Codemash: Advanced Topics in Agile Testing Workshop

Thanks to the participants in today’s workshop! We tackled quite a few tough testing-related issues that many agile teams encounter.

The slides, pictures of all the outcomes such as topics, impact maps and brainwriting pages, are available here.

After each table group identified their most burning testing issues, they created SMART goals for each one and then brainstormed experiments to try which would address the issues. We tried impact mapping, brainwriting, mind mapping, and “if you had super powers”. In the afternoon, we had an enthusiastic round table discussion and finished up with a LeanCoffee format.

One of the most interesting ideas I heard was using food to build trust. One participant said he brings food to meetings (at his own cost). Sharing snacks creates a social atmosphere, promotes conversation, and helps team members build more trust.

We had good conversations about encouraging whole-team responsibility for testing activities, incorporating testers onto cross-functional teams, letting teams jell, finding ways to make story requirements more clear. Take a look at the ideas in the pictures. I hope some participants will try some of the experiments created, and blog about what they learned. I learned a lot but I couldn’t take notes!