Some takeaways from the Software Teaming 2024 conference
April 12, 2024
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Most of my conference sessions are interactive workshops, so there’s nothing I can share here. Contact me if you are interested in a workshop!
You can see some of my previous slide decks on Slideshare.net. If there’s a particular talk you’re looking for, please contact me.
Testing Stage, April 21, 2023:
A Holistic Approach to Testing In Continuous Delivery
Agile Coach Exchange, April 19, 2023:
Introduction to Holistic Testing
Liverpool Tester Gathering, Sept. 11, 2018:
Testers as test consultants: How to learn the skills – includes the input contributed by the audience:
Testers as Consultants LTG To Share
From Mob Programming 2018:
My slides from my Exploring in a Mob workshop:
My slides from my Visual Thinking Strategies workshop:
Earlier presentations:
Agile Testing Days, Story and Example Mapping Mashup with JoEllen Carter, December 2016.
ALN Houston, Build Quality In: Guiding Software Development with Tests, September 15, 2016: Slides
Expo QA 2016, Exploring Agile Requirements: How Testers Add Value with Raji Bhamidipati (material from Janet Gregory)
Expo QA 2016, Do Testers Need to Code… To Be Useful? with Raji Bhamidipati (material from Janet Gregory)
Being a Tester in 2015, with Teri Charles, SQuAD 2015: Resources handout
Mile High Agile 2015, Build Your Agile Testing Skill Sets, workshop.
Agile 2014 Workshop with Emma Armstrong: “Does My Bum Look Big In This? Learn to Inform Constructively” Doesmybumworkshophandout
Mile High Agile 2013, “Applying the Dreyfus Skill Acquisition Model for Growing Whole Teams”
TestBash 2.0 2013, “Minding Your Own Business”
Oredev 2012:
Agile Testing Days 2012, keynote with Janet Gregory, “Agile Testing Myths: Debunked”
Turku Agile Days, 2012, “The Whole Team Approach: Illustrated”
Belgium Testing Days 2012:
SQuAD Workshop, Making Distributed Agile Teams Work, December 2011. Photos from the workshop. I still need to blog about this!
Appendix A: What We’ve Learned Since Agile Testing Was Published, with Janet Gregory, keynote, Agile Testing Days, November 2011
Hooray! We’re Agile Testers! What Next? Tutorial from Agile testing Days, November 2011
The Secret to Successful Test Automation, a new talk I did for Agile Denver, October 2011. There is a great write-up of this talk including input from the audience on Brad Swanson‘s blog.
StarEast 2011 Making Test Automation Work in Agile Projects, May 2011. This isn’t a step-by-step how-to automate using specific tools. It’s about how to get your whole team engaged in solving automation issues as part of your efforts to manage technical debt and deliver a high-quality product.
Limbo Lower Now: An Agile Approach to Defect Management, ACCU 2011, April 2011 (in SlideShare)
Agilistry Learning for Testers Workshop Slides (Photos to be posted soon, I promise!) March 2011
BayAPLN Agile Testing 101, March 2011
Learning for Testers, keynote at Belgium Testing Days, February 2011.
Doing the Defect Limbo: An Agile Approach to Defect Management, keynote at Agile Testing Days, October 5, 2010.
Making Test Automation Work on Agile Projects, Agile Testing Days 2010
Automation Design Examples, simple examples of design principles for test automation using Robot Framework, presented at StarWest and Agile Testing Days 2010 as part of a tutorial “Making Test Automation Work in Agile Projects”.
Seven Key Factors for Agile Testing Success, talk, STP Local Interest Chapter, August 2010. An updated version of the earlier Seven Key Factors talk – with a new pre-requisite.
Limbo Lower Now: The Defect Management Limbo, tutorial, Agile 2010, August 2010. An agile approach to managing and preventing defects.
It Takes a Village: The Whole Team Approach to Agile Testing Success, NDC 2010
Seven Key Factors for Agile Testing Success, NDC 2010
An Agile Approach to Dealing with Defects, NDC 2010
Seven Key Factors for Agile Testing Success, Agile Development Practices 2009
Similar to the earlier one below, but I’m always refactoring these slides!
Test Planning with the Agile Testing Quadrants, Agile Development Practices 2009
How the Quadrants can help you make sure you get all the different kinds of tests needed within each iteration and release.
Agile Testing Overview, Tampere, Finland October 2009
This covers some basic information about testing in agile projects and the role of the agile tester.
Are Agile Testers Different? – Agile Testing Days, Berlin
See description below, this is a refactored version
An Agile Approach to Automation – StarWest 2009
Strategies for succeeding with test automation in an agile project – or any project, for that matter.
XP SoCal Seven Key Success Factors
Seven Key Success Factors for Agile Testing Success
Agile development approaches present unique challenges for testers and test teams. Working in short iterations, often with limited written requirements, agile development teams can leave traditional testers behind. Common testing-related activities, such as user acceptance testing, testing inter-product relationships, and installation testing, need different approaches to fit into agile projects. This presentation explains seven key factors for testing success within agile projects that you can also apply to more traditional methodologies.
Making Test Automation Work on Agile Projects
Agile teams produce a production-ready product every one to four weeks. Without test automation, no team will have time to maintain a stable product and complete vital activities such as exploratory and non-functional testing. This presentation explains how to leverage the whole team approach, choose appropriate tools, and develop incrementally so that test automation can help testers “keep up” with the fast pace of agile development.
Dealing with Defects: An Agile Approach
Software defects bug everyone. What’s the best way to report and track them? Who will fix them, and when? What do we do with this big old pile of bug reports? Aren’t defect backlogs just waste? Should we track defects at all, or just fix them as they come up? In this session, we look at how agile teams address these issues, and how you can apply an agile approach to defects which will free your team to do better work. This session includes:
Cover Your Testing Bases Using the Agile Testing Quadrants (Overview)
This one-hour talk introduces the Agile Testing Quadrants and how teams can use them to ensure that they consider all necessary types of tests, who will do each type, what tools and resources might be needed. and when during the iteration or release cycle they should be performed. Lisa does a longer tutorial on this subject as well.
Cover Your Testing Bases with the Agile Testing Quadrants – Tutorial
This tutorial explores in-depth how teams use the Agile Testing Quadrants to ensure all dimensions of software quality in an agile project. Lisa explains the practical skills needed to adapt to whatever testing challenges arise.
Everyone on an agile team does testing. The lines between developers and testers have blurred. If I define myself as a tester on an agile team, what does that really mean? This presentation explores what differentiates “agile testers”, whether agile teams need different testing skill sets than traditional test teams, and what guides agile testers in their daily activities. Lisa Crispin suggests ways testers can acquire the results-oriented, customer-focused, collaborative and creative mindset that lets them and their agile teams succeed. This includes the Top Five Principles for an Agile Tester. This presentation is for testers, test/QA managers, and development managers.
Agile Testers: Crossing the Chasm
A Tutorial for Transitioning Teams
Agile development may have “crossed the chasm”, but testers may feel they have been left on the other side. This tutorial gives testers who are used to phased and gated methodologies the tools they need to succeed on an agile team. Topics include:
This tutorial is for testers, their managers, and agile teams wondering how to get testers engaged with an agile project.
An Iteration in the Life of an Agile Tester
Tutorial – How Testers Contribute on Agile Teams
In this tutorial, you’ll follow an agile tester through an iteration and a release to discover all the different ways testers contribute. We start with what testers do in release or theme planning, observe the tester’s activities through the start, middle and end of an iteration, and examine the tester’s role in a successful release, including UAT, the End Game, packaging and documentation. We’ll practice the different skills that help testers colloborate with team members to ensure all necessary testing activities are planned and executed each iteration.
Tutorial: The Tester Who Came In from the Cold
Similar to the tutorial “Crossing the Chasm”, this tutorial addresses the problems testers have trying to adapt to an agile environment. In it, Lisa presents the “wall” of common barriers to tester and testing success on agile teams. Interactive exercises help participants identify the problems they want to solve, and discuss good solutions. Lisa introduces the Agile Testing Quadrants and the Test Automation Pyramids, and how those can be used to help testers and their teams understand the types of testing that need to be done, and what resources they will need. Managers learn how to support testers and provide the testing they need. Developers learn how they can help testers and get help from testers. Testers learn how they can help themselves, by learning the skills they need, and finding ways to get the support they need from management and other roles in the organization.
Driving Development with Customer-Facing Tests
Whether you’re on an agile team or using some other process, you can use customer-facing tests to guide development, and ensure that you deliver the right software for the customer. This track presentation explains: