In February I wrote about the experimental retrospective format for our team’s “cross-pod retro” (so-called, because our large team is divided into smaller pods). Since then, my manager Jo Webb and I have continued to tweak the retro format, based on feedback from surveys done following each retro. Building on feedback Our teammates said they […]
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Telling stories together while practicing critical thinking with VTS
We use our story telling and critical thinking skills constantly as we test and develop software. How often do we practice those skills on something other than features we are going to release to production? Musicians practice their craft. Even coders can practice their craft with katas and code retreats. How can we practice telling […]
Read MoreTips for tester-developer pairing
My article on pairing with developers is live on the Ministry of Testing. I love pairing with developers. It’s fun, and I learn so much. I feel we are really building quality in together, catching issues early, finding inconsistencies or questions to discuss with the product owner. Whether you’re a tester or a developer, I […]
Read MoreTransferring testing skills
Recently I did a short webinar with Agile Testing Days “AgileTD Mondays” series on “Transferring Testing Skills to the Whole Team. It’s about 20 minutes long, I hope it will inspire you to spread some testing love around your agile team! How do you help non-testers on the team learn testing skills? I’d love to […]
Read MoreWhen the whole team owns testing: Building testing skills
The Twitterverse and other social media continue to host many discussions on topics such as “Do testers need to code?” As Pete Walen points out in his recent post, the “whole team” approach to delivering software, popularized with agile development, is often misunderstood as “everyone must write production code”. The “Whole Team Approach” in practice […]
Read MoreStepping out of my comfort zone
The 30 days of testing challenges are energizing me! Day 23’s challenge is to help someone test better. I’m going to combine that one with stepping out of my comfort zone on day 14 by sharing what I learned here. It may help you test better! Recently, my awesome teammate Chad Wagner and I were […]
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