Product Management and the customers.

As a lead business analyst,  I was engaging with customers and users to elicit requirements and “translate” them for the Engineering team (developers and testers) in the form of details requirements and condition of satisfaction. We also undertook the transition from a waterfall/V model for the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to Agile and my function morphed from Business Analyst to Product Owner.

Product Management

While working in or closely with software engineering, I have learnt many things about software. In addition to the hands-on knowledge of the SDLC, I expended my horizons gaining business skills, becoming a Product Manager. That role included:

• working as part of the strategy team, reviewing and prioritizing initiatives
• continuing consulting with the customers
• managing different stakeholders, internal and external,
• creating business cases for new projects,
• analysing the market and its trends,
• estimating return of investments (ROI),
• defining and monitoring Key Performance Indicators (KPI),
• working along marketing, producing content and materials for internal and external communications,
• engaging with the sales team, providing training, value proposition messaging, personas and support for RFP questions and demos.

Then Spotty Alicorn!

Reflecting on this, I have noticed in my professional career that you encounter people, scientists in particular, who are technically savvy and able to code, leverage APIs etc., but are lacking of the rigour/compliance of the full SDLC for commercial softwareand seeing the big picture. Similarly, business skills such as building business cases are not common amongst scientists.

Going back to the subject of this article: after discussion and reflection on the subject, I believe that I have not only 2 sets of skills rarely encountered together but actually 3: Science, software/data management and business.

So I asked an expert: my 10 year-old daughter, ‘what is rarer than a polka dot unicorn?’ She answered ‘a spotty alicorn’ (a unicorn that has wings and can fly -think Pegasus with an unicorn horn) so I decided to name my website after that. Now you know!

Contact us to discuss!