Agile Testing with Lisa Crispin

InfoQ just published an article I wrote to try to inspire more testers to grow their skills. It begins:

The software industry is changing fast. More and more teams put testing up front and center; they use tests to drive development. New and improved automated test frameworks and drivers burst onto the scene every month. Teams with more automated regression suites need testers with sharp exploratory testing skills. But most people do not learn the needed skills in university: where will these testers come from? Read more…

I’ll be speaking at the Norwegian Developer Conference June 16 – 18 in Oslo. The conference puts out a free magazine which includes my article about Learning for Testers, along with lots of great articles from other speakers such as Jurgen Appelo, Roy Osherove and Chris Sells. The speaker lineup includes lots more exciting practitioners and experts: Mike Cohn, Brett Schuchert, Uncle Bob Martin to just name a few. If you plan to attend, please let me know, I’d love to see old friends and meet new people there!

Are you a tester wondering what the heck you should be doing now that you’re suddenly on an agile team? Are you a manager of a new agile team puzzled at why the QA group refuses to cooperate with you? Are you an agile developer trying to figure out how to deliver the best possible software? If so, you might be interested in the three-day agile testing course that Janet Gregory and I are developing. We’re offering this course in partnership with LeanDog in Cleveland and with Program Utvikling in Norway, and will be offering it in other locales as well – please contact me if you’re interested.

Here’s a course description:

Over three days, we put theory into action through a variety of exercises. This course teaches testers how to fit into agile projects, contribute to the whole team and overcome common cultural and logistical obstacles in transitioning to an agile development process. It explains the values and principles that help testers adopt an agile testing mindset and how to accomplish traditional testing processes, such as defect tracking, metrics, audits, and conforming to quality models. Students will learn how to complete testing activities in short iterations, and how testers contribute on a daily basis during each iteration and release cycle. Through interactive exercises and group discussions, participants will discover good strategies for driving development with both executable and manual tests. The course is filled with real-life examples of the many ways agile testers add value.